It's hard not to think of where the future will take you.
As a woman, it's hard not to think about your job goals and your family goals as conflicting. Do you work a lot and barely see your kids? Or do you take time off to spend time with them? Is there a happy medium? What kinds of jobs have that? Do I want that? I'm 20.
As the summer goes on and my internship continues I've started to think to myself: What's going to happen when I graduate and get a job next year? Am I going to be at that job for the rest of my career? It's probably going to be a 9-5 Monday-Friday job. How is a 9-5 job going to work when I get older and have a family?
Again. I'm 20 (almost 21 actually, woo!) and I have a long way to go before I have to worry about that stuff. However, I am planner. I like to know when, how and why things are going to happen. But I know that that's not how life works.
The next question is: Why am I thinking about this? I'll be working for at least 10 years before a family of my own comes into play. Well. I want to know what I want to do with my career. I know it's not very feminist of me to think about how family life will fit in to that but in my definition of feminism there's a part that says we can have both. I'm just not 100% sure how.
I've seen and heard of a lot of women having one or the other. They either raise a family or have a job and having both is stressful and hectic. As tiring as it seems, it's not impossible. It's just a scary concept. I want to tackle both kids and a full time job in the future but I'm not sure that I can.
My job now is 9-5 Monday-Friday as most jobs are in a corporate setting. I've also been taking a summer class online for the past month and writing as well as editing these articles every week. On top of all that I'm finding time for family and my boyfriend. Now, I'm managing and I think I'm doing pretty well but what happens when I'm a mom and have soccer practices, parent nights, dance classes and ten other things going on every night?
How is this all supposed to work? Everyone seems to say it comes with time and you figure out a schedule that works best for you but it's all so terrifying thinking about it all at once.
I want to plan everything and know how my life pans out. I want to know how I'll have kids on top of working and if it'll all work out for the better or not. But I guess not knowing all that up front is half the fun, right?