Monday 18 June 2012

Do I want a career?







I work hard, I have indeed worked hard for a while now, however I work hard because I want things. These days though I am told that one of those things I want is to work even harder and have a successful career.

Career is defined as the progression and success within one’s professional life/occupation requiring special skills and training. Trust me when I say I have plenty of training in certain areas! But why would I want professional success? I bet many of you think it is a stupid question! Having a successful career ensures that I can live well, enjoy the luxuries of life, but more importantly provide for and support my family. I can ensure that my children go to a good school and in turn get the special skills and training to have a career of their own.

Here is the problem though, a career requires an enormous amount of dedication, of both time, effort and energy as well as a gargantuan sacrifice in your personal and social life. Women are expected to strive towards a career just as much as men, it is the benefit of emancipation (or so we are told). Since the Suffragettes and before women alone or together have been fighting for equal rights, pay, and opportunity. Well we are closer now than we were before, in the west at least.

Moving on with the problem...

From an economic and professional point of view having a career is the way forward. From a purely sociological point of view it is a disaster. Imagine this:

A couple get married, both successful professionals, both would like to have a child. Now which one of them to have this child though? Oh no wait, only the woman can have the child, which would mean a career break. I am not saying that a woman cannot have a child AND a career, there are successful career mothers out there, but lets face it they are few and far between in comparison to men in successful job posts. Childbirth is only but a  fraction of that issue, I am aware. This brings me onto my next question. Who raises the children? Mom and Dad are too busy being successful...so our children are raised in the following logic/social environment :


TV - a bunch of half witted fools pump our children’s heads with happy songs about sugary food and drink and plastic toys that they MUST have. Mom and Dad will buy those due to the guilt they experience from not spending time with their children.

Books - replaced by the TV because mom and dad are too busy/ignorant to read to their children and familiarise them with the stories of their own childhood, which were not just entertaining but contain within them ethical and moral lessons about how to function in society so as not to be labeled a sociopath.

Vacations - Gimmicky theme parks full of more merchandise that mom and dad are taking the kids to because they are guilt ridden with the fact that they rarely spent any time with their kids whatsoever. See a theme anyone?

Education - a monotone, drone, one size fits all affair that dulls the brain and attempts to destroy any ability for creative or individual thought. It also can cost a pretty penny if you want it done in institutions that EXCEL in turning your child into a brainless toffyy nosed moron that will get into Harvard, Oxford or Yale and become the career man you dream him to be. (He may also enjoy wearing peoples ears as a necklace due to the lack of any real parental attention, but hey you have a successful career, it comes with a price!)

Future - Dull and uninspiring, possibly littered with some kind of substance abuse due to a lack of real belonging, and a constant need for validation. BUT they will be a successful career person...

Do I want a career? No, categorically not! I want a life, one full of my children’s faces and laughter. One spent growing old with my husband. A life where I have shared my friends’ happiness and they have shared mine. A want to be a successful human being, NOT a successful career person.

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