Trick or Treat

It is truly a shame that I wasn't born into more socially acclimated
circles of the highest society, most preferably in the late 19th or
earliest 20th centuries. My command of conversation has become quite
good and my outer awareness provides for a myriad of knowledge on
mostly inconsequential, however interesting topics. I imagine I might
have fit well within the confines of tea parties, domestic duties,
dinner guests and summer cottages in the South of France, at least it
would have been more simple then.

It would have been easy to marry well. Now, there exist too many
options which end up forcing me to reckon with my limits and that is
uncomfortable. In the past, social constructs prettily and neatly
outlined ones role. Now, ever since the feminists messed up the social
order, I am made to compete with sets of double standards. I could
have spent my days writing, reading, painting, and knitting while my
ten children romped around the sculpted gardens with their nannies and
attendants. My husband, he could have gone out of town for months on
end for important business and I could have had numerous affairs with
dashing young men. Now, I am expected to balance a career, a family,
and a personal life without the nanny, the sculpted gardens, or
glamorous affairs with amorous admirers.

So, perhaps the feminist movement stopped short and left us with a
situation worse than that we started with. Society still demands that
women be the caretakers of their young spawns and that they attend to
domestic duties and that they contribute to the financial stability of
their family unit. That sounds absolutely more suffocating to me in
every fathomable way. It seems that something must give and I for one
am not ready to sacrifice my personal sanctity. The day I allow my
obligations to get in the way of personal fulfillment is the day that
someone should push me off of a bridge.

I am not saying one cannot be personally fulfilled by raising
children, or by having a glorious professional career, or by achieving
high levels of intellectual stimulation I am saying that people should
not expect to do it all and to do it well and to be happy. If I choose
to reproduce then I will expect that either my husband or I will be
present to raise those children. I don't think that is something that
can be compromised or sacrificed and it makes me terribly sad to know
children who only have contact with their parents on weekends or a for
a few hours each evening. Such a situation only breeds instability and
I would argue the lack of proper support and love experienced by
children today is responsible for all the dysfunction and tragedy we
witness.

So when I share with people my trepidation about having children they
often accuse me of being selfish. Thinking you can do it and have it
all is what is selfish.