Leaders of the Future
Yale dorm rooms are kind of small. It’s not unusual to have four students sharing a two-bedroom suite that was built in a previous age for two students, or possibly even for a student and his servant. One of the stories that floated around when I attended is that Yale used to have a goal of admitting "1000 Leaders of the Future" each year. Then they decided to admit women (in 1969!), but they didn’t want to stop admitting "1000 Leaders of the Future," and they didn’t think women could be "Leaders of the Future," so the class size was increased by 250. The story isn’t entirely supported by the data, but it’s certainly believable.
Yesterday’s Times had a story about Yale women who plan on being stay-at-home mothers. It’s been a subject of heated discussion on several of my email lists, as well as of posts at Stone Court, Rebel Dad, And the moon is slowly rising and elsewhere. My usual litany of complaints applies (unrepresentative sample? check. framing of work-family issues as a purely women’s issue? check. little discussion of societal factors at play? check.) And yet, I found myself interested in the article nonetheless.
This blog is named after the subtitle of Peggy Orenstein’s book "Flux." I recognized a lot of myself and my peers in her description of women who in their 20s thought that their possibilities were limitless, but by their 30s had started making accomodations and compromises. Louise Story describes young women who have already concluded that they can’t "have it all," who won’t be so unpleasantly surprised down the road. (Of course, the story doesn’t touch at all on the role of the NYTimes in creating that impression.)
So why was I depressed by this article? Laura at 11d suggests that some of the complaints about the article are signs of prejudice against SAHMs and the work of childrearing. I don’t think that’s my case. My husband is also a Yale grad, and I certainly don’t think he’s "wasting his education" chasing after the boys.
If I really believed that these young women were thinking seriously about what they value, and making career and life decisions based on those values, I’d be cheering about this "trend." But as Ann Bartow points out, law school probably is the last thing you should be signing up for if your goal is to work part-time or to move in and out of the labor force. Why go tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt if you know that you’re only going to work for a short while? Or are Mom and Dad supposed to foot the bill? And can’t you please figure out how to explain your choice in a way that doesn’t involve slamming people who make other choices?
Perhaps the most telling quote in the story is at the end:
"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.’
The scary thing is that Ms. Ku is right. Conformity has worked very well for her so far. Fundamentally, you don’t get into Yale by bucking the system. You get into Yale by sitting in the front row in class, and doing your homework, and doing very well on tests that involve filling in circles with number 2 pencils. You get into Yale by playing a musical instrument or being on the debate team or organzing a major charitable event, or preferably all of the above.
If Yale is still interested in developing the "Leaders of the Future," it needs to figure out a way to admit some more kids who do mind the status quo. And it needs to shake some of the complacency out of the ones who don’t.
September 21st, 2005 at 12:43 pm
Two of the things that bothered me most about the article: 1) it did NOT talk about how moving in and out of the workforce isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to find a job that will let you drop to part-time after you have a baby. It isn’t easy to take three, four, or six years off to have kids and then jump back in. These young women just assume it will be easy for them. These incredibly educated women plan to leave corporate America for a bunch of years while they raise their babies. This is what my group of mom-friends has already done, but we are just floundering, wondering if we’ll ever get back in there in any meaningful way. But it does tell me is that this trend is not going away. And 2) It did not talk about how corporate America is going to *HAVE* to change and adapt to these women. Otherwise, I fear we are moving backwards. I fear that businesses will become even more hesitant (even though it’s illegal), to hire women in the first place, especially women of child-bearning age.
September 21st, 2005 at 12:53 pm
I was frustrated by this story on so many different fronts, it’s hard to know where to start.
One place: sixty percent of respondents from two of Yale’s colleges said they planned on cutting back or leaving the workforce when they had small children. That means that FORTY PERCENT of 185 women didn’t expect to leave the workforce, or didn’t expect to have children. Also, are those percentages higher, or not as high, as the percentages expressed by other groups of women? And how much weight should we give to such a small statistical sample in the first place?
Second place: most of these women are describing sequencing. I read fast, but did ANY of them expect to be at home for their children’s entire lives? Sequencing is OLD news.
Third place: why not interview the men? Why not ask the MEN if they expect to have children? Do they expect to cut back their work hours? If not, why not?
This article rather blatantly and therefore boringly entrenches the status quo. It sends a message to women: this is how you should think of your plans. And by the way, these are PERSONAL plans. The things you might think matter — economic inequalities between men and women workers, social expectations that make it hard(er) for men to ask for paternity leave and part-time work, a framework of child-rearing that depends on educated women being cheerfully underemployed, the feedback loop of primary caregiving and feelings of competence — all those things are issues for you to solve personally. They aren’t social issues deserving communal action. Perish the thought.
September 21st, 2005 at 1:28 pm
I’m so tired of seeing part-time work posed as the answer to the work/parenthood question. Most part-time work in the US is problematic, either because it requires a college degree (privilege), is difficult physical work, receives no benefits, and pays nothing near what people need to live. There has to be a LOT of revolutions happening in almost every field before part-time work could be the answer every woman blithely tosses off in regard to work and parenthod.
Also, though, I think it’s nonsensical to expect young women to really understand the realities of careers, marriages, parenthood at this age. I certainly didn’t, and I’m not sure it’s possible. Having children is one of the classic consciousness-raising points in a woman’s life, and I think it will be for years to come.
September 21st, 2005 at 3:23 pm
I’m looking forward to reading all the blogging on the NYT article. It had me sputtering incoherently. I do think that one of the main things that comes out is the essential naivete of 18 year olds. They start the article with a woman (can I call her a girl?) who is going to Yale, then plans on law school, to “retire” to be a stay-at-home mom at 30. My suspicion is that for an 18 year old, 12 years seems unimaginably far away (after all, 12 years ago, they were kindergartners).
But, I got to say, though I have no idea if a Yale education is “wasted” chasing after kids, I’m pretty sure that 4 years in medical school would be. If our Yale woman lands on my desk for admission to medical school when she’s 22, is it reasonable for me to consider the fact that she plans on quitting the workforce at 30? More scary, is the fact that the very existence of the article is going to make it more likely that some other woman will be judged under the assumption that she’s leaving the workforce just as her training is over.
I do see a difference between me (in college in the 80s) and the students folks are reporting from at Yale (in the 00’s). I’ve talked to my classmates from college, and we all say the same thing. When we were 18, our naivete went the other direction. We just assumed that we would have signicant careers, no less signifant than our husband’s. Now we’re seeing women who are going to school, assuming that their work life will be less important than their partner’s.
OK, now I get to the sputtering, so I’ll stop.
bj
September 21st, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Wow. It sounds like none of the young women quoted in the NYT article have any notion that their projected marriages could ever break up. And I would bet dollars to donuts they can at least ballpark the statistics for divorce in this country.
But none of them are planning to have to support themselves, and those children they will have spent time rearing. What blinders!
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:29 am
A portion of this article was reprinted in our (very conservative) local paper. On the front page. I kept imagining the men my husband works with nodding their heads at the uselessness of sending their daughters back east for college.
Personally, though, I found the article funny. Those girls, what do they know about how the world works? What do they know about what childrearing entails? I was just like them 15 years ago… I think they imagine it’s a break, easy, a way to live the good life while hubby goes off to work — playing with the kids all day long. And then one day the kids go to school, and obviously you can’t play with them anymore, so you might as well go back to the office!
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:21 pm
I had two thoughts on reading that article:
1. MAYBE these women (and their spouses) will finally be able to change “the system” that makes part time work pay so poorly for professionals.
2. When I went back to work six weeks after the birth of my first child, the co-workers who looked down on me the most were guys in their mid-30s whose wives were SAHMs. The Yale women can say all they want about “respecting” all choices, but it doesn’t work that way in real life–people who make parenting choices that are different from yours are bad people/bad parents.
September 22nd, 2005 at 10:52 pm
What bothered me the most was how the women interviewed were so accepting that they would be the ones to stay home. Choosing to be a stay at home parent is one thing, but it seemed like some of these young women were starting out with the assumption that they’d have to. It was depressing.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:38 pm
Funny, I didn’t even consider Yale. I did write to Harvard explaining that I was 14 and would that be a problem, but since they couldn’t be bothered answering, I couldn’t be bothered applying. I did get recruited and accepted by Wellesley, which didn’t mind the fact that I wouldn’t be graduating highschool or my miserable grades, which improved only in 10th grade to prove I could do whatever nonsense was necessary for an A if I had to. I decided not to go to Wellesley, though, on account of the fact that it din’t have no boys. I still think affectionately of the place, though. Had fun at the interview.
In college I ran around and drank a lot, kept house with a boyfriend, learned to fly and hang around with rich kids, danced, hitchhiked, discovered novels and stayed home from my classes to read them, learned how to behave with older men (apparently they still don’t teach that at Yale, if Lost in Translation’s any guide), painted, talked my way into fancy internships, studied abroad by ditching classes and travelling, going to museums, & going to chat with govt officials on my own. Generally did what I pleased. At the end I had a crummy GPA, a job, offers from the LSE, Thunderbird, and some others. Ended up at a fancy place on fellowship.
On the other hand, I do not currently run the World Bank, and I don’t run for office because I don’t think I’m nice enough to idiots to be electable. I suspect that in order to lead the World Bank, or anything else major that you don’t invent and run iron-fisted yourself, you need to do all the usual ass-licking and batshit-hours-working and conforming that Yale and the rest of them like. So sharpen, sharpen, sharpen those pencils, Ms. Ku! If not for yourself, then for your A+++++++++ children!
And yes, I found the thing depressing. And yes, I think the education’s wasted. It’s what, $130K now for 4 years, tuition alone? $130K that could be invested for a kid when she’s 18? That’s one hell of a coming-out party. Listen, I’m raising a kid now, and it’s SLLOOOOOOW. And very often STUUUUULTIFYING. It doesn’t require $130K in tuition. You want broadening experience, go travel, go to libraries and museums, talk to people. It doesn’t cost $130K.
On the other hand, who the hell cares? A handful of rich girls aspire to Stepford? OK.
As for ease of moving in/out of workforce…well, if enough rich girls want to do it, I suspect it’ll happen. Maybe even be a nice thing for the rest of us. After all, this whole Respect Me As a Person Motherhood thing that’s currently going on is entirely the creature of us rich-girl 30something new mothers who’re accustomed to being treated like actual people. I think it’s a great advantage to be wealthy and spoiled. Far as I can make out, these girls very often get what they want.
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:50 pm
Hi. I’ve been meaning to blog about this all week but have been swamped and put it off but your blog made me decide to do it.
I’m going to link there to a good piece in Slate pointing out how problematic the story is from a journalist point of view.
It reads like a trend based more on anecdotes than anything else so it may not really even be a trend.
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
NYT Trend Piece Or Just Anecdotes?
Half Changed World blogs about a New York Times piece that also caught my eye. I noticed it for two reasons: 1) The reporting of a trend toward Yale woman becoming stay at home mom didn’t match anything I’d previously
September 25th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Adult Mistakes And Choices
If you want to read something funny but a tad adult in nature (i.e. don’t read this with your kid around unless you want to explain the concept of porn), read this. If not then read this safe, clean piece:
September 25th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
So what are your favorite SAHM blogger responses to this article? I’m an educated SAHM, and I’m not willing to give up on educating girls yet! I find this assumption that one “uses” one’s education a little odd — most people do not directly use their education in their work. What makes my work (as a mom) different from that of an investment analyst who majored in English?
September 26th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
Alison, a good example of a SAHM response to the article is from Phantom Scribbler, at: http://phantomscribbler.blogspot.com/2005/09/how-ironic-is-it.html
There was a also a lot of discussion of the article on the DC Urban Moms email list.
The two main points that people made were:
a) given the risks of divorce, etc. even people who intend to be SAH parents should have the ability to support themselves and their kids. (I totally agree, although don’t think it makes sense to base your whole life on the possibility that bad things might happen)
b) college shouldn’t be just prep for getting jobs/ making money. (I agree about college, but am more dubious about professional schools as life-enrichment experiences; I also acknowlege that it’s a position of class privilege to be able to go to college without worrying about the economic payoff.)
September 27th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
I don’t think anybody said SAHMs shouldn’t be educated, but I do sincerely question the wisdom of spending $130K to do it. Or paying for grad school.
What makes your work different from an investment analyst’s? Intellectual content, for one; competition, for another. Childrearing doesn’t require, and frequently doesn’t allow, sustained intellectual work, which analysis is. And chances are nobody’s looking to take your job, so you don’t have the adrenaline on, looking for the next brilliant move.
Look, I’m a mostly-SAHM, still. And I use almost none of my formal education in this job, except in complaining mordantly about it and viewing the no-pay/vulnerable situation as a structural political problem. The Phillips curve and forms of fiction don’t come into it at all. In fact, the whole business seems to have softened my brain. I just went back to writing seriously a few months ago, and my stuff’s terrible now. I’ve halfway forgotten how to write, the discipline’s gone, and on the whole I don’t think I’ve written this poorly in 15 years. I’m even out of practice with critical vocabulary. Other artists I know who’ve taken time off for kids have similar complaints, esp. musicians. I suppose this is what happens after two years of no concentration, sleep deprivation, and days full of, “Is that for me? That’s BEAUTIFUL!”
Oy. No, it’s no good for your brain, the SAHM gig. Not good for mine, anyway.
amy
September 27th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
and to prove the point, I forgot to finish drawing the distinction. The fin analyst might not have studied fin, but even English would’ve taught her some intellectual discipline, the habit of long spells of intellectual work, and the ability to construct arguments. Competition is part of the academic world, too.
May 26th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Thirty years ago or so the Reader’s Digest ran one of its anecdote-stories about a dad who responded to a questionnaire which came from Vassar for his newly-admitted daughter and which asked: “Is your daughter a leader?” He said, he didn’t know about ‘leader’ but that his daughter was a pretty good follower. And he got back a letter from the dean of Vassar saying something like “Congratulations. In the incoming class at Vassar there are 364 leaders and one follower!”
My wife is not normally judgmental, generally her view is that we have our life and others have theirs. But she went to law school, we are raising three, we both work – she for a very demanding downtown firm – and we are caring for her aging mother. So when we met a mom at school who had left law work to take care of her one child and be a SAHM her reaction was, what a waste, why did she take a seat in law school from someone else? I think that’s basically my reaction, too: graduate education is a scarce good, and it should go to people who will use it.