Many working mothers, like me, take great pride in the fact
that we are positive role models to our children, especially our
daughters.  The underlying assumption is
that career is as important for women as it is for men, in terms of
contribution to the family, self-worth, fulfillment.  We believe that we don’t have to choose
between parenthood and a career – we can do both, and do both well.  If your daughters are anything like mine, they
take for granted that they will have a career of their own.  Not just a job, but a career.  And they have no doubt that they can balance
it all – husband, career, children, home, social life.  Make no mistake about it – I not a perfect
role model, if there is such a thing. 
I’m human, after all.  When I
behave badly, whether it’s a result of stress or lack of sleep, I own it.  I am quite honest and open with my girls
about the challenges of being a working mother. 
It requires an energy and resourcefulness that most of us never knew we
had.  And yet, despite the challenges and
exhaustion, would I trade my career for being a stay at home Mom?  Never. 
To me, it would mean living a less-than-fulfilled life.  I believe that it’s our inherent right to live
up to our personal potential.  We can do
more, be more, than we think.  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Now, on the other side of the cul de sac, I know a stay at
home mother who has always encouraged her daughter to look pretty, be skinny, and
dress fashionably so that she can marry a rich man and not have to work.  As if having to work was a punishment for
being, well, less than perfect.  This
started at a very young age, an age at which my daughter was glowing with sweat
and pride and not a few bruises from playing soccer on weekends while her
daughter stayed home playing with a makeup kit. 
Just as we have learned that we can successfully combine work and
parenthood, so too, it would seem, that we can teach our daughters to care
about beauty and cute clothes and at the same time, aspire to a meaningful
career.  Title IX taught us that girls
can play like boys, if not alongside them on the same team.  Yet today’s workplace still shows sign of
gender bias and many women still believe that they must choose between
parenting and a career. 

Before I could put a name to it, I felt that the traditional
societal roles assigned to men and women were sexist.  From a young age, I held the conviction that
a woman could do the same things a man could do.  I suppose I was a feminist before I knew what
it meant.  I don’t mean to proclaim that
men and women are the same, but there is much more to the traditional,
stereotypical male and females roles beyond differences of physiology or mere
physical strength.  I’ll spare you the
history lesson here, but suffice it to say, stereotypes and gender bias are
alive and well in elementary school. 
While I am teaching my daughter to hold the door open for others, the 1st
grade teacher is admonishing the boys to open the door for girls and to let
them go first.  Tradition has its place,
chivalry isn’t all bad, but I just can’t understand why, in 2012, we are still
telling boys to open doors for girls.  My
guess is that historically, it had to do something with getting muddy
footprints on the floor, and since girls didn’t dare play in the mud, they
entered a room first. 

It’s all about choice. 
I want my daughters to have options. 
Isn’t that what feminism is all about? 
Women have options to work at home, from home, stay at home, and the
freedom and right to expect their husbands to be equal partners both
intellectually and in the sharing of responsibilities of house and home.    The
artificial limitations imposed on women in the first half of the 20th
century are simply choice, than feminist or not, we must accept women’s
decision to pursue parenting as their primary responsibility and abstain from
work outside the home.  Who are we to
judge at all?  Feminism is about choice,
remember?

And so, the looming question is – how will I respond if my
daughters choose to be stay at home mothers? 
Being a parent is the most noble, respectable, challenging vocation.  The way I see it, as long as they are well
equipped with the values, knowledge, and respect of their partner to make a
reasoned decision, then I will be satisfied and my job will be done. (Know that
“done” is a figure of speech.  Heaven
knows, a parent’s job is never done.)  My
friend J-M lists her title on Facebook as CEO, CFO, CIO of her family.  How true. 
Now matter who “wears the pants” in the family (and remember that in the
first half of the 20th century, only a few daring women wore pants!),
we know who’s really in charge at home.  Make
no mistake about it – every woman has a career.