Mary Catherine Bateson’s writing
on “Composing a Life Story” describes many aspects of reflecting on one’s
accomplishments and life path, and stresses the importance of embracing the
random, unexpected nature of life. Overall she states that life is full of
confusion and “interruptions”—losing jobs, moving for different reasons,
finding one’s true passions. The important things to remember when confronting
these upheavals is that the way we “interpret the continuities and
discontinuities” (209) affects how easily and resiliently we will transition.
Instead of trying to draw a straight-line path from elementary school to college
to dream job, we should see that “discontinuity [is] a way of preparing for the
next step,” and that fundamentally, the continuity in our lives is in what we
value, our commitment to the people we love, and our true passions.
Overall, a big lesson of this account
is for us as RAs to set examples for our residents by not glossing over the
mistakes and missteps of life, since that would make it seem like big life
decisions are easy and obvious, when they are
actually exactly the opposite. When we struggle with choosing a major, it’s
important to share that experience with freshmen who think they need to have
their major and post-undergrad plans all figured out by the end of freshman
year. When freshmen ask us what we’re going to do after college, it should be
acceptable to say “I don’t know yet,” because they don’t necessarily look up to
us because we have it all figured out; they look up to us for our honesty and
our authenticity. This ties into the goal in Personal Development of having our
residents “engage in meaningful exploration and expression of self-identity
that contributes to their ability to articulate, reflect on and adapt their
vision for self.”
Another lesson from this story that
resonated with me was Bateson’s observation on the limitations for women:
“It hasn’t been possible for women to separate
their commitments [workplace, family] in quite the same way. It is one thing in
the traditional nuclear family for the husband to go to the office and stop
thinking about his family during the day because he has left his wife in charge.…
What this has meant is that women have lived their lives experiencing multiple
simultaneous demands from multiple directions.” (210)
What this societal pressure
amounts to is limitations on the career options for women because there is a
repeatedly stated requirement that they put family first, whereas men can
de-emphasize family in relation to career and not be judged for such a
decision. Thus we encounter the problem wherein only a tiny percentage of CEOs
are women, women are underrepresented in academia and the higher levels of
professional careers, and women are grossly underrepresented in politics. This
first article [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/]
addresses the issue of society’s placing the burden of being Superwoman and
taking care of a family and having a job all on women. This second article [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/we-need-to-tell-girls-they-can-have-it-all-even-if-they-cant/259165/]
addresses the psychological limitations on women because they are expected to
have a family first, and to derive their value as a person from their family.
Ambition is seen as “a dirty word” because for many women, they are told that
it is diametrically opposed to the ultimate goal of having a family. It is in
this way that the U.S. has created a culture of disempowerment of women through
societal pressure, all of which are important and thought-provoking issues for
discussion.
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