To Breed or Not To Breed?

Unless you've been living under a rock, or listening to too much Rush Limbaugh, I'm sure some menses mama in you life has made you aware of Anne Marie Slaughter's recent article, Why Women Still Can't Have it All, in The Atlantic. Go read it.

Ok. Finished?

I'm sure you're feeling a lot of things right now-I was, after reading it. Sad. Indignant. Confused. Inspired. Why can't women (ok, humans) have it all? Why is it so hard to find a comfortable and fruitful work/life balance? This extremely important topic was also touched upon at this tremendous mentoring workshop I attended a few weeks ago. It's a topic constantly on the minds and lips of the women (and men) of academia (and industry). But I noticed an important topic missing from the conference proceedings, and I notice something important missing from Dr. Slaughter's essay.

Now read this. Don't worry, this one's much shorter.

The one surefire route to a successful work life balance: Don't have kids. Oh yeah, we always forget about that one. As a 27 year old woman, who is still very much on the fence about childrearing, I am constantly curious why that isn't presented as a viable option? Why is the questions always "When's the right time to have kids?" or "How do we balance our work and our children?" rather than "How do we balance our work and our desire to be productive contributors to the human race?"

I resent the notion that childlessness is equivalent to selfishness. The most most unselfish thing a person can do, is live a life of joyful exuberance, spent building lasting and loving relationships. Those relationships can be with anyone, but in particular with one person- yourself. Children are great, and don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that my parents decided to have me. But they aren't for everyone, and we, as a society, need to allow that to be a woman's choice. Maybe I want to be the first spinster president of the united states? That's ok. Maybe I want to be a humanitarian, and devise public policy to help the millions of malnourished and undereducated children in the world today. That's ok too. Maybe I want to get married and be a mother of 5. It's all possible.

The bottom line: we all need to do what we do best, and do it without shame and regret. We are a human race, and be they your children, or my children, we are all sharing this society, so in the words of my mama, we must "compassionately coexist."

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