I got my first job in 2005. I’ve been dreamed the day for 20 years. I want to work hard and get really good pay. However, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get, three month later I got a baby.
-Are you kidding me? My career just started; My shinning future is waving in front of me. I got a baby?
I knew If I kept it, my workmates will go straight forward to the shinning future and I will remain on the spot for long time. Baby or Career, it a question. What should I do?
Then My husband said:
-We will have baby sooner or later, right? Now we have one (let’s have a baby now)”.
- What about my work?
-It’s ok, you have me, honey”
Nine years later, My baby became a fourth grade primary school student and I’m still a junior staff of our company. One day I met my classmate who entered the same company in the same year. He worked in North Africa for 9 years, and went back recently. He’d already been one of the senior supervisors of our company. Imagine that our career is like a building, the building has 20 floors, when I’m still in 6 floor, he’d already in16 floor. The fact shocked me, I knew there are some gaps between us, but I never realized how huge the gaps were.
Once I thought maybe it’s because of my early coming baby but I knew it's not. Actually It is because I made my choice. I choose to be a mother and wife rather than a good staff. I spend most of the time on my family and my classmate he spends the same amount of time on work. I thought the housework and babysitting things were all on me and I had no choice. Why did I think in this way?
Thousands years ago Our ancestors made a lot of rules in order to survive in the savage world. The rules in the past become the traditions of today. As time changed some traditions are no longer suitable. But the traditional ideas are so deep in our minds that we couldn’t help using them in our daily life.
“Man should work out and women should stay at home” is the most common one. The view indicates that man should focus on his career and women should take care of the family.
However when we think through, the concept cannot be sustained at all. Nowadays More and more women go out to work. The root of the traditional view has changed. However most of us including women themselves still believe in “Women should take the main responsibility of families . When there is family or career question, women often feel there is no reason to choose career instead of family. And this explains why I choose to have a baby but not my career.
However why couldn’t women have both family and career?
Actually we could, As long as both men and women understand that women are not only wives and mothers but also individuals, they also have needs of self-actualized, As long as men could share part of the family duties.
After thinking all this through, I talked to my husband.
-Honey, I’ve been thinking about my career for a while. I realized that I don’t just want to be a good wife and good mum. I want to be successful on my work also.
-Really? I thought you are not interested in your job. Even though I respect your choice.
-That’s great, but I need you actual support. Would you please do more housework and take more effort in guidance of child?
-What about my work?
-You have me, honey
After the talking, we reassigned the housework, if I do the cooking, he would do the dishing. If I do the laundry and he would mop the floor. We adjust the work time as well. If I have to work overtime, he would back home on time. If he needs to have business dinner, I would take my work home. Just Ensure there always at least one of us is at home.
I made one small step, I changed my family. Two years passed, I’ve got promotion and my pay doubled. I love my son more than ever. I know I can go even further on my work.
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. As long as you know you always have choice, you would make a better life and a better world.
