Are Women Encouraged to Pursue Their Dreams?

As young girls, females are taught to help their mothers with housework, cleaning, and with taking care of younger siblings. It is a life dream of many women - getting married and having children. Women do have natural instincts to mate and reproduce. However, giving birth is not the sole function of women in society. Innately, women are teachers, as mothers teach their children right from wrong. Are women expected to stay home and teach their children? If the answer is yes, then women must amply pursue their career goals before they have children, subsequently, sacrificing those dreams in order to self-raise their children.



If the answer is no, then women should be encouraged to pursue their career aspirations even after childbirth. Although marriage and childbirth are life ambitions for many women, women should not stop dreaming after childbirth.



Exactly how long are women expected to stay home with the kids; is it kindergarten, 5th grade or 6th grade?



Likewise, what should women do after retirement or menopause? Maybe they should help raise their grandchildren, or perhaps they should find a hobby or do volunteer work.



It is one thing to make sacrifices to raise children, yet another to pretend like women stop dreaming. Oppression of the mind due to social stigmas and pressure is not healthy for women. If a woman wants to become a doctor, should she have children before or after medical school? What if she gets pregnant during medical school? How long should a woman wait to return to school or work after she has kids?



Dreams never leave, they merely get lost along the journey we call life.



Since men do not have to sacrifice their bodies, enduring 9 months of pregnancy, and subsequently breast feeding, their careers and work-lives are not drastically altered.



It is a well-known fact that women can endure much more pain than men. In addition, men would never stop bitching if they had to deal with monthly menstruation. Nowadays, women are living long past the age of menopause; therefore women must have another purpose for survival, or living. Many women don't think past the age of retirement concerning their goals and dreams. But, women should think about their future all the way to their death because the only thing that we individually leave behind in this world is our legacy, or the legend which we create.



In the long run, what we do for ourselves dies with us, still, what we do for others continues to bless them for a lifetime.



Men are a significant portion of the child raising equation. The millennium family may have a stay at home dad, and mommy may bring home the bacon. It is okay for women to pursue their career aspirations. Maybe a woman's dream is to have kids, but when that is accomplished or when a dream is fulfilled, what happens next? Is that goal not then replaced by another, or does it get checked off the list and other dreams escalate in the dream priority line? If an extremely talented and athletic woman dreamed of playing professional basketball in her youth, yet it seemed impossible because the Women's National Basketball Association (WMBA) did not exist at that time, hid that dream deep inside her and made a life decision to pursue another dream, then revived her basketball dream with the creation of the WMBA, should she be a slave to her past and let a decision made yesteryear impede her happiness and stop her from pursuing her lifelong dream?? If she got married and started a family, how long should she wait to begin her time sensitive journey?



Age and/or body conditioning are factors in everyone's sports dreams.



It is crucial that women attempt to pursue such dreams while they still can. Sometimes the harsh reality of the difference between the fitness level required by our dream sport and our present athletic fitness level either motivates us to work harder and realize the amount of effort required to make our sports dream come true, or pushes us over the edge to quit and causes us to bury our dream forever, or at least until we have kids.



Are women encouraged to pursue their dreams? No, not nearly as much as they should be.



Therefore, it is vital that women categorize their dreams and goals: some dreams are time sensitive, others require a major change of lifestyle, and some involve other people. As the sayings go, "if you can't see it, you can't be it," and "if you don't plan, then you plan to fail." Most incredibly successful people made a plan and followed it. Women should not play the blame game and place the responsibility for accomplishing their dreams with someone else. We all have free will and the right to pursue happiness.



Women are free to pursue their dreams and conquer the obstacle we call life; however, sometimes they could use a little encouragement.