When Is It Acceptable To Venture Into Motherhood???
I like to observe life as I go through it and one thing that continually catches my eye are pregnant women. I’ve seen the looks that a future mother gets when she is pregnant and still in high school. I especially see the elderly women look down on those young ladies, typically the ones that particularly are in church or just seen walking down the hallways of their schools. I understand that we are in a different age in time where young ladies don’t get married at 13 to have children at 14 and that is no longer seen as acceptable. But then I see the college freshmen and sophomores that are soon to be due and I really start to ponder on is that acceptable or not by society standards. The young women are adults by law and are in college, which is a school that isn’t required law and is even allowed to skip college to go straight into careers if that is what pleases them. I bet that if that same young lady was around the age of freshman/sophomore in college but decided to take the life of going straight into the workforce, motherhood wouldn’t be seen as odd. I start to wonder, is motherhood not acceptable as long as you are in school, no matter what level one is on. However, that can’t be precise because I know that women in graduate school aren’t given those looks or treated as such. The professors may even give praise seeing these women going through the hardship of pregnancy and still continuing with school, because most of the time women in graduate school have a bachelor’s degree and have been working in the workforce meaning they have already created a stable life for their future family. But sometimes even those women still have a problem! Some jobs try to make women feel that their life is work and they shouldn’t even start thinking about a family until their 30’s. Maybe it’s just me but I feel that the late 20’s is an acceptable age because if when women have children too late into their 30’s, they seem to have more risk against them that can cause problems with child birth. Also, women patience start to run thin in their 30’s and may not have the energy they had in their 20’s. I feel that careers put women in between a rock and a hard place. No wonder why more men are in higher positions than women. It’s because they have that opportunity of building their reputation by not having to take time off and risk someone else getting a promotion because of them being on maternity leave. And even then I think, is it acceptable to have a child in your late 30’s? The way this generation is going, people may think that those toddlers are the woman’s grand kids. I can only imagine how that would make a mother who put her career before having kids earlier may feel.