The
Dilemma of Motherhood
I'm a girl. An only child born to parents with Master's
degrees. Growing up I received training to become a ballerina,
an actress, public speaker, swimmer, artist, choral musician,
a leader, entrepreneur, model, world
traveler, and writer. I graduated from both High school
and College as Cum Laude. The sky was the limit. I was prepared
to take on the world and to
"make a difference."
I
chose (to my women's college professors' chagrin) to get
married upon graduation and less than two years later become
a mother. In fact I've become a mother five times, with
three surviving children. When I told my father I was pregnant
with my third child he said, "Erin, I'm very
disappointed.
Why did we send you to that expensive college. I was hoping
that you were going to contribute in a meaningful way to
the world." Since then my father and I have ironed
that statement out, but the dilemma of choice
exists today. We as a society now can send our daughters
like rockets into the sky to become or go wherever they
desire. We are trained to excel in every capacity. But what
about becoming a mother and staying at home to make play-dough
and nurse every four hours? The season of early motherhood
is
short, but we as women give up our career potential. Even
working part-time, a mother always feels torn between exercising
the Calculus she mastered in or putting together Elmo puzzles.
Ah, the Dilemma of Motherhood.
As
Women our society tells us we can have it all, but can we
really?
Erin
McGee Ferrell
erinmcgeeferrell10@msn.com
