Career Vs Motherhood

 Career versus motherhood: which one comes first?

Fatima Tuz Zahra

ID#

ENG 105, Section: 14

Course Tutor: Abdus Selim

May 09, 2013

Contents

INTRODUCTION        

BACKGROUND INFORMATION        

RESEARCH AREAS        

HYPOTHESIS        

METHODOLOGY        

DATA PRESENTATION        

DATA ANALYSIS        

SURVEY/ QUESTIONNAIRE        

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS        

CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION        

INTRODUCTION

The modern women have undergone a startling transformation in recent years. Their evolution has progressed in leaps and bounds and their role in society today is a weak reflection of their earlier roles. Nowadays a modern woman not only has to cope with the traditional demands of home, her family, and her increasing responsibilities to her children but also rather difficult task of earning a living and maintaining her career. In today’s world women have to compete side by side with men in the workplace as this is the age of equal opportunities they are not offered any slack, i.e. they are judged and evaluated on the same scale as men. After managing this extreme field, it is indeed a burden of mountainous proportions to come back home and face the equally challenging field, which is family life.

I am especially interested in doing this research paper on ‘Career & Motherhood: which one comes first?” because of the fact that from my childhood I have seen that many women are struggling to balance between their career life and motherhood. Through out this research I tried to find out the problems women face while balancing between these two and why many women have to sacrifice their career for their children or vice versa, and which one is more difficult to choose.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Previously, the choice between career and motherhood was not this prevalent in the lives of women. But come the age of equal opportunities, gender liberation, and overall modernization of society, women are considered to be capable of everything that a man can do. This liberated mentality, though fair and just from a moral point of view, imbues women with an additional role: that of the corporate women. This not only burdens women with an additional responsibility, but also creates an extremely difficult choice further down the line. In particular, the choice between career and motherhood is one of the toughest decisions that a woman has to face during her entire life. From a woman’s point of view, it is like being caught between a rock and a very hard place, in that whatever choice a woman makes, it means a sacrifice of Herculean proportions .In retrospect, it is not really a choice at all, as both career and motherhood are vital to a woman’s well-being.

In the past women were only housewives but now they having multiple roles. It has been found that taking care of a family and raising children well is not something to be taken lightly. So, they are no longer called housewives, rather now they are homemakers. Besides this, nowadays women are more educated, career-oriented and self-dependent, contributing equally in our society’s overall development alongside men. They are trying to balance between their motherhood and career life.

RESEARCH AREAS

In my research I tried to investigate the tough relationship between motherhood and career life, highlighting the importance of each option to different women.  I have tried my best to answer the following questions mostly through the use of various secondary data, along with a bit of primary data.

(a) How important a woman is in a society?

Women are the backbone of any society and as such, they are endowed with a great deal of responsibility. This feat alone makes them indispensable to our society, not taking into account their various skills etc that makes them a formidable force in the working environment as well.       

(b) What kind of difficulties a woman faces while choosing a career?

People are reluctant to bestow women with authoritative roles, positions etc. They believe women are physically and emotionally incapable of coping with the demands of everyday working life. This creates major problems for women when they are looking for recruitment.

(c) What are the difficulties that a woman has to face after choosing a career?

A working woman has various corporate responsibilities which alone take up a major component of her time during a day. To come back home and deal with the hassles of motherhood after all this creates tremendous pressure for a woman. This along with the traditional problems of uncooperative colleagues, hard-to-please bosses and husband avoidance constitute the major problems a woman faces after choosing a career.

(d) What kind of difficulties does a homemaker or mother face?

Understanding child psychology, giving heed to their every need, and raising them in the right manner to enable them to become responsible, mature citizens is a major challenge for any women. Along with these are the challenging tasks of taking care of the home, maintaining a cozy environment to live in, and satisfying ones male counterpart.

(e) What are the obstructions a woman faces while balancing between motherhood and career?

Both motherhood and career are extremely time-consuming tasks and it is indeed difficult to muster enough time for both. A woman can only do so much and managing both these worlds stretches her physically and she faces the problem of physical tiredness. Finally, a mother faces various household pressures as well.

(f) Can a working woman be a good mother?

I have consistently found throughout my research that mothers who work frequently have children with higher reading scores, better language and cognitive ability, and greater confidence and social skills. A working woman can teach, instruct and advise their children in the ways of the world, thus enabling them to become street-smart individuals. All this implies that a working woman can be a better mother than traditional housewives.

(g) Why do many women have to sacrifice their career for their family or vice versa?