There is something about little bundles of joy that can almost make the world stop. Parker Lee entered our lives last weekend, weighing in at 8lb 12ozs; she has the cutest ‘little’ chubby cheeks. An added bonus, our other grandchild has been here visiting; he is now a very busy 17 months. Having him here, and wanting to watch him as much as I can brought me back to the days when I was raising his daddy. Balancing my work load while raising a family.
I remember when I was senior in high school; looking at my future for the first time and my dad asking me, “What do you want to do in life?” When I shared, “to be a Mom,” his response was, “well you are still going to go to college.” That was how I was prepared to go out into this world back in 1978.
So I went to college, and now, being a Mom, does not seem to be the route our society shares with women going to college, now you must get a career. This is even more prevalent today. Everything about our daughter’s high school years was about prepping her to go to college. She participated in many leadership opportunities. When I asked my daughter a similar question as my Dad had, she shared, “I would like to own my own business like you, so I could be more flexible with work and family.” Now this is a smart young woman, not because she is my daughter, but she has been raised where she understands the value of a career and giving back to our community, but not at the expense of her family. Little does she know, many times when my kids were all in bed, I went back to work at the kitchen table, doing bookkeeping, or setting up management meetings and such.
When I read Sheryl Sandberg’s book, “Lean In,” COO of Facebook, I found myself very much on the fence. Her main basis for the book, is that we still have too few woman leaders, and it is a world still ran by men. This sounds a bit out dated to me.
Is it really that we are not raising women to be leaders, or choices women are making to not want to be away from their children, at this point in life. I am a bit older than Ms. Sandberg, and the years we have our children is for a very short time, approximately 18 years. A platform I would prefer is how do we promote woman, (for the sake of this article, I will focus on women, this is not necessarily gender specific) to graduate in a career of their choice, possibly work full time for 2 – 5 years, get married and can still utilize her career, while being able to really raise her family for the next 18 – 25 years, and then if she chooses, enter back into the work force at a level as if she had not, ‘left’ the work force. This is the voice I would like to be heard for woman.
Divorce, debt, obesity, high school drop-outs, and addictions, are all at record highs. Do we really need more women in corporate leadership roles, or using our leadership skills in our home?
Where eating at the dinner table together as a family is the norm, bedtime rituals each night with a story and prayers; kids doing chores, a parent being home to greet their children after school each day. Visit, www.children-and-divorce.com, 50% of children today live in a divorced household, 25% more than the children before the “women’s movement of the 1960’s”, OUCH! Is it our voice or our priorities?
I am writing this article ‘At Home’, while waiting for my grandson to get up, so grateful to own my own business and have the opportunity to provide our services to such a great community.
Your comfort is my Central Concern, call 756-6656 for all your heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical and drain cleaning needs!
