Not Every Woman Wants or Needs A Career
Some hearts just want to be home
Stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s when women were fighting hard for greater personal freedom and demanding the same rights and opportunities as men were afforded. The women’s liberation movement brought millions of women together to stand up to the oppressive laws that were keeping women trapped. Women insisted on, and gained, the right to have their own bank account without a husband’s or father’s permission. They demanded equal pay for equal work. In 1973, Roe v. Wade passed, giving women the right to make the decision, without excessive government interference, to have an abortion. I bow to these women who fought for all of us, and feel that we need to continue to fight for our rights as equal and valuable contributors to society. But those hard-won rights are only valuable if they apply to all of us, even those who make choices that don’t look like liberation to others.
When I was a little girl, I decided that I wanted to be a mommy and a homemaker when I grew up. You might think that I was socialized that way, because even in the 60’s and 70’s the American South was pretty conservative. But that is not really the case. My mother worked when I was growing up, and we had a housekeeper. My mother is a brilliant and gifted woman who had a lot to offer the world and homemaking was not her life’s goal. She never would have made me feel that all I could hope for was to be a wife and a mother. On the contrary, she encouraged me to get out in the world and see what was out there for me. She never put limits on my dreams.
But the truth is, my heart has always longed for home. Sure, for a while I thought I wanted to be a model (every adolescent girl’s dream at that time) and when I outgrew that I thought I would like to be a multi-lingual interpreter. I had seen myself as a writer since I was 8 years old, and that was always encouraged. But in the end, I always came back to the thing that was drawing me like a magnet. I wanted to get married, have 6 children and create a sunny, happy, stimulating home for all of them.
