A Young Woman's Dilemma: Career Vs Family

It's Raining Babies! Or at least its been seeming that way to me lately. Every other day (not literally) I am getting phone call invitations to baby showers and don't get me wrong, it a wonderful thing, all children are blessings and I hope to have some of my own someday. What did pique my bone a bit is that whenever I attend a baby shower, I always leave feeling a bit of pressure to starting breeding myself. Usually the feeling comes after hearing comments from family or friends that it is time to start settling down to build a family of my own. Now I am still in my early twenties, and I have always vowed to spend much of my twenties pursuing my dreams and doing fun, spontaneous things that young women with youth and vivacity would want to do. I never saw marriage or children in my life till my late twenties.

However, now I noticed that I am starting to feel the pressure quite a bit. It's a feeling like I am lagging behind in a race and I need to catch up with my fellow young mommies despite the fact that I know that I am not ready for motherhood. Interestingly, many of the new mothers I meet are fairly young {well, what I consider young}. One thing that I can definitely tell is that I am not the only young female one feeling this dilemma.

The entire scenario really had me thinking if I was doing the right thing by putting too much focus on career first before family instead of doing the reverse. Yes, I had career goals and dreams, but it was just as important to me to get married and have children. After discussing with some older, more experience friends I learned that there is no formula to living life the right way and that the biggest injustice I can do to myself is to make a decision about my life because I feel pressured from others or society. Growing up, my parents, who are very traditional, strict African parents, always made it seem as though there are particular steps and stages that you must live your life or else all was lost. You must graduate high school with honors, go on to collge and graduate with honors, then immediately land a good paying job and get married and then start popping out little Ebele's and Obi's. And if you deferred from those steps, there was something wrong with you.

Well, it is up to each person to define how they want to build their lives. So whatever path you choose, you should choose it because that is what you want and what makes you happy, not because society says its the correct way. As for me, I am choosing to pursue my dreams and bask in my youth until further notice.