Let's hear it for the boys

A couple weeks ago on 30 Rock there was the following joke:

"I feel about as useless as a mom's college degree."

It's a great joke but I'm still not sure if I let out a 'ha' or an 'oof' when Kenneth said it. It felt a little below the belt, and the joke brought up a lot of issues I'm sifting through right now as I plan to go on the job market and the mister and I start to think about having kids. It so happens my two major life paths are diverging at the same point: right now could be the best time to have kids and right now could be the best time to start my career. And it seems like choosing one over the other is more serious than changing up a Netflix queue.

The joke also brought up a bigger issue of the options the women of this generation now have to have a family or not, to pursue a career and family, or to pursue career and then pursue a family. There's a lot of baggage still about staying at home or working and being a mom. As much as my own mother tells me that the first five years really isn't that long and I can easily pursue a career again once the kids are in school, I still have some feminist resentment that after those five years I will probably be back at the bottom of the ladder in my field. But I also feel liberated by the fact that I could completely walk away from this career path, raise a family, and be judged harshly by few people for doing it. I could render my PhD 'useless' and make bank as a 'mommy blogger', joining the cadre of highly intelligent, educated women who make a career out of their daily lives and frustrations.

I also realized the flipside to all of this is that the mister doesn't have this option, a fact which was made all the more apparent when we talked one morning about our parents' reactions to our career decisions. My parents never once pushed me towards any career path (although I do remember my dad telling me when I was 12 to become a flight attendant because I could travel) and they never expressed any concern about if or when I would have a job. The miso, on the other hand, was offered a franchise in place of a college education and faced an uphill battle with his parents upon leaving computers for dead languages. While I realize my parents probably assumed that I would 'meet a nice boy' someday and my education was more for life experience than ensuring an income that could support a family, I feel more liberated than subjugated. I was able to happily pursue my interests and now I can happily decide to stay at home and watch Sesame Street, while the burden falls on the mister, at least according to common opinion, to provide for the whole family. I know myself, and I know that I will always want to have my own income and will probably never look to my husband to be the sole provider, but a large number of stay-at-home moms, women who pursued advance degrees, are doing just that. Not to betray my feminists tendencies or anything, but I think I might be done bitching about having to stay at home. For now at least. When I'm up to my elbows in poo and cease to have adult conversations, I'm sure I'll have no end of feminist tirades. But for now, at least, let's hear it for the boys.