The double-bind for women in the workforce

I went to a dinner party with a group of Ph.D.s or Ph.D.s-to-be last night.

During the dinner conversation, a lady who recently had a child (10-month-old) noted that her child has not been living with her, but with her family overseas.
I was a bit shock, so I asked about how this decision was made.
She said that the timing is fine for the child because s/he does not have memory at this time.

Is it true that children have no memory when they are only 10 months old?

The psychologist in me felt very uneasy, especially because I know so much about the powerful force of childhood experiences' imprinting unconsciously on a person's life.
I had an urge to argue with her, regarding this statement on how the infant "will not remember" what happened before s/he is three years old.

In my mind, I was saying to myself, of course this child will remember!
The memory will not be encoded in language, naturally, but it will be encoded in non-verbal memory, such as scent, vision, temperature, touch, etc. And because of this, many of the child's behaviors down the road my be hard to be understood in language.

I was so critical (such is the curse of being a critical theorist),
I thought,
"how can you be so ignorant about children's ability to understand the world?
Do you even know the importance of the first three years of a person's life, and how that's going to affect a person for the rest of his/her life?"

Having had so much experiences working with children of adults with childhood trauma (among which neglect counts one), I'm so keenly aware of the misery a person feels when s/he grows up, starts to behave in a certain way that cannot be understood in his/her verbal consciousness, aka, language.
As a result, there was a fire burning in back of me.

Good thing I kept it all to myself during dinner, I simply became silenced.
And then quickly after everyone has nothing more to say on this topic,
the mother finally said,
"and you know, it'll be better for me too because I really need to finish my dissertation."

There, I heard yet another heart-broken story as a result of the double-bind many women in academia often have to face, and then I found myself being able to find more empathy for her.

This is often the challenge for many women, especially working women today.



Many of my friends back home quit their jobs to have children or to care for their children.

I still remember how upset I felt when I visited my best friend from elementary school. She has a Masters degree from a reputable institution, had taught in two different colleges and one private school, and practiced in a local Clinic, but she quit her jobs, for almost two years now to care for her children full time.
I recall telling my other friends about how it is such a pity of her not being able to work.

Inadvertently, didn't I just criticize both of the choices a woman could have made in this double-bind situation?

If she works, someone else is going to have to care for her children, and the developmental psychologist in me says that it's bad for the child's emotional development (well, there are many good proof regarding how the child is still growing their frontal cortex after birth. You know frontal cortex is super important for a child's ability to integrate emotional and linguistic experiences, etc. etc.).

On the other hand, if she doesn't work, the feminists in me, being less critical, still feels a strong sadness and pity for the loss of another teammate of mine--a competent woman in the workforce.

Isn't this a lose-lose war for women who want to work and have children.

Perhaps what calls me to write down these thoughts, is this question,
do women have to fall into this dualistic paradigm we saw in many situations,
or are there other ways out?

The positivist in me wants to say yes, and she wants to draw on the deconstructionist and the constructionist in me, to call for a radical change in the social structure.

How does that look like? I guess I will start with imagining a world in which I would like to live in, if I had one, two, or many children...

I imagine, with no less demand of quality and productivity of work, I am allowed flexible working hours, so that I can work around my children's schedule.

I imagine that I will no longer have to choose between my work and my children,
imagine that if I chose to work, I'm making a comfortable decision knowing in my heart that my children are looked after with meticulous care and that I still have ample time with my kids, hence I don't have to feel guilty for this choice;
if I chose to care for my children myself, I'm not sacrificing my career or my talent, but that I'm responding to a natural call. I will know that I'm doing the most valuable work, and that after my children go to school, I will be quickly welcomed back to the workforce, not based on the years of lapses in my resume, but based on the impressive works that I've done prior to caring for my children.

I imagine a society in which motherhood are celebrated. It is understood as invaluable work, as banking for the future, and as the foundation of a solid community.

As such, mothers are understood and supported, by not just other mothers, but by other men and women, by the society, by the government, by any strangers on the street, that is, by the entire community. 

To all the mothers and/or women in the workforce--What are your imaginations?