<Theofragen>

I recently read an interesting article discussing the recent cultural phenomenon of women who reject the maternity vs. monetary dyad. Such women have become somewhat disillusioned with the feminist mantra: arbeit macht frauen frei. However, these women are not rushing home to don their mothers', or better, their grandmothers' corset. The article articulately cuts through the oversimplification often typified by traditional versus new gender roles. Many women today are choosing to have both careers and stay at home with their children. With the ever-expanding technology surge of teleworking, real-time video feeds and the ubiquitous e-mail, women are finding innovative ways to have their maternal cake and eat it too.

As a man married to a women exploring the possibilities of childrearing while launching a career, I am quite interested in the best way this might come to fruition. Many of my mother's generation (the boomers) burned their bras and eschewed the machismo patriarchalism that kept their mothers bound by the fetters of domesticity. So my generation (sometimes called the latch-key generation because of this very phenomenon) experienced the shift of the cultural pendulum in palpable ways.

When in college, I met many women who expressed a "calling" to be stay-at-home moms. Now, some of this "call" language may have been an evangelical attempt to baptize a vocation that the emerging culture was pooing on. Nevertheless, such women expressed a deep-felt conviction that their place was not in a corporate suit and black pantyhose but in a pair of yoga pants and a minivan.

I appreciate the insight of the above-mentioned article for splitting the working mom/stay-at- home mom dyad and recognizing the multifariousness of women's lives. I am left wondering though, will women ever be able to alleviate the squeeze of feminist pressure to be a successful professional on the one hand and the maternal pressure to be supermom on the other? What might this look like? What role might a husband play in this endeavor? Peace.

The Double X Dyad

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