A woman’s choice

Featured Image Credit:https://thefertilechickonline.com/women-are-still-heavily-pressured-to-put-family-before-career/

A woman today, is expected to have everything. A woman who doesn’t want everything and is content with just what she has today, is not always looked at favorably. It not what she thinks will make her happy that matters. It is what people think should make her happy, that really matters. I may be over-generalizing this concept but its more or less a fact these days. Here is a Harvard Business Review article that spells it out – https://hbr.org/2002/04/executive-women-and-the-myth-of-having-it-all

If a woman chooses to focus on a domestic life, she is touted as not being ambitious and not living up to her potential. A woman, who chooses to focus on her career, is touted as being too ambitious and not looking at a full and complete life. Today, practically speaking, a woman cannot have both. How much ever a woman claims that she can have everything, it is physically impossible. There will be sacrifices on both ends. A woman can have everything if they choose to have a little of everything. She cannot have a lot of everything. As a home maker, she will have to sacrifice some family time like going to kids’ games or ballet recitals or parent teacher conferences. As a career woman, she will have to sacrifice time at work or may end up working late hours to cover up in case she had to miss a few hours because her kid was sick. In such a case, she depends on her better half to understand and fill in whenever needed but it reinforces the fact that a woman cannot have it all. I once watched an interview that Indra Nooyi, former CEO of Pepsi gave, where she spoke of just this concept. She is among the very few women who have openly admitted that her family life has had to take a backseat so she could build her ambitious career. Men do it all the time but its a gender biased society. If men sacrifice one aspect of life, its not even noticed. But for women, its a different story.

What if a woman doesn’t want to compromise at all? What if she doesn’t see the need to have it all and wants to focus on one or the other? Thanks to many women pioneers like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, today, the world is open minded enough that a woman can actually choose one or the other. In early times, she didn’t have such a choice. Why is it that despite having the choice, she is looked down upon when she actually decides to choose? Lately, this is a nagging topic of discussion between my father and me.

When I was a kid, my father would complain that I had no ambition, no pride in what I do, two things that that drove his entire life. It ate him up that I was resigned to go wherever the world took me. Today, I am as ambitious as it gets. I am laser focused on my career and I am working hard to steer it in a way that makes me happy. I have built a life for myself where financially, I am sound and have left a lot of my peers behind. While my father may be proud of my achievements, it is completely overshadowed by the fact that I have not yet “taken seriously” the idea of finding a husband. He has never been the praising sort. Over the years, I have given up on the idea that he will ever tell me, on his own, that he is proud of who I am becoming. Yes, I crave his approvals at all times but that is because he never readily gives it. I have to assume that his British way of saying “not too bad” means that he is proud of me. I may laugh it off when I am with him as that’s been a source of fun between us ever since I can remember but now, it leaves a dent in my pride and leaves me guessing as to whether I am doing well. His opinions have always mattered. I have to compensate for that feeling by believing in myself that I am doing well. It does not help when he says things like “I am concerned that you aren’t thinking about your future”. It negates all the feelings of the good that I have done in the last few years.

The idea that I am not “worried about my future” is not true. I would like to have found a mate who understands me and cares about me enough to be able to support me and be an equal partner in life by now. But the fact that it hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t deter me. My experiences in life have made me strong enough to survive. I am at a position in life where I am content. Its something I have craved for over 10 years. I was always running behind people to make myself feel wanted and accepted. It was draining to the soul to say the least. It broke me to the point that I had no self confidence and constantly needed someone else’s validation to think I was worth anything at all. Today, I am at peace irrespective of what the world thinks of me. I am my own person and if I can’t find people who like me for me, I am completely okay with that. This personality shift has matured to the point that I no longer feel that life without a mate will be empty. That is the reason why I am completely content with where I am now. If I find a mate who fits into this picture naturally, I will jump at the opportunity to make him mine! But until that day happens, I am not someone who wants to shoe horn an addition to this perfect picture and take on an unnecessary risk.

My father doesn’t see it that way. In his mind, I am “naïve in worldly matters”. While he says he is happy that I am happy, he worries about my future. We are a very small family – him and me, against the world. He worries about me after he passes. Who will I rely on? Who will take care of me? Pay the bills if I am ever in need of medical care? Every question he asks is a valid question. I cannot refute any of his fears. Similarly, he cannot refute any of mine. What guarantee is there that the marriage will work out? What guarantee is there that this “extended family” that he keeps dreaming that I will get if I get married will really become my family? How can he assure me that I will be able to open up about my emotional needs with this stranger and his family the way I open up to him? Every move we make in life has risk associated with it. While he harps on the good, I harp on the bad.

As a parent, I don’t think he will ever stop thinking this way. Its how a parent is wired. Society plays a role here as well. My father may disagree saying he isn’t thinking about society and that he is being practical when he says every human being needs at least someone as a support system. But had the society given him examples of where it is possible for a woman to have a career without a family and still be fulfilled in life, he wouldn’t feel so helpless. There aren’t enough role models out there for women who chose a career over a husband and still managed to build a support system. There are one offs here and there but until the society begins to embrace more women who make this choice, we will never truly be an open minded society. Building a support system without a husband and his family will be extra hard for me considering I barely make friends. I understand that. But what good does it do to me thinking about what I don’t have and ignoring all the good that I do have in my life? I amaze myself at how far I have come along in life from a person who always saw the glass as half empty to a person who always sees it as half full. Is that not something to treasure? Will I always be penalized for not actively trying to fill up a half full/empty glass? Why can’t I be accepted for my choice?