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abundance, balance, career path, career woman, co-parenting, divorce, infertility, marriage, New Year, parenting, relationships, resolutions, single parenting, working woman
This highly recommended post by another blogger on the concept of having it all got me thinking about how women in particular have been sold the “have it all” message over the past few decades.
You know the one — today’s woman can get a great education, have a interesting and fulfilling career, have an amazing relationship, raise a family, have a magazine worthy home and garden, be beautiful, make time for all her hobbies and interests, travel the world, live her dreams, and reach for the stars?
And the truth is a woman today can have (within reason) any of those things. Women today have more options than ever before. But something I have almost never hear anyone say is a woman can’t have ALL of those things at the same time. And that it’s OK, even sanity itself, not to try to.
Yep, that’s right. The problem might be that life is a smorgasbord of abundance. There’s too many good things to have and not enough room or time or resources to have them all. Or at least not on a quality level, although many women are burning themselves out trying. That’s the good news and the bad news, at the same time.
For example, I have three dear friends who put their time and energies into their educations and careers during their 20s and 30s. They all have Master’s degrees from top schools, and all have had successful and interesting careers, all hold high level positions for companies that are household names.
At the age of 38 or so, all decided it was “time to have kids.” Unfortunately, although each of these women were ready to be excellent mothers, and they all had met and married awesome men ready to be fathers, none of them were able to get pregnant even with the aid of all the infertility treatments science had to offer.
For each, it was a crushing blow. Used to being in control of their worlds, they assumed that like scheduling their week or a project, when they decided they were ready to have a baby, it would happen. The idea that there might be a cost of delaying pregnancy until they were ready versus having a baby when their bodies were most biologically ready — and that the cost might be not being able to get pregnant — had never seriously entered their minds. And with all of the celebrities having babies at 40 and even 50 years old, at 38 none of them had even considered that they might be starting too late.
One, now 53, gave up her career and is now a stay-at-home mom with two adopted children. One, now 45, has made peace with not having kids and puts her energy and time into helping other people’s children through her career. The third, now 39, is gearing down her career while still undergoing infertility treatment, and my fingers are crossed for her.
Now there is no way to know if they would have struggled just as much to get pregnant earlier in life, and I am in no way trying to imply that it was some kind of karmic retribution for choosing to get and education and pursue a career. It’s simply that Americans, and especially American women, have been led to believe that having it all, all at once, and on demand, is possible — when often it’s not. And this pretty little lie leads to much unnecessary strife and unhappiness.
The same could be said for a woman choosing to marry and start a family very young. What are the chances of her also pursuing higher education, establishing a successful career, and having time for all her hobbies and interests without her (and her family) paying that price in some way their time and quality of relationships?
The dirty little secret is the grass just looks greener. The young mother at home with the kids may envy her friends who have an exciting career, just as her friend who has a career but can’t have a child may envy the young stay-at-home mother. The woman who has children and a career may envy both those who have more time for their career because they don’t have children and the woman who has more time for her children because she doesn’t have a career.
When you think about it, every decision from as small as how to spend an hour to as big as if and when to try to have a baby, means a trade off in some other way.
And it’s not just women who face this. Men, too, have to and have always had to make choices between career, time with family, hobbies and interests, etc. It’s an illusion that men have somehow had the golden ticket in life, and that they were having it at the expense of women. Nobody has the golden ticket. There is no golden ticket. Everyone only has so many options, no matter their sex, age, income level, education, or other factors.
Ironically there is a solution to this situation, and again it involves realizing it’s a choice. But rather than choosing to want and try to have it all, ironically it means choosing NOT to. It is in choosing to give up some things in order to have other things that are more important and making peace with making those choices and trade offs that an abundant quality life lies. And also to accept that in everything there is a season, and having one thing might mean waiting to — or even never having — another. And not just realizing this, but being truly OK with it.
I personally struggle with this concept. I constantly beat myself up internally for not doing and being it all, for not somehow squeezing 48 hours of stuff into a 24 hour window. And trust me, I have tried. Pretty much daily. For years. That trying has come at great personal cost to myself, and others.
Nor if I am honest can I say I have been able to enjoy “having” it all, even as I was (and still am) furiously, frantically, and barely juggling it. I now realize that although there is always room for self-improvement, it wasn’t because I’m not trying hard enough or wanting it bad enough, it’s because I was and still am trying to do and have too much at once!
So in the spirit of resolutions and all of that, in 2015 I am going to make time for what’s most important and make peace with giving up some of what’s really not, without feeling like that trade off is some kind of failure. If you also struggle with this concept, I hope you will join me.
Sometimes less really is more. And sometimes more is actually less.
Let those who have ears hear.
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
I find the oddest part is how people try and schedule such things. Of course you can’t have it all. But, if you want a finger in every pie (albeit not the whole pie) and look at it logically, the best pattern for a woman is:
-focus on studying
(-if in the UK, get a decent degree whilst it’s free and she has little else to do)
-settle down and have as many children as she likes
-once the youngest child is in school or at university, take up a small part-time job and save up for further education or something nice
(-if in the US, use some of the money to get a decent degree)
-go and get a “proper” job around when the nest is empty and her husband is nearing retirement
-work for a few years and retire
That way she has the children she wanted, they were raised well, she is more likely to maintain a healthy relationship, she is more likely to progress her career as an older women with adult children than as a young childless woman and she is likely to feel satisfied having had a little bit of everything without throwing away anything important or investing all her time into one thing.
Compare that to the actual pattern the “have it alls” follow and, well, disaster:
-focus on dating
-get a degree
-get a mundane, low-paid job whilst getting qualified in something better
-get married
-try and have children, adopt, ivf or manage to force one out
-get career obsessed, spend no time at home
-get divorced once the youngest kid is in school
-retire
-remarry
You can’t have absolutely everything, but if you want a little taste of everything whilst enjoying life and not sacrificing too much, then the standard pattern is not the one to follow.
Redpillgirlnotes,
I found a sesonal bear video!
Joy and happiness!
“It is in choosing to give up some things in order to have other things that are more important and making peace with making those choices and trade offs that an abundant quality life lies. And also to accept that in everything there is a season, and having one thing might mean waiting to — or even never having — another. And not just realizing this, but being truly OK with it.”
Well said, Bloom! 🙂
I think everyone struggles with accepting this. Coincidentally, last night I was at a party hosted by a friend who knew us from a previous assignment and she asked if I miss nursing and if I ever think I’ll go back to it. I miss a LOT of things about it…making my own money was really nice, feeling of accomplishment, helping others, constant stream of learning and new experiences, and so forth. But the drawbacks/cost were too high, and I see the difference in my kids now that I’m around for them (with my husband gone so much, it was really difficult juggling everything). I’m really blessed that I have the option to make the choice.
The friend I mentioned above thought I’d made a good decision (she was a fighter pilot before she had kids, now part-time reservist at the sims…flight simulators). Her sister is a nurse anesthetist whose husband is gone as often as mine. They have three kids and she commutes to DC from Boston once every two weeks and works just one 24 hour shift each time. I can’t imagine doing that, myself.
This ‘you can have it all’ perspective is uniquely female, I think. I do believe boys learn by age 12 that they’re not going to have anything approximating ‘it all’, but all the girls I know have been raised under the false flag of ‘having it all.’ We learn this because we observe our fathers, whose life reveals the very concept of having it all as absurd.
This would be the one — I think the only — comment I would make to a young woman contemplating adulthood as both a professional and family woman. It’s very hard to live with a woman who is frustrated or angry that she cannot have it all, and eventually most of them go all Eat Pray Love and usually wind up with a fraction of ‘it all.’ Or they just resolve this hypergamous impulse and decide to ‘settle’ for more material comforts.
I worry about this with my daughter. Her mother, aunt, and grandmother all wanted it all and blew up their families. My daughter is a hard-charger professionally, but has begun to pine for the stability of a traditional family and its comforts. She’s going to have to make choices and be happy with them. Unfortunately, her life models didn’t.
The flip side of this is if a man decides to make a change in his life — professional or geographical — the women and children become confused and may freak out. There is some massive misunderstanding, perhaps, that once a drafthorse, always a drafthorse. I think the feminist model, which is society’s model, is that women retain the one-way option to pursue personal enlightenment, and that men should provide the financial and social foundation required to do so. It is a measure of feminism’s illogic that such a system insists that men and women are equal in all things — until just one sex decides that the responsibilities of equality impair the demands of the Self. This ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ approach to relationships only works with men willing to be submissive to a person and a system that renders them disposable
I tend to think of life as possessing (for a man) only two or three acts, unfolding sequentially. The drafthorse provider act, as one provides for and builds a family, may or may not be what a man wishes to live indefinitely. When I sold my last company I was installed by the acquirer as an SVP/division honcho of a prominent multinational. My children, and I supposed the ex-‘s, would have preferred that I run that treadmill for the duration. I quit to start another crazy enterprise after three months. And now I’ve resigned from the day-to-day from that, and we will merge that outfit into some conglomeration of greater betas this year (Allah willing). Some people closer to me worry about my sanity.
So if one moves on to Act 3, and asserts a different personal agenda, few women will understand. Doing so in no way reflects a man desiring ‘it all’; it’s just a man desiring *something* — something more than being an ATM. Success in anything requires sacrifice, choices, risk and forbearance; where in any feminist literature are such qualities asserted? A guy on such a path will have his resolve tested as people he cares about react negatively, call him crazy, resent the obligation to support themselves (which is really a resentment against the responsibilities and pressures of adulthood).
Red pill insights are crucial, as it is an uncomfortable realization that one must Game one’s own daughter, ex-wife, or new girlfriends. Otherwise one is yoked to a wagon for life, more a service provider than a man. In the current environment, which we did not request or design, choosing not to pull the wagon for life may result in one becoming a pariah or outlaw to the social or family set that, at bottom, views him as a cancelable meal ticket. Certainly that is how government and the law view men. Perhaps we are, therefore, quiet outlaws.
BuenaVista,
Tha comment knocked my socks off. Who has to subordinate their ambitions to whom? In the current Marriage 2.0 enviorment, you have raised a very valid question.
Could it come down to where only single men will be able to figure out how to vulcanize rubber?
I agree with superslavewife.
Very well said bv! You always have such great insight to add, it’s true that men are expected to “just do it” and that’s very unfair, really. I wholeheartedly encourage you to pursue act 3! Be a rebel! 🙂
LOL
I want it all and will have it all, which is why my mission statement is to make the world my bitch. To paraphrase Kid Rock…..
persistence pays and if that holds true I am going to buy this planet before I am through. I’m going to get what I have coming and the rest I am taking…..
But here’s the thing, I don’t want fried ice and I am not risk adverse.
Lol scfton, go for it!
Ton owns the world, the rest of us are on annual renewable leases.
Lol, I suspect someday one in ten people on the planet may carry Ton’s genes, too! I guess someone has to rule the world, and luckily we knew him when!
btw BV (and Liz and other aviation fans) last night I watched the movie “Flight” with Denzel Washington and thought of all of you guys. If you haven’t seen it, seek it out. Good movie!
When Denzel aileron rolls the plane, he remembers to apply reverse elevator trim when inverted. So there was that. I’m glad they didn’t show all the blue water spilling out of the lavs, that would have been a bit too much verisimilitude for me.
The guy who taught me to fly took me for a ride in a Falcon 50 once. We departed Teterboro VFR/no flight plan, climbed directly to 17,500 for a run down to Dulles. At 17,500 in cruise he aileron-rolled the plane, not spilling any blue water. (Properly done an aileron roll is a positive G maneuver through out; you can drink your coffee.) Then he pulled the power to idle, and we didn’t touch a throttle until lined up on 19L at Dulles.
Wow, it’s always refreshing to come across someone that has a realistic attitude towards fertility. Hell I’m a guy, but I find the number of women that think they can put off having children till they’re in their late thirties or early forties without consequences is truly stunning.
What you said about the grass always looking greener is true as well. I think people get into trouble constantly thinking about how something could be better, especially younger women who have grown up in a feminist controlled society that encourages them to go through life with a Tony Montana style “I’m owed the world and everything in it” mentality.
@bv I wish I understood what all that means, but I am afraid I know nothing about flying so that mostly went right over my head 🙂
I am curious, do you think that stunt in the movie was plausible, or was it, as someone who knows about flight, a bunch of Hollywood hooey? The characters, while not exactly noble, were very real I thought and I enjoyed that I could not see where the film was going before it went there, which spoils about 90% of the movies I watch — as they are too predictable and formulaic. Not that I should criticize, never having written a screenplay myself, although I would like to someday give it a whirl! Cheers!
Thanks for adding that slacker, I agree. I really do think many women understand the age/fertility ratio trade offs they are making until it is unfortunately too late. I think many women (and men) are also unaware just how small of a window of time there is each month for baby making to happen (the egg last 24 hours, sperm 72) and how to know when it’s “that time.” I have written many articles about reproduction, women’s health, and infertility — I should write a simple ebook about it. It’s actually not that complex, but I think most people know much more about how to prevent pregnancy than they do about getting pregnant.
Any path can be taken, but not all paths.
*whisper* Bloom, search Wikipedia for ‘aileron roll’…
Bloom, when you roll a plane (and especially a transport) inverted, the wings produce less lift. So upside-down you push the stick forward (the elevator is reversed when you’re inverted, so forward (down) becomes Up) to keep your horizontal line. This is mitigated in an aerobatic aircraft that offers a symmetrical airfoil, but the plane is still less efficient, and if you’re going to cruise a bit inverted, it’s easier to trim the elevator and lower some of the control pressures.
Any aircraft can be rolled, but I can’t see a broken transport aircraft being rolled in the fashion the movie describes close to the ground.
Famously, the first 707, when it was being demonstrated for its initial buyers, was aileron-rolled. The Boeing CEO was displeased. Here is video of the maneuver and the old-school fighter jock who performed it.
Shorter version: this is a stud pilot. He loses 2000 feet doing his aileron roll. Not going to work when the plane is broken at you’re at 500′. It was funny listening to Denzel shout at his panicked FO to spin the trim. Because I fly upside down, and at least someone making that movie understood how airplanes work.
Also, fat Denzel’s chick was hotter than July.
@ bv lol, yes quite the opening scene! Or do you mean the redhead?
Also, again, a roll is not a chandelle, because a ‘chandelle’ is a wingover. I have no idea why he called it that, but I didn’t fly when that guy, an infinitely better pilot than I, called an aileron roll a chandelle. A chandelle, to my generation, is a hard bank to 90 to 120 degrees of roll, accomplishing a 180 degree turn, before rolling out on straight and level.
Chandelle: this is how the button pushers who fly transports understand a chandelle (video below).
Guys who fly a high performance aircraft, such as Liz’ guy or her dad, do this while banking to 120 degrees: you’re looking at the ground. It’s an extremely modest maneuver. When I was trained, we did this in low-powered trainers.
My friends on the tundra, who fly crop-sprayers, do chandelles 200x a day, 10-250 feet above the ground, when the cockpit is 120 degrees from the heat. They’re aviators. Airline pilots freak out when they see the ground in their windshield. They are the ones who pull aft stick in a stall or inverted event, and kill everyone.
Energy management is life.
Here’s a guy flying 120 degree banks 200′ above the ground with a plane so heavy with chemical that it hardly gets off the ground. That’s a chandelle when error is death. 200x a day, and the cockpit is not cooled. Anyway, Denzel doesn’t do this in the movie.
My Parable of Mac&Cheese…
https://notesfromaredpillgirl.com/2014/06/18/on-sex-in-marriage/comment-page-1/#comment-3546
…was partially directed towards women who wanted to have it all. In the process of squeezing 48 hours into a 24 hour a day, she squeezed out passionate sex with her husband. He found the passion elsewhere.