The stay-at-home trend

Women swell the ranks of prestigious universities across the nation. The student body of Tufts University is 53 percent female. Georgetown University is 54 percent female. Dartmouth and Cornell are both exactly 50 percent female, according to the Princeton Review.

At Boston College, females make up 52 percent of the student body. They come here to broaden their horizons, to increase their knowledge, and to prepare themselves for the career world. BC is renowned for turning well-equipped graduates out into the work-force - but for some girls, that may not be their ultimate goal.

Some girls plan to be stay-at-home mothers.

A recent article in The New York Times discussed a growing trend among female students at esteemed colleges who plan to someday leave the work-force to raise their families. It focused specifically on Yale University, but suggested that this inclination is evident at schools throughout the country.

At BC, girls have a variety of opinions on this mentality. Many confirm that it exists on campus.

"I've overheard girls in the Plex talk about how they're looking forward to getting married, having children, and staying home to raise them," says Jocelyn Pettito, A&S '06.

But in her opinion, sentiments like this among BC students are surprising. "The first time I heard this, I was really shocked. I thought people going to a university that costs over 30K a year would have goals that included that investment," she says.

But many students don't think that quality education should be sacrificed if a girl decides she wants to make family her focus in life.

"It's a good thing that they're attending college first so that if they decide that they don't want to be a stay-at-home mom forever they have the option of going back to work later on," says Catherine Sheehan, A&S '07. "Women should be allowed to make their own choices."

Many agree that it's good for women to feel they have a choice. They say that society shouldn't pigeon-hole women into any position, be it that of a strong executive or of a single-minded mother.

"Anything that adds more choice, I believe, is positive. They aren't forced to stay at home and raise children; such women have the tools to work, they just choose not too," says Pettito.

Although she plans to become a career woman and a dedicated veterinarian, Pettito benefited from having a stay-at-home mother.

"I was very happy to have my mother home growing up. I'm an only child, so it was good to have another person around. She always pushed me to read above my grade level and challenged my thinking," she says of her childhood.

Pettito supports the choice of women to devote themselves to family. "I think that if you're going to have children, you should stay at home. Children aren't like animals; you can't just throw them food, walk them, and clean up after them, then expect them to be well adjusted."

Not all students agree with her. Some attribute the desire to stay home with children not to personal choice, but to societal pressure.

"I think it is a ridiculously negative step for women because these girls are assuming that they will have to be the ones to stay home," says Colleen Daley, A&S '07.

"I don't think that this mentality that women are only truly useful as mothers has ever left our society. We have been raised in a man-centric world," she continues.

Some members of the BC community assert that many women don't actually have a choice in the matter.

"Most women must work for economic reasons. In order for the average woman worker to make ends meet, she may even have to take on several jobs because the wages she receives are not adequate to support her family," says professor Sharlene Hesse-Biber of the sociology department. "The choice between staying at home and going to work is a luxury choice most women cannot contemplate."

Women who do have an option need to think carefully about the ramifications of their decision, Hesse-Biber says. They may assume that they can re-enter the workforce if staying at home gets tiring, but that may be harder than expected.

"They may be giving up their careers in the long run. Women who enter male-dominated jobs may find that they must devote enormous amounts of time and energy to their careers beyond the traditional 40 hours per week," she says.

Professor Peter Pfohl of the sociology department points out that a decreasing number of women in the work-force may adversely affect not just individual females, but society as a whole.

"Over the last several decades, significant gains have been made by women entering into careers once stereotypically reserved for men. The effects of such changes have enriched the workplace by bringing in the perspectives of women.

"A significant reversal of this trend is likely to prove negative for both women and society-at-large, reducing the pool of talented professional workers needed in an increasingly information-intensive economy," he says.

In his opinion, the hypothesis set forth by The New York Times article may not necessarily be true - at least not at BC.

"Of the many graduate and undergraduate students with whom I work, I have not noticed a trend in the direction of an expressed desire to be a stay-at-home mom. Most women students appear committed to both excelling in a career and eventually becoming mothers," says Pfohl.

But if an increasing number of Ivy League ladies are planning to undertake exclusively the duties of a household, it may not be a bad thing.

There is a strong contingency of students who believe that the trend toward stay-at-home motherhood is consistent with true ideals of feminism.

"This trend is a centering from the initial feminist movement," says Meghan Butler, A&S '09. "The pendulum swung too far towards the militant ideas that the only way to be a feminist was to be a career woman. No room was left for the option to make a choice about career or family, and ultimately, that was what the feminists were after: options."