You cannot have it all. Period. Doting parent, loving spouse, esteemed career professional? Pick one. Two, if you're willing to shirk your responsibilities and half-ass your way through life. But all three-? Fuggedaboudit.
A recent "news" story on the front page of the New York Times suggests that a growing percentage of women currently enrolled at elite American universities has espoused a Meatloaf-inspired "two out of three ain't bad" lease on life. Evidently, 60 percent of 138 female students at Yale University intend to suspend or end their careers when they decide to have children.
But are the opinions of 19-year-old, well-to-do college students indicative of changing trends in American society? Are the majority of the world's smartest, most competitive and well-trained women stashing away their BlackBerrys and tying up their apron strings because they're more interested in home economics than macroeconomics?
That reported 60 percent is totally scary. Halfway through the article, I burned a bra and decided to stop shaving my legs (until I remembered that it's been weeks since the last time I so much as touched a razor). Only then did I really start thinking about how journalist Louise Story even came up with that number.
Under the surface there are more than just a few things wrong with her article. More than 100 women completed and returned a self-selected survey filled with biased and leading questions such as "When you have children, do you plan to stay at home with them or do you plan to continue working? Why?"
Recognizing that Story's research only included heterosexual women with aspirations to raise children, I immediately lamented the loss of my bra and even reconsidered shaving my legs (although I ultimately decided against it).
Even though Story's dreadful "research" leaves her column as open to criticism as Kevin Federline's money grubbing, the unaddressed underlying premises here are compelling.
For example, a woman's decision to work (or not) is indelibly tied to a hodgepodge of social, economic and personal interpretations of success, independence and happiness. However, what remains unquestionable is that the actual number of women who dedicate themselves to homemaking is far greater than the number of men who choose to do the same.
According to a 2003 U.S. Census Bureau report called "America's Family and Living Arrangements," 89 percent of the 6.8 million women who were stay-at-home parents did so with the explicit intention of caring for their children, whereas a mere 16 percent of the 1 million men who were stay-at-home parents did so with the same intention. A whopping 45 percent of these dads reported staying at home because they were either ill or disabled.
The report's findings are absolutely indicative of the very lopsided reality of stay at home parenting. The remaining 39 percent of these men cited extenuating circumstances, such as "unemployment," "studying for a degree" or "retirement" as their reasons for staying at home and "playing house."
Even though feminist movements have opened innumerable doors for women (thankyouverymuch), a lot of highly intelligent students at the Yales and Dukes and Harvards of this country still find it incredibly difficult to conceive of a life that isn't built along traditional gender lines. One interviewee in Story's article said: "I accept things how they are. I don't mind the status quo. I don't see why I have to go against it."
Perhaps this young gal was somehow influenced by like-minded influentials such as South Park's home economics teacher, Pearl, and her class on "Selecting and Catching the Right Man." Pearl says that if you're so devastatingly unfortunate that you cannot find a rich man to wow with your cooking skills, you should forego your MRS and use that other diploma of yours. So, although "some of you girls will go on to have interesting jobs and careers, all of you pretty ones won't have to worry about that because you can marry a nice man."
Don't settle for less, either. Not even for a guy who "wants to be a doctor or a lawyer but is still working on getting his degree." Our home ec guru, Pearl, counsels: "Dump that zero and get yourself a hero! He could be earning that degree all his life while you starve to death with two dying babies sucking at your teats."
Ultimately, it might be time to reconceptualize what it really means to "have it all." In the end, the MRS may not be as incompatible with all your other Duke degrees as Louise Story would have us believe.
But just in case the New York Times and Meatloaf are onto something, I intend to cover all my bases. So, if you will excuse me, I have an LSAT to take tomorrow morning-in spite of, or perhaps despite-that blasted MRS. Keep your fingers crossed.
Boston Cote is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Friday.
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