I will tell you what younger women want. For the most part, we women want a balance. We want to be seen as successful and competent and also open to loving our future or current children. We are nervous that if we have children that people might look down at us when they ask the looming question, “What do you do for work?”… “crap” we say on the inside… “housewife… but really! I do so much more than that!!,” we scream inside of our hearts. Just ask us, what are passions are, or what projects or assignments we are working on or the job that we currently hold part-time. We long to be a part of society just like men, pick up our bootstraps and work hard to contribute to society and the community. However, culturally we feel that if or when we do get pregnant that people will notice an instant show stopper.
We want a positive message from both sides, that maybe we don’t have to pick between being a house wife and career. We can pick both. We can be a good mom, a loving care giver of life and we can also be the woman that people pay to do their taxes, or to making them jackets for our sewing business. We can do this. We are women, we are made to thrive and work hard. Give us a chance to prove ourselves.
Proverbs 31, from the Bible, talks of a woman that goes out as a merchant bringing food, selling and buying fields that her merchandise is profitable and yet is there for her household. It has only been for the last hundred years or so that we even have a “stay-at-home” mom that is considered to only care for her children and housework. Before then women were actively involved in farm work, selling and buying merchandise from other farmers or trades men and crafty keeping the home together while their husbands worked in the fields or their trades. They were competent women whose work was hard and loving, teaching their children the same as they worked and did school at home or at the school house.
If we had support from both sides saying, “No matter what, even if you get pregnant you can do this; we will support your work and your motherhood.” That would change our minds maybe on seeing motherhood as a show starter and not a show stopper. It would be fun to be a mom and have our own business or work part time in yours.
As young women we just need to know that there is support out there if we ever do get pregnant. That being pregnant is a positive thing and not a negative one. We see some of the more serious implications of having a child, possible job loss, or a maternity leave where we are expected to come back. That sounds like we don’t know what we want, but in reality it might be nice if companies offered both choices. Being a parent changes everything. Many times parents might not know what they want until they have a child.
The bottom line is that our culture, in general, makes us feel that being pregnant is a negative thing. I think the real question is how we can transform minds and culture to make pregnancy for what is really is a positive thing.
By: Morgan Richert