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Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:00:21 -0400
To: "David Morris, PhD" <thecat &AElig umich.edu>
Cc: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Robert Felty <robfelty &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: NYtimes article: Many women at elite colleges set career path to Motherhood
Status: O

Thanks for the comment, Dr. Dave Morris, Ph.D.,

I am plenty willing to stay at home, do laundry, cook, clean and look  
after the kids while Clare makes the big bucks being an engineer.  I  
really think that it is best if one parent can be with the kids  
pretty much full time while they are very young.  My mom went back to  
work when I entered 7th grade, and I think that was good for her.

Rob

On Sep 27, 2005, at 9:45 AM, David Morris, PhD wrote:

> What really bothers me is not that women are planning to be stay at  
> home parents, but that so few men are. I think it's good that the  
> pendulum has swung back this way, and I think we'll see a  
> generation of better, smarter, happier, more responsible children  
> because of it. I think we need more change in that direction,  
> convincing men how critical they are to good child rearing. Ideally  
> both parents should cut back on their careers significantly to  
> raise children.
>
> If you have two kids spaced two years apart and stay at home until  
> they get into school, that's 8 years, or less than 10% of your  
> life. Not a big sacrifice compared to the payoff, certainly not a  
> reason not to get an excellent degree and plan a high powered  
> career. Granted it's not like you can go back to working 60 hours a  
> week after the kid starts 1st grade, but the problem becomes more  
> tractable then, especially if you can balance child-rearing time  
> with your spouse. I hate it when they make it sound like you've  
> chosen to throw away your professional life because you've had  
> children. It's an impediment, but it's not a binary switch, it's  
> not nearly as bad as they make it out to be.
>
> In fact it should be a law in this country that you should be able  
> to work down to 50% time and they're not allowed to fire you for it  
> if you have kids, regardless of your gender. That would really help.
>
> Dave
>
> On Sep 26, 2005, at 5:27 PM, Bethany Soule wrote:
>
>
>> If you're interested in the current state of feminism/equality of the
>> sexes:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html? 
>> pagewanted=1&ex=3D1128225600
>>
>> I'm including the article below so you can read it without having to
>> actually go to the NYTimes site, but it's going to make this e- 
>> mail hugely
>> long. Sorry.
>>
>> Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
>>
>> By LOUISE STORY
>> Published: September 20, 2005
>>
>> Cynthia Liu is precisely the kind of high achiever Yale wants:  
>> smart (1510
>> SAT), disciplined (4.0 grade point average), competitive (finalist in
>> Texas oratory competition), musical (pianist), athletic (runner) and
>> altruistic (hospital volunteer). And at the start of her sophomore  
>> year at
>> Yale, Ms. Liu is full of ambition, planning to go to law school.
>>
>> Emily Lechner, at home in North Potomac, Md., with her mother,  
>> Carol, is a
>> student at Yale who plans to become a lawyer, but who says her  
>> career will
>> take a back seat once she starts having children.
>>
>> So will she join the long tradition of famous Ivy League  
>> graduates? Not
>> likely. By the time she is 30, this accomplished 19-year-old  
>> expects to be
>> a stay-at-home mom.
>>
>> "My mother's always told me you can't be the best career woman and  
>> the
>> best mother at the same time," Ms. Liu said matter-of-factly. "You  
>> always
>> have to choose one over the other."
>>
>> At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their
>> place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost  
>> taken for
>> granted that, just as they make up half the students at these
>> institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal  
>> basis with
>> their male classmates.
>>
>> There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women  
>> say that
>> is not what they want.
>>
>> Many women at the nation's most elite colleges say they have already
>> decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising
>> children. Though some of these students are not planning to have  
>> children
>> and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others,  
>> like Ms.
>> Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with  
>> motherhood
>> their main commitment.
>>
>> [Some readers have asked about the reporting that went into this  
>> article.
>> The reporter, Louise Story, explains in a separate article  
>> published Sept.
>> 23.]
>>
>> Much attention has been focused on career women who leave the work  
>> force
>> to rear children. What seems to be changing is that while many  
>> women in
>> college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time  
>> careers, their
>> daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to
>> suspend or end their careers when they have children.
>>
>> "At the height of the women's movement and shortly thereafter,  
>> women were
>> much more firm in their expectation that they could somehow combine
>> full-time work with child rearing," said Cynthia E. Russett, a  
>> professor
>> of American history who has taught at Yale since 1967. "The women  
>> today
>> are, in effect, turning realistic."
>>
>> Dr. Russett is among more than a dozen faculty members and  
>> administrators
>> at the most exclusive institutions who have been on campus for  
>> decades and
>> who said in interviews that they had noticed the changing attitude.
>>
>> Many students say staying home is not a shocking idea among their  
>> friends.
>> Shannon Flynn, an 18-year-old from Guilford, Conn., who is a  
>> freshman at
>> Harvard, says many of her girlfriends do not want to work full time.
>>
>> "Most probably do feel like me, maybe even tending toward wanting  
>> to not
>> work at all," said Ms. Flynn, who plans to work part time after  
>> having
>> children, though she is torn because she has worked so hard in  
>> school.
>>
>> "Men really aren't put in that position," she said.
>>
>> Uzezi Abugo, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania who  
>> hopes to
>> become a lawyer, says she, too, wants to be home with her children at
>> least until they are in school.
>>
>> "I've seen the difference between kids who did have their mother  
>> stay at
>> home and kids who didn't, and it's kind of like an obvious  
>> difference when
>> you look at it," said Ms. Abugo, whose mother, a nurse, stayed  
>> home until
>> Ms. Abugo was in first grade.
>>
>> While the changing attitudes are difficult to quantify, the shift  
>> emerges
>> repeatedly in interviews with Ivy League students, including 138  
>> freshman
>> and senior females at Yale who replied to e-mail questions sent to  
>> members
>> of two residential colleges over the last school year.
>>
>> The interviews found that 85 of the students, or roughly 60  
>> percent, said
>> that when they had children, they planned to cut back on work or stop
>> working entirely. About half of those women said they planned to  
>> work part
>> time, and about half wanted to stop work for at least a few years.
>>
>> Two of the women interviewed said they expected their husbands to  
>> stay
>> home with the children while they pursued their careers. Two  
>> others said
>> either they or their husbands would stay home, depending on whose  
>> career
>> was furthest along.
>>
>> The women said that pursuing a rigorous college education was  
>> worth the
>> time and money because it would help position them to work in  
>> meaningful
>> part-time jobs when their children are young or to attain good  
>> jobs when
>> their children leave home.
>>
>> In recent years, elite colleges have emphasized the important  
>> roles they
>> expect their alumni - both men and women - to play in society.
>>
>> (Page 2 of 3)
>>
>> For example, earlier this month, Shirley M. Tilghman, the  
>> president of
>> Princeton University, welcomed new freshmen, saying: "The goal of a
>> Princeton education is to prepare young men and women to take up  
>> positions
>> of leadership in the 21st century. Of course, the word 'leadership'
>> conjures up images of presidents and C.E.O.'s, but I want to  
>> stress that
>> my idea of a leader is much broader than that."
>>
>> She listed education, medicine and engineering as other areas where
>> students could become leaders.
>>
>> In an e-mail response to a question, Dr. Tilghman added: "There is  
>> nothing
>> inconsistent with being a leader and a stay-at-home parent. Some  
>> women
>> (and a handful of men) whom I have known who have done this have  
>> had a
>> powerful impact on their communities."
>>
>> Yet the likelihood that so many young women plan to opt out of
>> high-powered careers presents a conundrum.
>>
>> "It really does raise this question for all of us and for the  
>> country:
>> when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for  
>> women,
>> what kind of return do we expect to get for that?" said Marlyn  
>> McGrath
>> Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard, who served  
>> as dean
>> for coeducation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
>>
>> It is a complicated issue and one that most schools have not  
>> addressed.
>> The women they are counting on to lead society are likely to marry  
>> men who
>> will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be
>> full-time mothers, unlike those women who must work out of economic
>> necessity.
>>
>> It is less than clear what universities should, or could, do about  
>> it. For
>> one, a person's expectations at age 18 are less than perfect  
>> predictors of
>> their life choices 10 years later. And in any case, admissions  
>> officers
>> are not likely to ask applicants whether they plan to become stay- 
>> at-home
>> moms.
>>
>> University officials said that success meant different things to  
>> different
>> people and that universities were trying to broaden students'  
>> minds, not
>> simply prepare them for jobs.
>>
>> "What does concern me," said Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale  
>> College, "is
>> that so few students seem to be able to think outside the box; so few
>> students seem to be able to imagine a life for themselves that isn't
>> constructed along traditional gender roles."
>>
>> There is, of course, nothing new about women being more likely  
>> than men to
>> stay home to rear children.
>>
>> According to a 2000 survey of Yale alumni from the classes of  
>> 1979, 1984,
>> 1989 and 1994, conducted by the Yale Office of Institutional  
>> Research,
>> more men from each of those classes than women said that work was  
>> their
>> primary activity - a gap that was small among alumni in their 20's  
>> but
>> widened as women moved into their prime child-rearing years. Among  
>> the
>> alumni surveyed who had reached their 40's, only 56 percent of the  
>> women
>> still worked, compared with 90 percent of the men.
>>
>> A 2005 study of comparable Yale alumni classes found that the  
>> pattern had
>> not changed. Among the alumni who had reached their early 40's,  
>> just over
>> half said work was their primary activity, compared with 90  
>> percent of the
>> men. Among the women who had reached their late 40's, some said  
>> they had
>> returned to work, but the percentage of women working was still  
>> far behind
>> the percentage of men.
>>
>> A 2001 survey of Harvard Business School graduates found that 31  
>> percent
>> of the women from the classes of 1981, 1985 and 1991 who answered the
>> survey worked only part time or on contract, and another 31  
>> percent did
>> not work at all, levels strikingly similar to the percentages of  
>> the Yale
>> students interviewed who predicted they would stay at home or work  
>> part
>> time in their 30's and 40's.
>>
>> What seems new is that while many of their mothers expected to have
>> hard-charging careers, then scaled back their professional plans only
>> after having children, the women of this generation expect their  
>> careers
>> to take second place to child rearing.
>>
>> "It never occurred to me," Rebecca W. Bushnell, dean of the School  
>> of Arts
>> and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, said about working  
>> versus
>> raising children. "Thirty years ago when I was heading out, I  
>> guess I was
>> just taking it one step at a time."
>>
>> Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
>>
>> (Page 3 of 3)
>>
>> Dr. Bushnell said young women today, in contrast, are thinking and  
>> talking
>> about part-time or flexible work options for when they have children.
>> "People have a heightened awareness of trying to get the right  
>> balance
>> between work and family."
>>
>> Sarah Currie, a senior at Harvard, said many of the men in her  
>> American
>> Family class last fall approved of women's plans to stay home with  
>> their
>> children.
>>
>> "A lot of the guys were like, 'I think that's really great,' " Ms.  
>> Currie
>> said. "One of the guys was like, 'I think that's sexy.' Staying at  
>> home
>> with your children isn't as polarizing of an issue as I envision  
>> it is for
>> women who are in their 30's now."
>>
>> For most of the young women who responded to e-mail questions, a  
>> major
>> factor shaping their attitudes seemed to be their experience with  
>> their
>> own mothers, about three out of five of whom did not work at all,  
>> took
>> several years off or worked only part time.
>>
>> "My stepmom's very proud of my choice because it makes her feel more
>> valuable," said Kellie Zesch, a Texan who graduated from the  
>> University of
>> North Carolina two years ago and who said that once she had  
>> children, she
>> intended to stay home for at least five years and then consider  
>> working
>> part time. "It justified it to her, that I don't look down on her  
>> for not
>> having a career."
>>
>> Similarly, students who are committed to full-time careers, without
>> breaks, also cited their mothers as influences. Laura Sullivan, a
>> sophomore at Yale who wants to be a lawyer, called her mother's  
>> choice to
>> work full time the "greatest gift."
>>
>> "She showed me what it meant to be an amazing mother and maintain a
>> career," Ms. Sullivan said.
>>
>> Some of these women's mothers, who said they did not think about  
>> these
>> issues so early in their lives, said they were surprised to hear that
>> their college-age daughters had already formed their plans.
>>
>> Emily Lechner, one of Ms. Liu's roommates, hopes to stay home a  
>> few years,
>> then work part time as a lawyer once her children are in school.
>>
>> Her mother, Carol, who once thought she would have a full-time  
>> career but
>> gave it up when her children were born, was pleasantly surprised  
>> to hear
>> that. "I do have this bias that the parents can do it best," she  
>> said. "I
>> see a lot of women in their 30's who have full-time nannies, and I  
>> just
>> question if their kids are getting the best."
>>
>> For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered  
>> many
>> young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of
>> traditional roles.
>>
>> "They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're  
>> accepting
>> it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and  
>> women's and
>> gender studies at Yale. "Women have been given full-time working  
>> career
>> opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it.
>>
>> "I really believed 25 years ago," Dr. Wexler added, "that this  
>> would be
>> solved by now."
>>
>> Angie Ku, another of Ms. Liu's roommates who had a stay-at-home  
>> mom, talks
>> nonchalantly about attending law or business school, having perhaps a
>> 10-year career and then staying home with her children.
>>
>> "Parents have such an influence on their children," Ms. Ku said.  
>> "I want
>> to have that influence. Me!"
>>
>> She said she did not mind if that limited her career potential.
>>
>> "I'll have a career until I have two kids," she said. "It doesn't
>> necessarily matter how far you get. It's kind of like the  
>> experience: I
>> have tried what I wanted to do."
>>
>> Ms. Ku added that she did not think it was a problem that women  
>> usually do
>> most of the work raising kids.
>>
>> "I accept things how they are," she said. "I don't mind the status  
>> quo. I
>> don't see why I have to go against it."
>>
>> After all, she added, those roles got her where she is.
>>
>> "It worked so well for me," she said, "and I don't see in my life  
>> why it
>> wouldn't work."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> David P. Morris, PhD
> aka thecat &AElig umich.edu, aka KB8PWY
> home: 734-995-5525  UofM (2104 SPRL): 734-763-5357  fax: 734-763-5567
> ElectroDynamic Applications Inc.
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