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“NO” is an extremely powerful choice option

“NO” is an extremely powerful choice option

Recently, I have been reflecting on the power of choice.

As a citizen activist, I work to ensure that Americans make fully informed voting choices.  This attitude carries over to my selection of post topics.

For example, when one disgraceful businesswoman attempts to persuade college students to become cheaply paid porn interns, I offer an entirely different take on the adult film industry.

I want young men and women elevating themselves, as their video antics can have long-term repercussions on quality relationships and careers.   They need to be told the other side of the story.

Recently, I took a look at one Princeton mother’s advice to young women.  She had the audacity to suggest that perhaps finding a spouse was at least as worthy as finding a career.

And while I may not completely agree with her reasoning, I did like the essence of her take: Marriage and family is a valid choice for young women to make.

However,  Keli Goff (a special correspondent for www.TheRoot.com) wants to limit a woman’s choice: Goff says that female Ivy League graduates have a duty to stay in the workforce:

Perhaps instead of bickering over whether or not colleges and universities should ask us to check boxes declaring our racial identity, the next frontier of the admissions should revolve around asking people to declare what they actually plan to do with their degrees. There’s nothing wrong with someone saying that her dream is to become a full-time mother by 30. That is an admirable goal. What is not admirable is for her to take a slot at Yale Law School that could have gone to a young woman whose dream is to be in the Senate by age 40 and in the White House by age 50.

There are so many powerful counters to Goff’s assertions, including the fact most college graduates work in areas entirely different than their degree focus. However, Professor Glenn Reynolds offers the best refudiation:

It’s worth pointing out that this is precisely the argument that used to be employed for excluding women entirely from jobs and educational opportunities — she’ll just go have kids, whereas a man with that credential would be using it to support a family. Ah, how feminism has turned.

Indeed.

After 40 years of gender-feminist experimentation, many highly educated women are also coming to the conclusion that a balanced approach to life is best. The Washington Post column by Elsa Walsh beautifully details her reasons for “Why women should embrace a ‘good enough’ life”. In it, she advises young women:

… make time for herself. Unplug from the grid. Carve out space for solitude. Search for work you love that allows flexibility if you want to have children. And if you do, have them when you’re older, after you’ve reached that point in your career when you are good enough at what you do that you will feel comfortable dialing back for a while. Don’t wait until it’s too late to start planning, because no one else is going to do it for you. And don’t quit completely because, as wonderful as parenthood is, it cannot and will not be your whole life. Learn how to manage conflict, because the greater the level you can tolerate, the more freedom you will retain. Making compromises is a healthy approach to living.

For a woman to say she is searching for a “good enough” life is not failure — it is maturity and self-knowledge.

I’d also tell her, if she marries, to work hard on her relationship. It’s not only much easier than getting divorced, it’s more rewarding and more fun. Love. Full stop. That’s what matters.

Her last sentence is profound: Motherhood is not a job. It is a joy.

When people die, they usually spend their last moments reflecting on the special relationships they have had — not how amazing their career has been. When making life-choice decisions, our sons and daughters need to be told it is OK to make high-quality, personal relationships a priority.

No is a powerful choice.

Weight Watchers co-founder Jean Nidetch once said, “It’s choice – not chance – that determines your destiny.”

I ask only that the choice be a fully informed one.

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Comments

Learning the criteria by which we select and reject that which is told us by those who assume an influential posture is something that starts early in life.

From choice of friends to role models… from those with ulterior motives to those who see a path towards worth, happiness and respect, the whispers will be in your ears.

I don’t know, but here’s an idea, just do what you want to and deal with the gain or loss, accolades or criticism however you wish.

It sounds like Goff wants to keep women “barefoot, pregnant, exploited, and taxed”. The new normal for women thanks to the fanatical efforts of “feminists.” But she doesn’t stop there. She also wants to discriminate among people based on an unrealized future. It is the height of retrogressive thinking, where individual dignity is denied to meet an ideological goal. She’s almost certainly pro-abortion/choice, too. Nothing should standing in the way of wealth, welfare, and redistributive change economics.

I wonder what Goff thinks about homosexual men and women, and heterosexual men and women, who choose a dysfunctional behavior, and ignore their contribution to evolutionary fitness. I wonder what Goff thinks about advocates and activists who work to normalize dysfunctional behaviors in our society.

The problem with liberalism is that it is selective (i.e. unprincipled). The problem with progressivism is that it is unqualified, monotonic change. The former is unsuitable for development of a stable state. The latter is designed to overcome latent resistance to unnatural or unpopular regimes through incremental change.

… That is an admirable goal. What is not admirable is for her to take a slot at Yale Law School …

Her words are dripping in condescension. She will be the next Sebelius, chairing the ObamaEd Brain Panel, deciding who is worthy of school placement.

Motherhood is a dying profession. Its value doesn’t admit measurement in dollars, widgets, or government grants received. The total self-giving is nauseating to the feminist seeking her self-fulfillment. The better a mother is at imparting self responsibility and the will to rise above the collective to her children, the more suspect she is for her bitter clinging to a better time. It is our loss that we fail to recognize the value and bestow the highest honors on those women who choose this invaluable work and give it the total commitment it deserves.

David R. Graham | April 28, 2013 at 1:31 pm

Concur with Mrs. Eastman’s point, am sure my wife would also.

This also gives me a chance to do what befuddled me earlier at the time Mrs. Patton published (I wonder if she’s related to Georgie). That phrase she used, “worthy of you,” or something to that effect. It drips snobbery, prudery. I hate it.

It destroys her argument. It destroys families, neighborhoods, countries, civilizations. I hate snobbery, prudery.

I like that line, “Motherhood is not a job. It is a joy.” My wife would agree. I am a lucky man. When people remark how fine are our three offspring, I reply, “They have a good mother.” Most young people in the USA for three generations now have never experienced a mother’s love. That is why the aura of crisis bears down upon us. I blame the men, for putting up with such women. But mostly, I blame the mothers who don’t mother, which is the huge majority of them. By their fruits ….

Men should not let into their house a woman not keen on motherhood. A woman not keen on motherhood is at war with her nature. As is a man not keen on protecting, building his wife and children. Life is expansion. Contraction is death.

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to David R. Graham. | April 29, 2013 at 2:49 am

    WTF. you are speaking for your wife & you are so certain you know what it is she thinks .

    And. men not letting women into their house- women who are not perfect motherhood candidates – of course yeah men would know this.

    Take your fucked attitudes & shove them up your arse .

David R. Graham | April 28, 2013 at 1:45 pm

Snobbery, prudery, are acids eating through everything. Essentially, that’s what this “ruling class” is: snobs, prudes.