Smart Women Staying at Home

This morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" there was a segment about women staying at home vs. women in the work force. I would suggest watching it before reading my article.

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I started college with the goal of graduating with my music education degree, moving to Chicago by myself, teaching inner-city middle school music, and changing the world. I am smart, I am passionate about my beliefs and values, and I am a very quick learner. I had no doubt in the world that I couldn't do what I wanted to do. There hadn't ever been anything I wanted that I didn't work for and get for myself. All I knew was success at the highest level.

Three and a half years through my undergrad, I was still going strong. I was taking graduate level education research classes for fun, I had started competitive ballroom dance to expand my understanding of music and make me a better future educator, and I still had every intention of moving to Chicago and changing education in urban schools.

And then I fell in love. Hard. It wasn't "I love you until we graduate and I leave" like my previous relationships had been. It was "I love you forever." The guy I fell in love with I'd known for 4 years, so it wasn't a "whirlwind romance" or anything crazy like that. But within two months of being with him, I wanted to get married, have kids, and be a stay-at-home mom. I had never seriously thought that in my life. When you're young you think, "Someday I want to get married," and that thought had crossed my mind, but it was never really a part of my plan. Ever.

I went through a crisis: suddenly I, this powerhouse woman who was raised to go after her dreams and test boundaries, was wanting to be domestic?! Why was I presenting my research at state conferences when I wouldn't use it? Why did I hate cleaning the kitchen, but wanted to be a stay-at-home mom? Why had I never changed a diaper and only ever babysat anyone once in my life, but now I wanted kids??

I talked to my boyfriend about it and he was fine with the change in my plan (he didn't really want to move to Chicago, anyway!). Both of us had been raised by very present parents (my mom didn't go back to work until I was 10) and he was thrilled that I wanted to stay at home with our kids!

But I wasn't. How could someone who was on a full scholarship to college and didn't ever touch IQ tests because she was scared of the results being too high (teeny bit arrogant--sorry!) stay at home with kids? How on earth could that possibly be fulfilling for me?! At the same time, having kids and reading to them and playing with them and cleaning up their puke and all the other bodily fluids was suddenly what I wanted more than anything. (Even now as I'm writing this, that last sentence brought tears to my eyes because having a baby or two and getting to be with them is still my greatest hope.)

I started to realize that it was possible for me to have both: a career and a family. I would just teach for a few years after graduation so we could save up some money and then when we decided to have a baby I could quit for a few years so I could stay at home. Once the kids were in elementary school, I could go back to work. Seemed like a pretty good plan; and then I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

That was a year ago. I've since gotten engaged to the aforementioned man (He was so amazing to propose to someone with a diagnosis like mine!). We are still planning on having kids, but now we might have to wait longer because I can't teach. I don't have a job (For those of you who saw my post about getting a job last week...she never called me back. Very unhappy about that.) so we are living on one salary, not living on one salary while saving the other salary. I don't even know if I physically can have kids. Fibro patients statistically have more trouble getting pregnant than healthy women. Also, I'm in so much pain at 110 pounds that I don't know what putting another 40 or 50 on would do to me. And then when I have the kid, taking care of them 24/7 might prove to be too much for my stress levels, which means my pain levels would go up and I would be essentially non-contributing to anything. Those will all be bridges to cross in the future.

*Takes deep breath*

So. Like one of the women on the panel this morning said, "Feminism is getting to choose what we want and telling people what we need." I have actually realized in the last year that I like baking, sewing, knitting, designing, and everything else I backed away from because I thought it was too "girly." Even though I had already made the decision that I was going to be a stay-at-home mom when we have kids and now I know I would love it, I feel like my "choice" was made for me a little prematurely.

Joanna Coles, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, asked today on the panel, "Is there something innate in women that makes us anxious that we can't do it all?" For those of us who have the world at our fingertips and all we have to do it step into it to succeed, yes. Yes, I am anxious that I'm not doing enough in relation to the amount of intellect that I have. But I am doing what I know how to do: succeed. It might not seem like it, because I'm not bringing in a six-figure salary like she is, but progress is success, and I am progressing.

My decision to stay at home with my kids and then my fibromyalgia diagnosis has made my "job" right now very complicated. My job is to find a way to feel fulfilled and contribute to our little family, while not physically shutting down. I'm not getting to contribute financially very much right now, but I'm using the skills I have to build an empire that will be profitable in the next few years. ChickOpinion wasn't in existence seven months ago. Now, I've got over 500 Twitter followers and 60 articles published on an outside website. I have people asking me for help with their writing. I share lesson plan ideas and educators with more degrees than I do love them. And I give women like me hope. Women who had it all...and, through no fault of their own, lost it. We will succeed, because I will settle for nothing less.

So for me, I will be a stay-at-home mom. This is a choice I have made. But I will also be the founder and CEO of my own company (ChickOpinion) and nonprofit (in the works) by the time I'm 30. It might not make millions of dollars and put me on the "30 Under 30 to Watch" list, but it will be immensely fulfilling for me and I will get to read to my kids every day. I will get to see my children take their first steps while helping thousands of women who feel as lost as I did a year ago learn to thrive. How can I see any of my future as a negative? It's everything I could possibly want--and it's the best of both worlds.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Is Ignorance Bliss When It Comes to "Breaking News"?

Yesterday my friend, Becky, drove up from Louisville to visit me. She doesn't have a TV and doesn't listen to the news very often. My new apartment is the first place I've had any TV since high school. I've become used to watching the news multiple times a day and keeping up with everything that's going on in the world.

When Becky got here I was watching the live footage of Pope Benedict XVI's last moments in the Vatican. She asked, "Why is this important? We're not Catholic." At first I was incredulous! I couldn't understand why she didn't know that the leader of 1.2 billion people giving up essentially unlimited power was a really big deal. I explained it to her and she seemed nonplussed.

Later on, we got out some food for lunch and she asked why I had so much meat in my fridge (she's vegetarian and it was only a pound of ground turkey and a few pork chops). I told her that if the sequester happened the price of meat was going to go up so I had bought more than normal because it had been on sale. She said, "Yeah, I've heard a little bit about that...what is it?" Again, I was shocked! This is a giant thing that's really going to have an impact on us and she knew nothing about it.

After Becky left, though, I got to thinking about our conversations about current events. I didn't have a TV in our house until I was 16 years old. When we lived in Montana, we listened to the Canadian news radio station for our news in the mornings and that was it. When we lived in Vanuatu, we listened to BBC Australia for our news (when we could get it). When we moved to Louisville, we had a TV, but we weren't interested in 24 hour news networks and didn't even watch the evening news, really. In college, I paid attention to politics, but didn't have a TV, so I got my news from the Internet when I felt like looking for it.

Now, I watch the Morning Joe, Good Morning Tri-State (our local morning news show), Good Morning America, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and ABC World News Tonight every day, as well as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I also sometimes watch AC360 and Piers Morgan Tonight or The Rachel Maddow Show, depending on what they're talking about. And when I'm in the car, I listen to NPR. Oh, and on weekends, it's Up with Chris Hayes. That's a lot of news!

So, why is this even a topic of conversation?

I am concerned about the state of our country on a daily basis. Becky is not. I'm very worried that my fiancé will lose his job and we won't be able to afford our current lifestyle because of the sequester cuts. Becky is not. I'm fascinated and nervous about the next pope (will he address contraception, gay marriage, etc?). Becky is not.

Is ignorance bliss? In all honesty, I remember being in Vanuatu in my early teen years when the Columbia space shuttle didn't make it back safely. We heard about it on the same day--kind of a big deal in and of itself--and it was sad. That's all we heard for a few days and we had time to reflect on it. When we were there, I didn't hear anything that wasn't massive news.

Now, I hear so many "Breaking News" stories that I can't remember what the "breaking news" was yesterday! How do you separate fluff from substance? How is it possible that I watch around six hours of news a day and can't tell you what the headlines from yesterday were, yet my anxiety about the state of the world is at an all-time high?!

So, could the 24-hour news networks, the morning shows, and the evening shows (not to mention the 24-hour connectedness on our mobile devices) be contributing to our country's insane anxiety rate?! I think so.

What do you think?

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Petraeus: Will We Ever Know the Truth?

This morning I was watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" while I was waking up. The anchors spent 15 minutes speculating on Four-Star General David Petraeus's extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. While I am aware of the fact that there are new accounts of timelines of the investigation coming out today, why on earth should we be so arrogant to think that we know the "facts?" This is a case that involves both the CIA and the FBI. How is it possible that these pundits think that they are privy to the actual happenings in this case?

The CIA and FBI are insanely good at keeping whatever information they want to keep private to themselves. If they actually did know about this affair during the summer, I'm sure there is a good reason that they didn't bring it to light. Or maybe there was a bad reason they didn't expose it. Regardless, if they kept this secret for almost six months, they had time to decide how much they're going to share with the media. I'm sure that our intelligence agencies knew this would come to light at some point (affairs like this one have a nasty habit of doing that), so they had time to choose what they were going to tell us.

So far, we, the public, have found out that the affair didn't start until after Petraeus was out of the military. Is it possible that the affair started while Petraeus was still in the military during one of the six trips his biographer made to Afghanistan to work with him? Sure, but Petraeus could face a military trial for adultery if that were the case. That would be incredibly embarrassing for not only the four-star general, but the U.S. military. Is that something the CIA and FBI would have the ability of covering up? Of course.

Some of you might think that I'm being incredibly cynical. I think being cautious is justified. The U.S. doesn't say that we have the best intelligence in the world for nothing; we do. The members of the CIA and FBI are astoundingly good at their jobs and there is no reason for us to think that we are ever going to get the full story of this affair. Petraeus might come out with a "tell all" statement, but he was the director of the CIA. Why on earth should we trust him? He was a professional spy. His job was to be good at covering up the truth and leading people to believe what he needed them to believe.

While I trust the CIA and FBI to keep our country safe, I don't trust them to keep a strict moral code. The people involved in these two agencies are professional spies. I am not going to put my trust in these people on an ethical level when they are asked to lie on a daily basis. Do I want them on my side when it comes to finding terrorists? Absolutely. Do I want them on my side when they're running an undercover op to derail a plot that could compromise our county's security? Yes, I do. But would I marry someone who worked for a U.S. intelligence agency? Not a chance.

Photo credit: Adam Creech, 2012

So, I understand that this is news and it's going to be discussed. But let's all just take a step back, look at the big picture, and realize that we will probably never know the whole truth. I think the one fact we do know is that there are two spouses who are hurting right now because of the actions of Gen. Petraeus and Mrs. Broadwell. Let's keep them and the children of these two reckless people in our thoughts.

Happy Veteran's Day! Thank you to all the men and women who serve and have served our country. Your sacrifices will not be forgotten.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi