Career Vs Motherhood

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Perhaps due to physical or mental limitations, career pressure, household pressure, a combination of both, or perhaps due to ones own inclination, this difficult choice has to be made.

( h) Which is the more difficult choice - career or motherhood?

Majority of the women have said that if they had to make a choice between the two, they would most definitely go for motherhood, making career the more difficult and unpopular choice.

HYPOTHESIS

As we all know our culture is getting more and more modernized. Women are treated equally as men. They are now well educated and self-dependent. In spite of the fact more doors of careers are opening for women, they still tend to choose motherhood. I feel that the reason behind that is because choosing career is more difficult choice. It has lots of obstacles and tensions to deal with. Another crucial fact is that, in context of our culture it is easy for women to give up her career life than her family.

METHODOLOGY

My research paper consists of both primary and secondary research. For my secondary research I tried to extract relevant information from the World Wide Web. To search material on the web, I used the standard search engines such as Google as well as large reference sites.

For my primary research I prepared 10 questions in my questionnaire covering all the topics related to the topic, analyzing the responses of which will help to prove my hypothesis. My target samples are working women and homemakers, and I have completed 35 questionnaires. I also interviewed a working woman, a homemaker, and their husbands to collect some additional primary information.

DATA PRESENTATION

The raw data, which were collected from the questionnaire, were needed to be analyzed in order to draw the conclusion for my research paper. The universal report writing software MS Word was used to process all the necessary writings and tables. All the graphs were prepared by MS Excel and MS Organization Chart.

DATA ANALYSIS

Within two weeks of deciding on my topic of “Career & Motherhood: which one comes first”, I started looking for secondary information on the net and found several useful articles, journalistic relevant to my topic. But soon I realized that I would also have to depend on my primary research and for that I started interviewing some people. They were quite helpful when I told them I was a North South University student and needed their opinions for my research paper.

Mrs. Shahana Masrur, a successful wife and mother, was once was a banker and had to make the decision to set aside her career to be there for her infants. Her two sons were more important to her than career plans. When I went to interview her, she said “It became very important to me as I was giving birth to my first baby, that he be valued, loved and cared for and that he understand that he is a priority in my life. So it was not very hard for me to sacrifice my career for my child.” After her first baby’s birth she stopped working outside to take proper care of her child. Her in-laws also wanted her to resign from her job. She also told me that she made the decision to give up her career because she realized that if she try to balance both she won’t be able to give her full effort on both. According to her it is impossible for a woman to be a good mother and a good career woman at the same time. From her personal experience she said that it is more difficult and challenging job to raise a child than doing a job in an office because in the workplace there are very specific duties to do within a very specific period of time, rules and systems are there to follow but there is no certain rules for upbringing a child; one has to constantly go through a lot of physical and emotional pressure at the same time to raise a child.

She stated that on a pure difficulty basis, motherhood is clearly the winner and if she had to choose between the two she would definitely choose motherhood, making career the more difficult choice of the two. This is so because career involves family acceptance along with a lot of other issues and a mother’s responsibility towards her child cannot be sidetracked by any means.

Mr. A. K. M. Masrur, husband of Mrs. Shahana Masrur told me that, it was necessary for his wife to give up her career because of the well being of their children. According to him it is a woman’s duty to raise her children because she has got the biological and mental ability to take care of her children. He said that education is needed for women for their own self-development but they don’t need to work outside unless her family has any major financial problem.

When I went to interview Dr. Farzana Jahan, an eye specialist working in a government medical college, she said that it is possible to manage both- career and motherhood but some sacrifices are definitely needed to balance both. She said, “I always try to become a good mother of my daughter as well as a good working women in my workplace but I also had to sacrifice some elements of my life to make sure that my baby is growing up in proper care.” Her daughter is every thing to her but her career also matters. She thinks that her career helped her to become a good mother as she has got much social skills and cognitive ability as well as experience to raise a child well than any housewife. She also told me that, she happily sacrificed a lot of opportunities to be with her daughter all the time; as a consequence, she couldn’t get higher degrees from abroad like her husband. But she has no regret regarding this as her daughter is everything for her. When I asked her that according to her which one is more difficult-career or motherhood, and why; she also said “Motherhood is more difficult to do because it is something to deal with lot of psychological matters but choosing career is more difficult because society, family acceptance, personal feeling for own children and many other things come into it.”

Dr. Mustaque Ahmed, husband of Dr. Farzana Jahan said that his wife could be an example for women because from her he got to know how woman can balance between family life and career life. He also said that definitely children want their mother more than their father, especially during the time when they are infants. Usually they are much closer to their mother that is why sometimes women have to sacrifice something for their children.

SURVEY/ QUESTIONNAIRE

My focus on the survey has been on 10 MCQ questions, which I have represented