Why Be a Lawyer When You Want to be a Botanist?

It's mid-October and snowing heavily outside here in Minneapolis. While it's much too early for my liking to see white covering the rooftops, it reminds me in a visceral way that I'm just six weeks out from my first major deadline of my project. (I'm using "project" now as distinct from "thesis"; it evokes less anxiety.) On December 1st I will be submitting a draft of 100 pages. To make the idea more palatable, I've broken the task down to completion of two pages every time I sit down to the computer. Essentially, my butt stays put until I have finished two new pages. (If any of you have helpful hints on how to stay focused through the challenging sections of writing, I'd be grateful to read about them.)

When I get right down to it, what I most want to show or attempt to substantiate is the notion that if the decision not to parent was as legitimate and valued in our culture as is the choice to parent, women and society at large would benefit in important ways. Primary among them is that more women would feel free to be thoughtful and careful about deciding whether raising children is the right life choice for them. There would be more opportunity for contented and fulfilled lives, and perhaps more good being done in communities if people respected each woman's desires, intuitions, and their innate or circumstantial ability to do well the most important job of raising children. More than one of the women I interviewed stated simply that they do not think they would be good mothers. Isn't it in all our best interests to accept these women's understanding of themselves, and be glad, even, that they aren't taking on a job they don't have interest in or feel they would be good at?

Consider this: Why would we expect someone who wants to become a botanist to be a lawyer? Why would we perpetuate the notion that if she chooses botany anyway—because it’s what makes her feel satisfied, allows her to feel connected to and contributing to something larger than herself; because it’s what fuels her passion and is what makes her happy—that she has made the wrong choice, that she is selfish, that she does not really know what she wants, that she can still become a lawyer if she doesn’t wait too much longer, and that if she doesn’t, she will regret her decision someday.

Why would we think it doesn't matter that she may discover a new variety of plant life or that she may discover a fungi that has healing properties that we didn't know about, or that she will enjoy how she spends her time? Why don't we seem to care that because the life she's chosen fulfills her, her relationship with her spouse or partner is enhanced, or her relationship with co-workers, neighbors, friends, community? Is it not important that she has the energy to volunteer her time with a community service group, or that she has the time and energy to care for her nieces and nephews and share her love of plant life with them?

Essentially this is what we tell our young girls when we directly or indirectly presume or tell them that they will have children someday. We may be telling them that they should be mothers instead of botanists, despite their innate interests. And if we tell them, no worries, you can do both, there is plenty of evidence that she likely won't be able to do either job well or to her satisfaction.

Joan Williams, in her book, Unbending Gender, says that "If mothers have failed to achieve equality in market work, equality in the family has proved equally elusive...on average mothers spend thirty-one hours a week on [household tasks]...despite our self-image of gender equality, American women still do 80 percent of the child care and two-thirds of the housework (2)." 

That's 40 hours per week in the market place and (if we presume 8 hours of sleep) roughly 45 hours per week on child care--a total of 95 hours out of 112 weekly waking hours. Is it smart to encourage anyone to do this week after week, month after month, year after year--especially, despite a woman's best intentions and effort, both professional gains and their children may suffer?

If you are a mother and are raising children while working full time, I'd love to read what you think about this. Are you able to "do it all" to your satisfaction?

Off I go into the early winter wonderland!  Thank you for reading.

Williams, Joan. Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It. New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2000.