Prodigious Professional Problems

Years ago a classmate of mine confided to me, through prodigious sad tears, that she did not know what to do. Her family—in China—had sent her to a preeminent research university half a world away to get an education with the expectation that she would return, be married and have a family. But now a world of opportunity lay before her that put her at odds with her family’s wishes. If I remember correctly, she wanted to change her major, go on to medical school and do clinical research, here in the States. Her family threatened to cut her off and she wasn’t so sure herself what she wanted irrespective of her family’s threats.

Another friend of mine is torn between an urge to put even greater time and effort into her academic career and spending the time it takes to find a mate and have a family. She sees the tug as being in opposite directions. Perhaps they’re not a full 180 degrees apart, but I’d say they form at least an obtuse angle. It’s frankly naïve to think you can have it all—family requires sacrifices, from both parties and uniquely so from the woman.

And then there’s me. I find so very attractive a bright woman, especially if she shares something of my intellectual curiosity (gosh I’m so self-conscious of how haughty this sounds, but can’t find better words). These have usually been educated, professional types. In my little limited experience, though, the sort of sacrifice that raising a family requires presents folks like this with a tough dilemma if not an outright intractable problem. In fact, to be perfectly honest, most of the women I’ve known in law school, for example, have been downright hostile or at least equivocal about marriage and family life. So, am I barking up the wrong tree? I’m speaking here merely in terms of generalizations, but I wonder, maybe I can no more have it all than she can. (And no I don’t expect she’ll be perfect, but that’s not what I’m referring to here.) I probably need to rethink my priorities, no?

Actually, my views on the topic are probably not so uncertain as I let on, but this is an issue I like to hear other folks' views on, probably because it's one a lot of woman I've cared about have had to struggle with and I like to hear how others have resolved it.

(And please, just take what I've written here at face value; this is not a discourse on what gender roles ought to be, for example.)

(One more aside: I just finished The Far Side of the World, a Jack Aubrey novel by Patrick O'Brien and so it's no wonder a word like "prodigious" snuck into this post. Gosh, I sound so stuffy sometimes in my writing. I swear, I'm not like this in person, certainly not if you buy me a pint or two! I wonder, is my writing voice really so different from my actual person as I think?))