Since I am not only a fan of, but also a self-professed expert on women, I will graciously offer some advice to the ladies of MTU. With graduation quickly approaching, here are two things to do if you wish to be unhappy.
- Don't get married. Sure, bouncing around like the empowered women on Sex in the City sounds fun. In fact, if you can keep a trim figure, you can play Carrie Bradshaw until thirty-five, maybe even forty. After that, it's more akin to “Watching Sex and the City Reruns and the City”; not only is the alliteration horrific, but I imagine the prospect is likewise.
Men are attracted to fertility. A lot of guys do like the thrill that comes with bagging an older woman, but settling down with a seasoned veteran has few perks. The longer you wait to get married, the slimmer the chances of finding a guy who is even remotely marriageable.
- Don't have kids. This one is surprising simple. At the risk of ruining the dreams of young people everywhere, work is not the place to find happiness. Yes, men and women alike do find some sort of fulfillment in the forty plus hour work week. Yet the accomplishments that you will ultimately treasure will not be the code you wrote, the bridge you designed or even the patent you filed. There isn't a soul alive who wished she spent more time at the office, firing off memos, sitting through meetings and chatting it up at the ever-popular water-cooler.
Motherhood, on the other hand, offers a real chance to “make a difference”. The company you work for does not care about your hobbies and interests, even if your co-workers might. You are a name and a number, and as long as it is economically beneficial to pay you for your labor, you'll remain a cherished employee. On the other hand, your children will care about you and appreciate you, if not always, then certainly in the long run. Any cursory visit with an elderly individual will reaffirm this hypothesis. Those who are old often have a lot of time to themselves. When we do have the privilege of talking to them, we will not hear stories of all the great work they did while employed. Instead, we will hear whimsical anecdotes about loved ones, especially children and grandchildren. It is prudent to heed the implicit advice of those who have more experience than we.
If you keep these two kernels of wisdom firmly ensconced in your cranium, you should be well on your way to a fairly happy existence. However, since you've got that brand new degree, you'll probably want to use it. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but remember that fertility rates do eventually peak; the window of prospective motherhood slams shut at some point in time, never to open again.
Very few of the choices we make have repercussions that resonate throughout our entire lives. Rarer still is the choice that positively affects mankind in any significant and lasting way. Yet perpetuating the human species will leave an impression, by virtue of your progeny themselves, who will likewise influence the world. It is a bit peculiar to have kids merely to be remembered, but doing so does carry with it the distinct possibility of leaving the world a better place than one found it. All the power-point presentations in the world are unlikely to offer monumental impact to this planet of ours in the way that having children will. This world needs good parents more than it needs good bosses.
The choice is yours. May you choose well.
Update: I sent an email to my editor. This is his reply:It was my discretion to decide not to print the article you wrote thisI hope I'm not doing anything unseemly by printing his response. It's not as if anyone is reading this, anyways.
week. In nature, I found it based upon broad generalizations. We want our
opinions to more than debate a position, but also inform on one's side. I
found that this article did not back up it's assumptions that women will
be happy if they get married and have kids, but assumed instead that they
would get unfulfilling jobs. The article would've been better if you
focused on why motherhood allows women to truly make a difference, rather
than attack the "Sex in the City" freelance feminists. I thought it was an
outright attack on single women that lacked substance, being particularly
one-sided. Also, references to "bagging an older woman" or "settling down
with a seasoned veteran" was somewhat unprofessional. Do not try and
offend those you need to persuade the most. Rather, acknowledge their side
and inform them on your position. Please keep this in mind for next week.
Personally, I think it should be up to me if I wish to be "offensive". My editor is clearly an emasculated little boy. The topic du jour was a delicate one, but it was also an important one.
I thought the piece was fairly tactful, considering my distaste for feminism. I merely noted that women have a chance to make a difference by becoming parents, and that chance far surpasses any possibilities of greatness in the "real world". Common sense, or so I thought. I wonder if he's in an "egalitarian relationship".
Oh well. Thus ends another mediocre issue of The Lode, or as my editor puts it: "Congratulations on yet another great week for the Lode! Keep up the good work!"
I prefer the comment from a reader on the opinion page: "and your solution is what exactly? way to write an article with no content or worth. why does the lode consistantly have articles that mention something from the news but do not present any solutions or ideas about the "problem"?"
The reason is that my editor won't print my columns which are offensive but also tend to offer solutions. We prefer an opinion page devoid of opinions.
This has me especially riled up. I was really looking forward to getting this published. Yet again, the readers lose. I'm not trying to be egotistical, merely stating facts. A quick run through of the opinion page will not only prove my point, but cure insomnia as well. Rather than publish an article on a topic which was surely important to at least the females in the Michigan Tech reading audience, we printed the usual drivel.
When a female Tech grad reaches 40, sans husband, sans kids, she's going to be most displeased. I'm not saying my article was so good that it could radically change society; it wasn't that good. But it would have the student body thinking about something that I feel is not only important, but often completely ignored.
Rant complete.
2 comments:
Eric, you should have included a pitch for apple pie, old chap. You could sell those kinds of articles like hot cakes up here where Country Western is still considered music. Where people have pictures of dogs playing poker, painted on velvet, over their mantels.Next to the bowling trophies. I know Im a snob.And i dont want to sound mean but get married and have kids? Have you heard of the fifties? Hi Honey, Im home! Whats for dinner? Been there ,done that, they couldnt produce Darvon fast enough. Watch One Life To Live for a week and check back.
I'm too busy working to dwell on soap operas. This may come down to a creed based difference, as my Catholicism drastically affects my view of the sexes.
My point of the column was twofold:
1) A subtle attack at the current capitalist system. I assume you would agree that happiness is unlikely to be found in a cube. Having dwelled in one for the last two and a half months, I have found it mildly interesting and certainly not painful. Yet if all my life encompassed was cubedom I would be sad indeed. Since most of my fellow students are engineers, they will be finding cubes quickly. Thus, at least this point is important.
2) There is nothing wrong with having children, and I would argue that it is a very high calling. In today's world awash with the relativism of hedonsitic values and with parents often allowing TV to babysit the kid(s), good parents are needed more than ever. I know I am looking for a woman who will help me raise by kids, foregoing her career, hopefully to homeschool them.
Is it likely that a woman will find happiness as a "liberated soul", tossing aside the horrible standards of the fifties for perpetual bacherlotte-dom after age forty? I contend that it is unlikely.
The world views nuns as odd, if perhaps charming. Yet when the secular nuns join the convent--so to speak--late in life, we think that they have triumphed over the standards of antiquity.
Watch the fallout in the upcoming years as feminists have to reconcile their philosophy with the results of it.
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