One of my friends from Harvard is now married with two boys. She has two jobs and works from home. In the morning she trades stocks, and in the afternoon she runs her own baby attire business (baberoo.com).
Needless to say, I find her capacity and capability downright amazing. I have a live-in nanny that works 6 days a week, and I work from home, albeit not full-time. And I feel that I am stretched to the limit!
Come to think of it, it is not that I am busy all the time. But it is the requirement for vigilance and patience with respect to a small kid that is emotionally and mentally draining. In her case, she has two little active boys who want attention. She said, “they drive me nuts if I am the only one at home with them when they are sick from school. I think I am really a career woman trapped in a housewife’s role!”
I can totally understand that sentiment. Usually those who have such sentiments feel guilty about having such sentiments. I recall reading about Lin Huiyin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Huiyin), the Chinese architect and writer. She lamented in one of her letters to a friend that so much time would pass in mundane housework and trivialities that she feared that her life would just become that of a mother and mistress of home. She would often get impatient with such tasks, but then regret her impatience when the kids fell sick. Back then, probably there was no such term as “career women”, but she surely was a “career woman trapped in a housewife’s role”.
I often think that the conservatives may be right that women who were raised to believe their subordinate roles in life are probably much happier. After all, it is much easier to be content if you don’t aspire to anything. A career woman who also wants a family with kids will inevitably lament about being a “career woman trapped in a housewife’s role”, and lament about having such ungrateful complaints.
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