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Joined: Feb 2011
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The 'Always' and 'Never' Life of Sylvia Plath I shared the article with my DD13, who strongly identified with Plath's description of the curse of multipotentiality (described in The Bell Jar): I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor ... and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. Oddly, my DD found it comforting that someone who understood this from the inside out had articulated this dreadful existential puzzle so clearly.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Your DD does understand that women have gained more opportunities in the workforce and more ability and tolerance from society to balance work/career - yes? It's not perfect but certainly better than Sylvia Plath's generation.
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Yes, this is certainly true-- it is better. However, it is also true that for anyone who has multiple passions and extraordinary ability-- everything does still take time to do right. So choosing "some" means losing the others, and that IS still true. She sees examples of this in her everyday life. The only people she sees "having it all" are only fooling themselves into thinking that they do, by and large (and often irritating the heck out of others who have to pick up the slack when they flake out or are overcommitted to the point that they CANNOT do it all). It's still true that you can choose authenticity/depth-richness... or you can choose appearance/superficiality. They may look alike on the surface, but there really isn't a way to be a great parent on only a couple of hours a day. There isn't a way to be a great anything that way. You can lie to yourself and try to 'hurry-hurry-hurry' others into "fitting it all in," but that just doesn't work for some of the things that matter most. I remember doing that when my DD was a baby, and my life still includes some of my peers who have kept living that way even after I took a giant step OUT of that lifestyle, so I do have some idea what I'm talking about there.  Another difference is that most people set aside their dreams of being a musician and a writer and an astronaut in favor of.... becoming a wife, {insert career here} and mother because those tend to be what they have the greatest potential at. With multipotentiality, it's hard to set aside half of the dreams, because they are all more or less equally viable until you do that. How do you know in your teens what you SHOULD set aside and what you shouldn't? You don't. The problem is that even indecision is making some of those decisions FOR you as life rolls on whether you're ready or not.  I'm reminded of the DEVO classic Freedom of Choice.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Another difference is that most people set aside their dreams of being a musician and a writer and an astronaut in favor of.... becoming a wife, {insert career here} and mother because those tend to be what they have the greatest potential at. People who have high IQs, musical talent, athletic talent etc. have the greatest genetic potential to have children with the same attributes, so it is important that they have children.
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell
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Another difference is that most people set aside their dreams of being a musician and a writer and an astronaut in favor of.... becoming a wife, {insert career here} and mother because those tend to be what they have the greatest potential at. I couldn't tell you what my "greatest potential" is. Eventually you have to pick a career out of the career vending machine and just kind of go with it because you have to make money somehow to not starve and not be exposed to the elements.
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Another difference is that most people set aside their dreams of being a musician and a writer and an astronaut in favor of.... becoming a wife, {insert career here} and mother because those tend to be what they have the greatest potential at. People who have high IQs, musical talent, athletic talent etc. have the greatest genetic potential to have children with the same attributes, so it is important that they have children. Well, that and if you don't have children civilization would grind to a halt. I am curious as to what is going to happen in South Korea and Japan.
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Another difference is that most people set aside their dreams of being a musician and a writer and an astronaut in favor of.... becoming a wife, {insert career here} and mother because those tend to be what they have the greatest potential at. I couldn't tell you what my "greatest potential" is. Eventually you have to pick a career out of the career vending machine and just kind of go with it because you have to make money somehow to not starve and not be exposed to the elements. Exactly. My DH and I are still wondering "what if" about some of the things that we opted to 'let go of' in order to get on with the business of becoming grown ups. I'm not so sure that DD feels like much of a winner in the genetics lottery, by the way. She's got plenty of genetic quirks that she would just as soon NOT have received as lovely "gifts" from her parents.  Here, have TWO copies of highly atopic genetic material! You win the bonus "asthma" prize! But wait, there's more! Idiopathic ANAPHYLAXIS... Behind this curtain, we have future diabetes! Look, behind door number two, it's.... scoliosis! Oh, yay!! Look what is behind door number three-- it's our good friend 'schizoaffective disorders' in close relatives! Wheeeeee! But not to worry, because you get 50 bonus IQ points for being such a good sport... Just saying. (That's by no means a complete list, either-- this doesn't even get into some of the really ODD hereditary stuff that we know about, and nevermind what we don't. KWIM?) I'm sort of thinking that any eugenics program would have weeded DH and I out. Unless they were looking to breed for the study of eczema in patients with melanoma and asthma, or something. We definitely don't see ourselves as some kind of genetically superior specimens. LOL.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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She's got plenty of genetic quirks that she would just as soon NOT have received as lovely "gifts" from her parents. Here, have TWO copies of highly atopic genetic material! You win the bonus "asthma" prize! But wait, there's more! Idiopathic ANAPHYLAXIS... Behind this curtain, we have future diabetes! Look, behind door number two, it's.... scoliosis! Oh, yay!! Look what is behind door number three-- it's our good friend 'schizoaffective disorders' in close relatives! Wheeeeee! But not to worry, because you get 50 bonus IQ points for being such a good sport... Just saying. (That's by no means a complete list, either-- this doesn't even get into some of the really ODD hereditary stuff that we know about, and nevermind what we don't. KWIM?) Well, with diabetes the relevant question is "did they lose their feet?" I just had a case improve itself when a client lost a toe.
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HK if we knew then what we know now about our genetics I don't know that we would have had children at all, let alone three, no matter how bright they are. The youngest two we know haven't inherited some of our worst fun times, but there's plenty still in there to make their lives "interesting" (and already actively doing so).
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Another difference is that most people set aside their dreams of being a musician and a writer and an astronaut in favor of.... becoming a wife, {insert career here} and mother because those tend to be what they have the greatest potential at. People who have high IQs, musical talent, athletic talent etc. have the greatest genetic potential to have children with the same attributes, so it is important that they have children. And above replacement levels!
What is to give light must endure burning.
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