How important should a woman's career aspirations be when choosing a partner?

[catherinette]

I don’t know many who actually believe that though. Most people aren’t so black and white extreme. My grandma did it for several years, my mom did it too and they were fine. But to me, it’s simple math. I can’t give a career 100% of my time and attention and my family/household 100% of my time and attention. One of them is going to give, one is going to suffer if I attempt to “have it all”.

If I was ever in the situation where I had a family and I had no choice but to work, then I would do everything I could to make it work, to make the best of the situation. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to willingly choose that way of living. I’m only one person and I simply don’t want to spread myself too thin.

Of course! I’m not saying I wouldn’t one day make the same decision; it’s just some of the comments people have made indicate their belief that it is wrong for a woman to want to be a wife and mother and have any kind of career outside the home, since she must doing something morally wrong in order to accomplish the feat by either neglecting her duties as a mother and wife, or by using abortion and contraceptives to make it possible. Too often this attitude seems to be an excuse to allow men to get away with the kind of ambition that professional working mothers are accused of having; he should not be putting his job before his family either, while his wife stays home and acts as both mother and father to the children! Or if a man comes home from a 9-5 job, and his wife also works, yet he expects her to do all of the cooking and cleaning, then he’s pretty much a complete jerk! It’s great and commendable that a man wants to have a job and provide for his wife and family, but providing doesn’t mean he should leave for work before the children wake up, and come home just in time to see them put to bed. If I am someday married and have a family, that’s not how I would want my family to look! I have known some families where the solution is for both partners to work, yet the focus of both is on the family, rather than their careers. It depends a lot on job flexibility and how well a person can balance the two responsibilities, but it can definitely work, and when it does, it’s fantastic because the children can then get to know their father just as well as their mother.

 

[cephas161619]

But what if that’s the only thing she truly wanted to do…? (While married, of course.) Also, I’m just talking about the no career, pregnant all day.10 years thing and not the barefoot part which is a safety hazard.

One of the biggest attempted insults to SAHM’s is that they’re usually pregnant barefoot and in the kitchen. So, I found this recent article in the NY Magazine on the benefits of going barefoot rather ironic. Naturally, they didn’t mention housewives at all: nymag.com/health/features/46213/

The shelters are full of women who put their husbands through school and saw them to the point where their careers took off – whereupon Hubby Dearest dumped them for a Trophy Blonde. I personally know of one race car driver who dumped his lifelong, now pregnant girl friend and told her that it was her problem now and who let it be known that he was AUDITIONING for a new SO now that he had hit it big.

A mans career aspirations should be his rsponsibility, and his wife should make sure she is able to look after herself and the kids once he takes off with Fifi La Rue.

Fyi, women do it too! A very good man I know was married for 20 years, and his wife left him for a man who was more successful financially. He had been modestly successful, not at the top, but by no means at the bottom either, quintessentially middle class. He was also very successful spiritually, although he grew most after she left. It’s since been annulled and he’s remarried (or married, since the first was deemed not a marriage). But that’s just to say that the Lord works in mysterious ways. The first woman was a dud, but God blessed him with a life closer to himself, as well as a fine woman.

 

[sarahraegraham]

Something else that I haven’t seen brought up yet is the ability that a SAHM/SAHW has to affect her husband’s career. If she’s not wrapped up in her own, she can give him advice and help to boost his career, which helps build him up as a man and at the same time secure their source of income. That’s something I’ve personally been able to see the fruits of.

Also, the biggest change in my home since I “came home” is the atmosphere. I had always worked in a high-pressure, high-stress, high-turnover industry. I would always (being my perfectionist self) give 110% to my job, and I would have nothing left over for my family or home. Even when I tried to downplay my job, purposefully work on doing less there, I found that I was just as stressed, because there’s always someone else who is waiting for you job, and the corporations don’t have favorites, so I’m as easily expendable as someone else is. Now, I have very little stress, and I have found it much easier to be pleasant and to focus on loving my husband and keeping our home. When he comes home from work stressed out, I can help him relax and forget, and our home can help him forget.

Stress is so bad for us, and sometimes we just accept it as a necessary in today’s world. It is not! I said it before, but if that’s the sacrifice I would have to make in order to further pursue my choice of career, I won’t do it. Not even after spending 10’s of thousands of dollars in student loans. Education is worth more than what job it can give you, because it makes you a better person.

None of us can plan our futures, because we just don’t know what will happen. Will my husband leave me? Well, if I make sure I pick a good man in the first place, and one who shares my faith and believes that marriage is for life no matter what, and if we choose to work at our relationship and make it first priority, then I shouldn’t have to worry about that. As a man being the provider, his job is his biggest way of loving his family. He must protect it as his second most valuable possession. In doing that, he is loving his family. And if his wife is helping to support that priority, that’s even better. He doesn’t have to make lots of money, they don’t even have to be middle class. But even if we, any of us, lived at just the poverty line, we have to remember that this world is not our home. No amount of career achievement, ambition or success is going to matter one iota once we die. The only thing that will matter is our relationships.

Me? I will NEVER EVER choose to neglect my relationships with my family, I will not even give away 1% of what they should get so that I can have a career. I don’t want to stand before my maker and have to make excuses for why I missed this or that recital or game, or that evening my husband needed me, but “duty” called. I’m not judging you, so don’t take this as a personal attack. I’m simply sharing my heart and my thoughts a little further on this matter.

 

[Rach620]

Sure…we’ve all known women and families who have done both and, to greater and lesser degrees, seemed to make it work somehow. But the fact is, as brilliant and strong as we may be, we are fallible human beings. I know that it’s physically impossible to give two separate full-time jobs 100% of my time, energy and attention. If I even try, one or both of them are going to suffer. That’s a fact. So I choose to make being a wife and mother at home my full time, 100% career as soon as we are able.

I think it’s very important to remember that it is not possible for every mother to stay at home. Today it’s probably not even financially possible for most mothers to stay at home. I’ve worked with plenty of working mothers, all of whom say that at some point they would love to stay home, but it’s just not possible for their families financially. Their husbands just can’t work enough hours to provide for their families on one income alone, or the wife’s job brought the family better health benefits. There are a variety of reasons a wife and mother could find herself in the workplace, and ideally we can all hope it is for her to “find fulfillment in the professional world”–but I think that more often, realistically, it is to help her family get by financially and to help save for her children’s future.

No working mother–no person, for that matter–who I have met is “100% dedicated to their career”. That’s just not possible. What is possible is striking a healthy work-life balance, and that is possible even for a working mom. I think every mother should be supported in the vocation God has chosen for her, whether that leaves her inside the home to tend to her children, or whether it has her attempting to juggle her kids, home life, and a career. Both SAHMs and working moms face incredible challenges in today’s world, and neither is right or wrong.

Here is an excerpt from Pope John Paul II’s letter to women:

Mulieris Dignitatem is awesome! Thanks for posting that quote!

 

[RedSoxWife]

I think it’s very important to remember that it is not possible for every mother to stay at home. Today it’s probably not even financially possible for most mothers to stay at home. I’ve worked with plenty of working mothers, all of whom say that at some point they would love to stay home, but it’s just not possible for their families financially.

I currently live in a county with 25% unemployment, so I definitely wouldn’t argue against the fact that many families need two incomes to survive. However, I also believe that in the upper middle class there are a lot of families that could survive on one income if they cut back on “wants.” It’s hard to shop, shop, shop and live in one income. While this isn’t always the case, it is what I’ve seen when talking with quite a few of my college friends. They make (literally) ten times more money than my husband and I bring in, but never quite seem to have “enough.”

 

[RedSoxWife]

I would consider it a failure on my part if I raised daughters who believed they had to choose between having a family and pursuing their dreams. Do you want this for your own daughters (if you have them)? Just imagine, your little girl wants to be a doctor and have children of her own, what do you say to her? “Sorry honey, but you either have to be single for the rest of your life or give up your dreams. Your brothers can do both though.”

I wish that every daughter that I am blessed to bring into this world follows her vocation from God. If that vocation is motherhood than I hope that she devotes herself wholeheartedly to it. I don’t want my grandchildren to have a part time mother either!

Sometimes we have to make difficult choices in life. You can’t do everything at once and do it all well! While some mother’s do have to work, it most certainly does take time away from their children. My time is one of the greatest gift I give any child that I bring into this world. If that means we have less money, but that they have more of me, so be it!

 

[RedSoxWife]

Great point! I mentioned this already, but why spend 20-100k on college tuition in her debt, or your hard earned money for her to become barefoot and pregnant all day for ten some odd years or so?

I have a great story to back this up! I have told enough, I’m tired.

Having sent his daughter (me) to a private Catholic University, maybe my dad feels the same way. Hopefully though, he knows that by educating me he is giving his grandchildren a more educated mother (and since we are homeschooling that’s going to be even more important). And God willing I hope to be barefoot and pregnant for more than ten years .

 

[RedSoxWife]

Should she have a career of her own? How ambitious should she be? I know it’s different for each person, but I just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks in advance!

Hi SomeCatholicGuy,

I don’t see anything wrong with a woman having a career of her own when you first marry, as long as you are both able to devote yourself completely to the marriage.

I can give my own story of how that wouldn’t have worked if I’d stayed on the path I was on when I met my husband. Ten months before I met my husband I applied to work for the CIA’s clandestine services. I didn’t think I would hear anything back, but I received a phone interview and then was sent a packet with essays to fill out. After I sent back the essays I was sent to an information session with a two hour interview the next day. Following that I found myself flown from California to D.C. for rounds of testing (psych and intellectual) and more interviews. I received an offer of employment two months before I met the man who is now my husband. I was thrilled. It was, quite literally, my dream job. I would spend 80% of my time overseas once I completed training. I was set to leave for D.C. in May. I had just completed the polygraph and physicals (another trip back to D.C.) when I met my husband.

Some people will tell you that it’s ridiculous to say that you just “knew” when you met someone that that is the person that you’re supposed to be with. Five months later I was engaged to my husband.

I am now a stay-at-home-mom who’s looking forward to having as many children as God blesses us with, and homeschooling them all. If I had ended up working for the government I would have spent an inordinate amount of time away from my family. There would have been no way for me to give either my husband or my children, the attention that they deserved.

I realize now that my Vocation is to be a wife and mother. No career could have been as fulfilling, because this is my calling. I wouldn’t be able to give my family what they deserve, which is everything I am capable of giving, if I was splitting my time with a career (even if it was a career that I thought I would love).

 

[GraceDK]

I wish that every daughter that I am blessed to bring into this world follows her vocation from God. If that vocation is motherhood than I hope that she devotes herself wholeheartedly to it. I don’t want my grandchildren to have a part time mother either!

This is rather offensive.

My mother worked full time, but she was never a part time mother. She was always my mother, when at work, when shopping, when helping with homework, when cooking, when sleeping even. And her whole heart was with her family. Her vocation was motherhood and she did it fantastically.

 

[RedSoxWife]

This is rather offensive.

My mother worked full time, but she was never a part time mother. She was always my mother, when at work, when shopping, when helping with homework, when cooking, when sleeping even. And her whole heart was with her family. Her vocation was motherhood and she did it fantastically.

I’m sorry I offended you. But I wish to be completely available to my husband and children. If I was at work I wouldn’t be. It’s a simple fact: you can’t be in two places at once. You can’t give your all to two different things at once.

 

[GraceDK]

I’m sorry I offended you. But I wish to be completely available to my husband and children. If I was at work I wouldn’t be. It’s a simple fact: you can’t be in two places at once. You can’t give your all to two different things at once.

Also you are not 100 percent available when you go grossery shopping, or when you watch the evening news. You are not 100 percent available to your kids when you and dad needs to talk, or 100 percent available to your husband when you, or he, needs to put a diper on junior.
I never needed my mother to stare me into the face 24/7 in order to totally be sure she was always there for me whenever I needed her.

 

[Rach620]

I’m sorry I offended you. But I wish to be completely available to my husband and children. If I was at work I wouldn’t be. It’s a simple fact: you can’t be in two places at once. You can’t give your all to two different things at once.

I think what is missing here is the understanding that **most **women do not have the luxury of choosing which they wish to “completely dedicate themselves to”: marriage/family **OR **job.

There are many women who are wonderful mothers, wholeheartedly dedicated to their children, but who also work outside the home. They can’t be two places at once, but they can give of themselves as they are called by God: to their husbands, to their children, and to the outside world through their work. To say that it is impossible for them to be good mothers is rather harsh for women who find themselves in these circumstances and who believe that they are doing what is best for their families and what God wills for them in their lives.

My husband and I have not been blessed with children yet, but we are in a situation right now where I must work outside of the home in order to provide for our family while he finishes the professional schooling that will hopefully allow me to stay home in the future. If I do find a fulfilling career (I’m currently unemployed, as we are moving to where he will be attending school and just left my job as a bank teller), I’m not sure how long I will stick with it before having children, or if I will continue to work in any capacity while having and raising our kids. From seeing how difficult it has been for my own mother to return to the workforce after having been out of it raising five children for about 20 years, I am a bit wary of dropping out of the workforce altogether, knowing that somewhere down the road I will need to pull together a resume of some sort in order to find gainful employment. My mother was a trained chemist and worked in a lab for years before she stopped to be at home full time, and her first job when she returned back to work was at an Edible Arrangements shop, cutting fruit and putting it on skewers. Not really fulfilling work, nor at all worthy of my gifted mother, but that is how it is for SAHMs if they ever do decide to start working again, or if they need to for family reasons. Just something else to think about…

 

[OLHope]

Having sent his daughter (me) to a private Catholic University, maybe my dad feels the same way. Hopefully though, he knows that by educating me he is giving his grandchildren a more educated mother (and since we are homeschooling that’s going to be even more important). And God willing I hope to be barefoot and pregnant for more than ten years .

Well knowing what I read about you now. I do not think that CIA would have provided you any time with your family that is so far the career end as a person could possibly be especially with travel. CIA, while a thrilling career, I do not think it is has a great dual function for both mother and working mom. Is it me or is there too much of a danger element involved in that career? You are now on the far end of the other side of the spectrum, where you are completely there and involved as a parent.

I remember a segment with a TV anchor called Elizabeth Vargas, and she just melted down and said, “sometimes you can’t have it all.” A telejounalist has to put in so much crazy work time that she was missing out on the much needed family time. The mommy guilt hit her.

I am not saying a superwoman complex is impossible, but it IS stressful and there is only so much work you can continue to do before getting burned out. So many women do not even complain either, very hard to when you see those big wondering eyes of a child staring back at you, huh?

I have no argument with your education as you are becoming a teacher in a sense and passing on your education, then your degree is still a sound investment in my eyes. The businesswoman in me thinks you could go on to teach as an at-home small business while this helps socialize your kids. Your homeschooling career aspect of being a mom can spin out into many other careers or business ideas, but that may be ways ahead, great you get to stay at home for now, you can do the designing and planning ahead of time at any point of leisure.

 

[OLHope]

I’m sorry I offended you. But I wish to be completely available to my husband and children. If I was at work I wouldn’t be. It’s a simple fact: you can’t be in two places at once. You can’t give your all to two different things at once.

If you do not mind my asking, was the SAHM idea solely yours, were you persuaded or influenced at all prior to/after marriage to settle in the home?

 

[OLHope]

Well, she clearly has to go to college to get her M.R.S. in the first place.

Don’t you think so!! Every interested mother should finish a detailed program in home ec and child development. High School, Jr College, or University. My High School had it, but it was an option. I kept taking business geared courses instead. I guess I was arrogant in thinking motherhood was nurturing so it would just come naturally. I didn’t realize how many new young mothers often times call their mother for help. I do not know if that is true of all mother’s, but I sure think it is endearing.

 

[whatevergirl]

*Getting back to the original thread title…I think that it’s important to discuss your future aspirations with your potential, future spouse, of course–as this will impact you both, and only you two can decide what might work best. I was a SAHM for a while when my kids were preschool ages…my dd was in preschool when I went to work …my husband lost his job at that time. I personally feel God has called me to the jobs I have had, and they haven’t negated my ability to be the best wife and mom I can be. I think it’s up to the couple at hand…and I think that you have to make your goals CRYSTAL clear…if you truly don’t want to ever have to work outside of the home, it would be best to marry a man who wants the same thing. But, remember, our best laid plans sometimes take a detour. I always thought I’d be a SAHM, until my kids got into high school–but life sometimes throws a curve ball, and thankfully, I was able to get into a ‘career’ that provides a nice financial backdrop for my family, in addition to my dh’s income. I think that it’s where God has led us…

So, to recap…lol…it’s up to the inidividual couple. We have to be careful to not force our opinions on what seems to be working for another household. If someone wants to be barefoot and pregnant for years to come like you RedSoxFan…haha I love that by the way, so be it. But, it is a joint decision between a couple. It isn’t for us to say…that mother isn’t doing all she can, or that husband shouldn’t want his wife to work. It’s up to each unique couple…and frankly, the most important thing is…have you asked God what HE wants for your collective lives? Whatever God’s will is, we should follow obediently.

Just my thoughts. *

 

[SMHW]

I am now a stay-at-home-mom who’s looking forward to having as many children as God blesses us with, and homeschooling them all. If I had ended up working for the government I would have spent an inordinate amount of time away from my family. There would have been no way for me to give either my husband or my children, the attention that they deserved.

I realize now that my Vocation is to be a wife and mother. No career could have been as fulfilling, because this is my calling. I wouldn’t be able to give my family what they deserve, which is everything I am capable of giving, if I was splitting my time with a career (even if it was a career that I thought I would love).

I think that something which hasn’t been spelled out clearly enough in this thread is that not all careers are created equal. There is also a difference between a job and a career just as there is a difference between a career and a vocation.

With a few minor exceptions (the most notable of which would be married clergy) the only vocation married people should have is to the marriage. Some married people can manage to have a career. While a career is generally not a vocation, most careers make greater demands of time and energy than a “mere job”. A given married couple has only a certain amount of time and energy between them. How much is dependent on factors such as number and ages of children, personality, health, household demands, etc. If the demands placed on couple by work and home exceed the capabilities of the couple then it’s obvious that something will suffer.

Now a couple who is well organized, who can simplify and delegate, is going to have the most “extra” time and energy but there are going to be limits even for them.

Working parents have to look at that controversial issue of “quality time versus quantity time”. I’ve yet to meet a parent who didn’t think quality time wasn’t important; that’s not what the controversy is about. The controversy is whether or not quality time can be scheduled. And then there’s the question of just what is quality time.

For a baby, quality time largely means holding, nursing, exchanging eye contact, and diapering. For a slightly older child it means playing peek-a-boo, verbal exchanges, reading, holding hands while the child learns to walk, and physical proximity. For a child who is older still, it means homework help, games, discipline, discussions… All of these can be “scheduled” or delegated in a general sense but the little key moments of bonding tend to come at unpredictable moments. You just never know when the bird is going to land on the window sill or a story will decide it needs to be read.

I guess I am just reflecting back on my own experience. I worked full time when my oldest two were babies and have worked either full time or part time now that they are all older. I realize now in retrospect that I both hated and craved the holding and nursing. I felt like they were a waste of time and impediments to relationships rather than realizing that those things **were relationships.

I’ve told my children that they can and should have careers. But I’ve also told them that they ought to view how that career fits with family life. My children learned the hard way that a parent was not always available to help with homework or give them rides to swim practice. They much preferred being at home to having to go to to daycare after school. Of my children’s friends, the only ones who did not seem terribly concerned about having two working parents were those who lived with or withing walking distance of extended family, where there were at most two children, and/or the children’s time was rigidly scheduled.

Some careers are more flexible time-wise and location-wise than are others. When a couple is discerning marriage they ought to think ahead as to how their lifestyle will affect any future children.

 

[OLHope]

The fastest growing demographic in the Western World is the unmarried women over the age of 35. The average age for women in Canada today is 40.

Assuming the man who started this thread meant to say should MARRIED women have careers and how ambitious should THEIR HUSBANDS PERMIT THEM TO BE (and assuming that the man who started this thread is not in fact promoting Sharia Law), then I believe this matter should be settled between the spouses before marriage, and the Patriarch should be required to provide sufficient insurance so that his little girl wife can pay for his last illness and not end up in a shelter when she is left a widow with no skills and cannot even write a cheque or find her way to the bank.

For those of us who do not marry, for one reason or another – and a large number of us choose spinsterhood and do not intend to camp in our own lives in the hopes that someday Prince Charming will give us a nice house, a great car, a cottage, and a houseful of nice linens, furniture, dishes and clothes – it is up to us individually as to what career we will have and how ambitious we should be. Forty years ago we settled the question as to whether or not men would be the sole gatekeepers of the lives of Girls, at least here in the West. These days it is up to the individual woman to decide whom she wishes to have run her life – her husband, a committee of men in the workplace, or God.

This is the spoiled/selfish aspect of the single career man/woman, the ME generation, still wanting to live life for themselves over the family, the church, or God.

As a single celibate, I have no choice but to work, and find some charity activities to do with the church. Having worked since I was eleven, I do not know how to NOT work. I need to have a purpose for everyday. So it is just conditioned in me to do and find work over a family, where work is stable and well family is not always (even though it is the chance many people are willing to take).

 

[sharmin]

I wish that every daughter that I am blessed to bring into this world follows her vocation from God. If that vocation is motherhood than I hope that she devotes herself wholeheartedly to it. I don’t want my grandchildren to have a part time mother either! !

I can’t help but feel a little insulted from this. Do you think working mothers are part time mothers?

 

[sharmin]

I’m sorry I offended you. But I wish to be completely available to my husband and children. If I was at work I wouldn’t be. It’s a simple fact: you can’t be in two places at once. You can’t give your all to two different things at once.

Have you ever left your kids at a sitter? Are you not still their mother when you are gone? What about children who go to school? Are you saying if they are presently with their mother, she isn’t their mother than? Do you mean you can only mother your children if you are present with them? I have never heard that before.