The New Eve - Lewis Robert [18]
Today's working woman feels this dilemma and the guilt it often brings. The pressure and the toll of trying to juggle children and career ambitions have become so great that a new trend is developing in America today: young women are choosing to have fewer children or none at all! A record number of women ages fifteen to forty-four report that they actually intend to forgo motherhood. Most often it's a lifestyle decision. A growing number of couples now rate the value of their work, recreation, and standard of living above that of having children. Anne Hare is one example. According to an AP reporter who interviewed her, “Hare and her husband made a momentous decision three years ago: They would not have children. It's not that they don't like kids, she says. They simply don't want to alter the lifestyle they enjoy.”12
The 2000 Census Bureau report indicates that the birthrate in America is the lowest in our history. It currently stands at 2.06 per couple. At this rate American parents are barely managing to replace themselves. Immigration is the only reason for America's robust growth. For increasing numbers of women, opting for motherhood is no longer automatic or even a top priority.
For a Christian woman God's command to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it” in Genesis 1:28 has not gone away. Rightly understood, it is a sacred charge to commit oneself to raise and launch a healthy next generation that is able to bless the world (our communities and our cities) with the righteousness of God. For Christian women the question should not be, Will I choose to embrace this God-given command? but rather, Do I know (or want to face) what my children really need from me to grow up healthy? In our demanding, fast-paced, pricey, career-oriented culture, wisdom and the courage to make hard choices are now absolute necessities for addressing this crucial issue of motherhood. Without them you can expect your kids to have the same kinds of problems you see throughout society today.
Issue 5: The Maze of Unlimited Choices
I remember the lively interaction I had with a futurist back in the late 1980s. As a researcher, his job was to assess specific kinds of data that could reveal coming cultural changes. In our discussion I asked him pointedly what he considered to be the most significant change looming before us. I don't know what I expected, but his answer surprised me. “Choices,” he said. “The greatest change and challenge in the next generation will be in dealing with the plethora of choices you will have.”
His prophecy is now your reality. Today as a woman, you have unlimited choices as well as the freedom to pursue them. As we discussed in chapter 1, this is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because now more than ever, women can pursue their dreams. But it can also be a curse because the reality of so many choices demands a new skill many women (and men) lack: the ability to choose rightly.
One of America's greatest thinkers, the late Peter Drucker, made the following observation shortly before his death in 2006. He wrote, “In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”13
Let me personalize Drucker's insight for you with the following points:
Large numbers of women (you) now have choices.
As a woman, you will have to learn to manage yourself.
Most women (maybe