I'm amazed at the sheer number of articles in the press recently discussing womens choices & parenting.
I'm not entirely sure what the reasons are for this sudden coverage, but I do find myself thinking that the choices of women of childbearing age are being scrutinized to a much greater degree than in recent years.
Every day there seems to be yet another article or study reported in the mainstream press covering off one of the following:
Breastfeeding
The appropriate age to bear children
Having it all
IVF (often in relation to having it all / appropriate age to bear children)
The appropriate lifestyle to have while pregnant / trying to get pregnant / breastfeeding
Maternity leave / parental leave
Working mothers
I find this in itself fascinating. What has happened culturally that the press (& blogs & comments boards) seem to spend so much time dissecting the choices of this section of society?
There's no doubt that deciding to become a parent involves a lot of hard choices, particularly given the current wages to house price ratios. I also agree that many women of my generation were raised to live much more public lives than previous generations & to gain respect through a career (or essentially making lots of money). I've not had to do so, but I imagine questioning that would be quite difficult for both parties in the relationship, particularly if things had been very 'equal' before.
Sadly I do think that one unfortunate side effect of all the recent articles has been to make it much more socially acceptable to be openly critical of a woman's choices. Oddly, there seems to be very little talk of fathers choices, which seems a shame because one would assume that the decision to have little Junior go to breakfast club & after school club then be picked up by the nanny would not be solely down to the mother.
(For clarity & to avoid adding complexity, I'm assuming little Junior has a mother & father who live as a family unit. Obviously if that's not the case, things can start to get a bit more complicated.)
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andrewducker) wrote2009-11-02 11:03 am
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I'm not entirely sure what the reasons are for this sudden coverage, but I do find myself thinking that the choices of women of childbearing age are being scrutinized to a much greater degree than in recent years.
Every day there seems to be yet another article or study reported in the mainstream press covering off one of the following:
I find this in itself fascinating. What has happened culturally that the press (& blogs & comments boards) seem to spend so much time dissecting the choices of this section of society?
There's no doubt that deciding to become a parent involves a lot of hard choices, particularly given the current wages to house price ratios. I also agree that many women of my generation were raised to live much more public lives than previous generations & to gain respect through a career (or essentially making lots of money). I've not had to do so, but I imagine questioning that would be quite difficult for both parties in the relationship, particularly if things had been very 'equal' before.
Sadly I do think that one unfortunate side effect of all the recent articles has been to make it much more socially acceptable to be openly critical of a woman's choices. Oddly, there seems to be very little talk of fathers choices, which seems a shame because one would assume that the decision to have little Junior go to breakfast club & after school club then be picked up by the nanny would not be solely down to the mother.
(For clarity & to avoid adding complexity, I'm assuming little Junior has a mother & father who live as a family unit. Obviously if that's not the case, things can start to get a bit more complicated.)
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