Having It All
Are you one of the ladies in my age group who were in their 20's and read Helen Gurly Brown's "Having It All"? I admit to reading such nonsense. Well, when you are in your 20's and working on your career and in college, you are very idealistic. This was also during the time I said I wanted to own the radio station. I was an ambitious sort back then. I got books on management, read articles, sunscribed to "Working Woman" magazine. I carried a brief case, dressed the part. You know what I got... nowhere at all. I took the Dale Carnegie course. The prinicples didn't work. The folks I worked with also took the Sam Carnegie course. (smile)
Anyway reading this book "Having It All" a woman was supposed to have a career, husband and family and all that it involves. It is possible to have it all, but not at the same time. A lot of women found this out the hard way, they concentrated on a career in their 20's, by the time they hit 30, the old biological clock started ticking and they realized that the needed to find someone and get married and have kids. Some women wanted the kids, but they didn't want the husband so they either had a child by a friend or adopted one or did other things. The problem is that kids take a great deal of time and care, so the career begans to suffer. You lose that edge you had because you have kids and play dates and in some cases, a husband who looked perfectly capable of looking after himself becomes a huge baby and wants you around all of the time.
The career gets too demanding, so you are either demoted, or you get tired of the stress and you take a job with more traditional hours. If your husband works you quit and stay at home with the kids and run a business out of your home.
I mentioned this, because a lot of us in my age group, worked, and or went to college right from high school. Society said we should have a career. My mom said nothing about a career, she just said to be able to take care of yourself, if you don't get married. Be able to take care of yourself if the husband loses his job, get sick or worse. So that's what I did. I used to get some of the ministers who would come up and preach a message on a woman's place is in the home. Some of them thought I was taking a job away from a man. I wasn't married, so I worked so when Prince Charming came along, I would have my own money. I saved money, had charge accounts. I saved up enough money for a down payment on a house. At the age of 29, and single, God blessed me to get this house. So I had part of it, a job and a home. The husband would come about ten to twelve years later.
I look at the number of women my age who have been divorced, suffered some sort of health issue and are disabled. I start to wonder if we should have taken all of this on. Should we have stuck to the traditional career path, teacher, nurse or administrative assistant. One of my teacher said he gets calls all of the time needing someone to come in and do bookkeeping work, accounts recievable and accounts payable. He asked me if I minded a little clerical work. I had the supposedly glamorous career, I really don't care. That glamourous career, meant getting up at 3:45 each morning, heading out no matter what the weather was, sometimes coming back in later at night to take care of staffing problems, ect, working holidays, weekends , turnaround shifts. I felt like the Dunkin' Doughnut man, I've got to go in to make the doughnuts, I made the doughnuts , its time to make the doughnuts. In the meanwhile trying to keep up the house do laundry. In the middle of all that stress, my health began to suffer. My mom got sick and other things, so I became stressed out. Matt almost have to go to Kuwait. If he would have had to go , I would have retired then. With all the stress my diabetes went out of control and my blood pressure with it. I couldn't sleep, I dreaded going to work, I was on depression medication as well as anxiety meds.
As I said, when I am out and about I wonder if we were designed to have it all. I guess you can if you are Helen Gurly Brown or Oprah, because you have servents, someone to do your laundry, clean your house, a nanny for the kids. A chef plans your meals. If I had all of that I could have it all...I do have the most important thing though, it is not about all the material things . You don't have anything if you don't have Jesus as Lord and Savior. There was a song that was out in the 1980's called "Not Just For Today", there was a line in it that said "material things we will leave behind some day, I'd rather have Jesus. He's gonna see me through, not just for today, but for always". That's true...
Anyway reading this book "Having It All" a woman was supposed to have a career, husband and family and all that it involves. It is possible to have it all, but not at the same time. A lot of women found this out the hard way, they concentrated on a career in their 20's, by the time they hit 30, the old biological clock started ticking and they realized that the needed to find someone and get married and have kids. Some women wanted the kids, but they didn't want the husband so they either had a child by a friend or adopted one or did other things. The problem is that kids take a great deal of time and care, so the career begans to suffer. You lose that edge you had because you have kids and play dates and in some cases, a husband who looked perfectly capable of looking after himself becomes a huge baby and wants you around all of the time.
The career gets too demanding, so you are either demoted, or you get tired of the stress and you take a job with more traditional hours. If your husband works you quit and stay at home with the kids and run a business out of your home.
I mentioned this, because a lot of us in my age group, worked, and or went to college right from high school. Society said we should have a career. My mom said nothing about a career, she just said to be able to take care of yourself, if you don't get married. Be able to take care of yourself if the husband loses his job, get sick or worse. So that's what I did. I used to get some of the ministers who would come up and preach a message on a woman's place is in the home. Some of them thought I was taking a job away from a man. I wasn't married, so I worked so when Prince Charming came along, I would have my own money. I saved money, had charge accounts. I saved up enough money for a down payment on a house. At the age of 29, and single, God blessed me to get this house. So I had part of it, a job and a home. The husband would come about ten to twelve years later.
I look at the number of women my age who have been divorced, suffered some sort of health issue and are disabled. I start to wonder if we should have taken all of this on. Should we have stuck to the traditional career path, teacher, nurse or administrative assistant. One of my teacher said he gets calls all of the time needing someone to come in and do bookkeeping work, accounts recievable and accounts payable. He asked me if I minded a little clerical work. I had the supposedly glamorous career, I really don't care. That glamourous career, meant getting up at 3:45 each morning, heading out no matter what the weather was, sometimes coming back in later at night to take care of staffing problems, ect, working holidays, weekends , turnaround shifts. I felt like the Dunkin' Doughnut man, I've got to go in to make the doughnuts, I made the doughnuts , its time to make the doughnuts. In the meanwhile trying to keep up the house do laundry. In the middle of all that stress, my health began to suffer. My mom got sick and other things, so I became stressed out. Matt almost have to go to Kuwait. If he would have had to go , I would have retired then. With all the stress my diabetes went out of control and my blood pressure with it. I couldn't sleep, I dreaded going to work, I was on depression medication as well as anxiety meds.
As I said, when I am out and about I wonder if we were designed to have it all. I guess you can if you are Helen Gurly Brown or Oprah, because you have servents, someone to do your laundry, clean your house, a nanny for the kids. A chef plans your meals. If I had all of that I could have it all...I do have the most important thing though, it is not about all the material things . You don't have anything if you don't have Jesus as Lord and Savior. There was a song that was out in the 1980's called "Not Just For Today", there was a line in it that said "material things we will leave behind some day, I'd rather have Jesus. He's gonna see me through, not just for today, but for always". That's true...
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