Juggling exams, my own classes, pediatric appointments, Christmas shopping, and even the basics of keeping the kids clean and fed left me exhausted and frustrated. Although there's no way to know for sure yet whether my generation's first wave of parents, in which I include myself, indeed has a trend in the making, I sense that many, many other young women of my age are making choices similar to my own. Many of us, as the daughters of the first group of American women who were employed full-time outside the home, have a benchmark against which we can measure our own choices, something our own parents didn't have. And as pleased as I am with the way my time is structured these days, I sometimes wonder if by spending my days with my own children, I am betraying the sacrifices and hard work of the previous two generations of women who paved the way so that I could pursue a professional life. I have decided that they did.
Feminism is all about the power to choose.
Half a century ago, it is likely that my current stay at home status wouldn't have been mine to accept or reject. Instead it simply would have been the way it was. I am well aware that for many mothers, financial imperatives take away their choices. They must work outside the home if they are to feed their children.