A Future of Choices

In celebration of International Women’s Day, I thought I’d write about my hopes and aspirations for my twin daughters’ future, while reflecting on my own life and that of my mother.

 At just five years old, my daughters are growing up in a world different to that of my childhood, and significantly different to that of my own mother’s childhood.  They are growing up in a fast-paced world of technology, with computers and gadgets controlling almost every aspect of our lives.  They are growing up in a world of consumerism, where we have a multitude of choices for food, clothing, household goods, toys, gadgets, and luxury items.  It is a throw-away culture, with people opting to replace items that are still in working order, just so they can upgrade to the latest model or keep up with fashion.  It is a world of celebrity, with reality stars and WAGS, who are famous without having any discernable talent. It is a world of terrorism, where travel is an ever-increasing risk.

I want my girls to enjoy their school days, and will encourage them to progress to further or higher education.  As an advocate of lifelong learning, I am teaching my girls that education is an important privilege.  They should take advantage of the educational resources available to them, because there are many girls in other countries who cannot access even the most basic education.  I firmly believe that education is never wasted.  Therefore, if they change their mind halfway through their studies, or go on to do something completely different after graduating, their time spent learning will still be a positive contribution to their lives.

My own mother reluctantly left school at fifteen to start a job.  A talented artist, she really wanted to go to Glasgow School of Art.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option for her.  She was expected to start earning and contribute to the household.  Although she had been a good scholar at school, my mother was never encouraged to pursue her education, simply because she was a girl.  She had no choice.  This was in 1960.  Her brother, a few years younger, went on to study at university.

My parents always offered support and encouragement to my sister and I, throughout our educational years.  I hope to offer the same level of encouragement to my daughters.  I will support them with their educational choices, such as choosing their subjects for third year, choosing which course to study after school, and what college or university to go to. 

UK legislation and EU Regulations have encouraged equality in the workplace, and I hope that, whatever career path my daughters take, they will be able to progress through the ranks as far as they want.  I hope that they can work in a family friendly environment, just as I do.

I work in local government, which has family friendly policies such as flexible working hours, condensed working weeks, voluntary reduced hours and career breaks.  Public Sector unions fought long and hard throughout the 1980s to achieve these policies, so that women could hold down a job, and still carry out their family obligations.  The policies are for all staff, male and female, meaning fathers can take a more hands-on approach to family matters such as childcare and looking after sick or elderly relatives.  I would like to see more private firms adopt these family friendly policies in the future.  Therefore, no matter what career path my girls choose, they will have a better chance of achieving a work / life balance.

If family friendly working practices are adopted by the majority of companies in the future, it will mean that my daughters should be able to share family responsibilities with their partner.  As it stands just now, it tends to be women who give up their jobs or reduce their hours to look after their children or elderly and sick relatives, with the man being the main breadwinner.  The balance is slowly changing, with many women now earning more than their partner.  In such instances, it may be preferable for the man to reduce his hours or give up his job to look after the house and family.  I see this trend rising in the future.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she gave up her job, as was the normal practice of the 1970s.  She did not return to work until my sister started school, more than ten years later.  In those days, common opinion was that “the woman’s place was in the home.”  She had no choice.

When I had my twin daughters, I was in the fortunate position to be able to take a year off work.  I had six months paid maternity leave, and six months unpaid, followed by two months of backdated annual leave and public holiday entitlement.  I appreciate that not everyone is able to take that length of time off work after having a baby.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time off work with my babies.

I returned to work on a part-time basis, three days per week, with my wonderful in-laws watching my precious daughters while I was working.  Now my daughters are at school and I am back working fulltime, but I’m fortunate that my job is right on my doorstep and I work flexible hours.

When it comes to relationships, I hope that my daughters will find that special someone to settle down with.  My parents have been happily married for over forty years, as have my in-laws.  I have been with my husband for nineteen years, married for almost twelve of them.  Therefore, it would be lovely for my daughters to follow our example. 

I hope that they will get married, but will support their decision if they choose not to.  I hope that they will have a partnership of equals, and never be trapped by domestic abuse or emotional blackmail.  Unfortunately, there are still too many women suffering in these types of relationships and marriages.

In womanhood, my daughters will have access to a much wider choice of contraception than in my mother’s day, or indeed what was widely available to me in the 1990s.  The Mirena, implants, patches and contraceptive injections are widely available now.  The “morning after pill” is also widely available over-the-counter in the UK.  All that was on offer to me, and my mother before me, was the pill, condoms or an IUD (coil).  Indeed, the male pill or contraceptive injection is currently being tested, which will address the bias towards “female contraception”.

I hope that one day, my beautiful daughters will have beautiful children of their own.  However, if they choose not to, I will support them in this decision.

In a way, they are lucky to be growing up in an age, where many advances in fertility treatment have been made or are in the process of development.  It is now possible to delay motherhood, with the help of IVF and other fertility treatments.  Women can now freeze eggs and embryos before undergoing chemotherapy.  Also, many women are becoming mothers with the help of egg donors, sperm donors and surrogates.

Unfortunately, other recent trends have been a rise in teenage pregnancies and abortions.  Obviously this is not something I would want my daughters to experience.  However, if the worst happened, I would certainly be there to help them with their difficult choices, and support them in their decisions.  I hope that I will be an approachable mother to my girls, as they grown up, and that I will be able to have frank discussions with them about sex, relationships, contraception, etc. 

Thankfully, we are no longer living in an age when pregnant schoolgirls and unmarried mothers are shipped off to institutions to have their babies, before being forced to give their children up for adoption.

However, unfortunately we are in an age where abortion is commonplace in women of all ages.  I do not want to debate the arguments for and against this procedure.  All I can say is that I wish that the women of the future will take time to be more responsible in their family planning choices.  I believe that there is so much choice of contraception available to women, that abortions and morning after pills should only be used on rare occasions.

I think the biggest piece of advice I will try to convey to my girls as they grow up, will be that they should not try to “have it all”, as the women of my generation were lead to believe.  I do hope that “it all” will be available and accessible to them, but I will tell them that they must make choices in life in order to lead a happy, healthy, balanced life. 

Yes, they can have a high-flying career if they wish, but they will have to sacrifice their leisure time and family time.   They will have to consider postponing or discounting motherhood.

Yes, they can decide to devote their life (for a while anyway) to raising a family, but that does not mean that they cannot work too.  They can choose to work part-time or from home.

I just want my daughters to be grateful for the choices that they have.  They have these choices because women of the past fought to make changes in legislation, working practices and in the culture and ethos of our country and communities.

I hope that in the future, more women from all over the world will have similar choices available to them.  Sadly, today there are still too many girls denied an education, denied a career and denied a voice in society.

I have written this post for Bloggers Unite for International Women’s Day (IWD).  International Women’s Day is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.  There are events all over the UK and throughout the world to celebrate IWD on March 8^th 2010.  You can find out more by visiting:  http://www.internationalwomensday.com