Sonia Sotomayor says "don't be a princess be a judge"

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I know you're right about the fundie response to this, but that only demonstrates that fundies don't know their Bible! Even the KJV contains the story of Deborah, a kick-ass judge who prophesied military victory for God! (And she had a friend named Barak! :o )

There is a very popular series of books, videos and dolls about being a Princess because you are the daughter of the King:

https://www.google.com/search?q=gods+pr ... 38&bih=533

[Megan]

I used to say that I wanted to be a mermaid so I could swim all day.

Somehow that made me think of Toddlers and Tiaras - Emerald's ambition is to be an Octopus

Since animated GIFs can't be icons, not sure if I can put this in the post: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrwjn6ZBvM1r01me6.gif

[IceQueen]

I had a stay at home mother and one of my life goals was to always have an exit plan in case things in my relationship go south. My parents are pretty much still married because "its cheaper to keep her" and my mom thinks she has no relevant job skills. I am confident that if some terrible thing happens my child and I can make our own life.

Not that I think about this all the time :lol: But since I was a little girl I understood the importance of a woman being able to provide for her family.

There was also a short point in my younger sister's life where she wanted to be a dog leash and a hair salon, like the actual building.

[YPestis]

I never wanted to be "just" a princess but a butt-kicking princess like in Voltron or She-Ra. That said, I kind of like dislike the current princess trend because it promotes this spoiled girl mentality. The attraction of a princess is that she and has pretty dresses and people who bow to her and she's in need of someone to help her. I don't want little girls to think of a princess in those terms. I prefer they see her as a noble heroine and leader of her people. I'm glad that we have positive, female role models in this day to remind little girls they can achieve many things and it's limited to having nice clothes and other people to do stuff for her. yeah, fundies would be pissed but that's because their ideology sucks LOL.

[rock_girl]

I used to want to be empress of the universe. This was around the time I first learned about Queen Victoria and her titles. I figured if she could be empress of India, then surely I could have the universe.

Was a sad day when I found out that wasn't going to happen. Fortunately I picked myself up and turned to my backup plan which was to win all around olympic gymnastics gold. Still working on that one.

[gimlet]

When my youngest sister was about 12-13, her go-to answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was "A dictator."

I love Sonia Sotomayor. I especially love how once she got on the bench, it was shocking and unfeminine! to find she basically rivals Scalia for blunt, fierce questioning and assertion of authority. And I'm so happy that if Ruth Bader Ginsburg (knock wood) dies suddenly in the next 4 years that we'll keep the Supreme Court on a good path.

[klf7412]

I don't think the video was completely anti-fundy thinking. It never said you must go to college, it said over and over that you must "train and prepare for" your career. SAHD have been preparing for their job since they were tots. I actually would have been a bit pissed if she had said something along the lines of "You must go to college". I am not anti college in the least.. However, if my little girl only wanted to be a wife and Mom, as long as that is her choice, I am fine with it.

[klf7412]

I used to want to be empress of the universe. This was around the time I first learned about Queen Victoria and her titles. I figured if she could be empress of India, then surely I could have the universe.

Was a sad day when I found out that wasn't going to happen. Fortunately I picked myself up and turned to my backup plan which was to win all around olympic gymnastics gold. Still working on that one.

:lol: I wanted to do the same. I loooveeed gymnastics.

You could always chose an american olympian gymnasts name and tell everyone on here that you are her. No way for us to prove otherwise ;) .. Then, you have lived out your dreams according to your posts on FJ. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[klf7412]

I know this is controversial, but I have been clear with my daughters that "mommy" is not a viable career choice. Your children are young for such a short time; it is important to have an education and some sort of job title to go back to when they go to school and/or grow up. It's not hard to impress upon them because they have grown up, as I did, with the idea that mommies have shit to do besides cleaning and wiping bottoms. There is plenty of that in my life, but it is not "what I do". It's what I do when I am not doing what I do, if that makes sense.

I don't mean this in a rude way.. I mean it curiously... If after your daughters get married (assuming they do), one of them tells you they would like to quit their job to be a stay at home mom, would you not support them? I only ask because I don't understand this line of thinking.

[JenniferJuniper]

However, if my little girl only wanted to be a wife and Mom, as long as that is her choice, I am fine with it.

My little girls are teenagers now, but if either told me now they wanted to be only a wife and a Mom, I'd be very concerned.

First, there is no guarantee there is even going to be a "Mr. Right" but if there is, it's even less of a guarantee that they'd be able to live on one salary, especially if they had children. And let's face it, many marriages don't last forever.

They need to first establish careers that are both a good match for their personalities and interests and will also support them as either single women, or, if the situation arises, single mothers.

I feel no differently about their futures than I do that of my son's. If he married a successful woman and he decided to stay at home and raise the children, I'd be fine with that. However, given how difficult it is for both men and women to establish solid careers these days, I'd very much hope he would have already established a career and continued to stay on top of things for his eventual return to the workforce.

[klf7412]

jenniferjuniper,

I hope you don't think I was saying I would let my daughters be "stay at home daughters" . I wouldn't! YOu don't just sit and home and wait for Mr. RIght. They would get an education and a job.. But I have nothing wrong with their biggest aspiration being to be a SAHM. If they just get their education and work until they marry, and also have it as a back up plan, but ultimately place SAHM at the top of their list, I see nothing wrong with that.

[JenniferJuniper]

jenniferjuniper,

I hope you don't think I was saying I would let my daughters be "stay at home daughters" . I wouldn't! YOu don't just sit and home and wait for Mr. RIght. They would get an education and a job.. But I have nothing wrong with their biggest aspiration being to be a SAHM. If they just get their education and work until they marry, and also have it as a back up plan, but ultimately place SAHM at the top of their list, I see nothing wrong with that.

Disagree.

If someone's "biggest aspiration" is to be SAHM, it's unlikely she is going to put the necessary time, energy and effort required to establish a long term career - not just a job - that pays well enough for her to be truly self-sufficient. And everyone - male or female - needs to learn to become self-sufficient in this world. We can never expect that someone is going to be around to take care of us for all of our lives.

[klf7412]

Disagree.

If someone's "biggest aspiration" is to be SAHM, it's unlikely she is going to put the necessary time, energy and effort required to establish a long term career - not just a job - that pays well enough for her to be truly self-sufficient. And everyone - male or female - needs to learn to become self-sufficient in this world. We can never expect that someone is going to be around to take care of us for all of our lives.

We will have to agree to disagree then. I am not a mom yet, but I have a friend who had a career before she got married, and right after she got married and became pregnant she became a SAHM. I have another friend who did the same, but in a different way. First her and her hubby worked together-- and she could still technically be a SAHM, and later she began working at home exclusively. Another friend the just recently became a SAHM... She has two children both school aged, one of which she decided to homeschool, which is why she quit her job. Another who stays at home now after having children because she believes raising them is more important than the job she had outside of the home.. The list goes on and on, although I have no other friends I can speak of who worked outside the home and now are SAHMs.

ETA: totally forgot the point of my post: I was going to say that these women all had very good careers before they chose to stay home.. One a hairstylist, a pre-school teacher, a social worker, and one a PE teacher. All of those career require time, energy, effort, and college degrees.

[kiwimusume]

He He He

This is only the beginning of Big Bird's revenge.....

:lol: :clap: I came here to say something like this but it was nowhere near as awesome as this.

[Pudicitia]

My parents banned Disney (apart from Mulan) and television with commercials when I was a kid... I spent a lot of time pretending to be a jedi, a wizard, a mystery-solving orphan, or a college professor (I was a weird kid - this involved putting a tie on and creating a book fort).

[karupin]

I work at a preschool, where most boys want to be dinosaurs when they grow up. The girls, however, almost uniformly want to be AKB48 (a famous Japanese pop group consisting over 50+ teenage and preteen girls in miniskirts). Sigh. The exceptions being the girl whose mom is also a preschool teacher (she wants to be a teacher like mommy) and the girl whose mother is a police officer (every member of her family is a police officer, men and women).

The good news being that my older students (8-9ish) have goals in mind-the girls at that level want to be 'a ballet teacher, scientist, author, and doctor', while the boys want to be 'scientist, chef, and soccer player'.

[FaustianSlip]

My mom was a SAHM, but she also went back to school to get a teaching degree. It was a good fucking thing, too, because when my father died suddenly, she did have a career to fall back on, and in retrospect, it probably saved our family's collective ass, financially speaking. Any kids I might have are welcome to pursue stay at home parenting, but that isn't an excuse to just sit at home after high school. If they want to join the military or learn a trade of some kind that doesn't require a university education, that's fine, but they need to do something to better themselves. You don't get that just sitting around waiting for some guy (or girl) to marry you and give you babies to take care of. And you know, I'm glad I had a mother who was educated and had been to college and had a frame of reference when I was in high school getting ready to go to college myself, and I'm glad that I had parents who valued education and pushed me to do the same.

Personally, my big dream as a kid was to be an astronaut. That hasn't quite worked out, but I ended up finding a respectable career for myself, anyway. I never wanted to be a princess, though I was a pretty grounded kid and probably also would have thought, "Um, not a career goal!" if some other kid had told me that that was what they were going to do with their life. I mean, Harry Potter was a wizard, but even he had to take exams and think about an actual career of some kind. I think it's great that Sesame Street is encouraging kids to think about this and pointing out that being a "princess" is fun and all, but it's not a career goal. Perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy, in some cases, and I don't mean that in a positive way.

[Irishy]

We will have to agree to disagree then. I am not a mom yet, but I have a friend who had a career before she got married, and right after she got married and became pregnant she became a SAHM. I have another friend who did the same, but in a different way. First her and her hubby worked together-- and she could still technically be a SAHM, and later she began working at home exclusively. Another friend the just recently became a SAHM... She has two children both school aged, one of which she decided to homeschool, which is why she quit her job. Another who stays at home now after having children because she believes raising them is more important than the job she had outside of the home.. The list goes on and on, although I have no other friends I can speak of who worked outside the home and now are SAHMs.

ETA: totally forgot the point of my post: I was going to say that these women all had very good careers before they chose to stay home.. One a hairstylist, a pre-school teacher, a social worker, and one a PE teacher. All of those career require time, energy, effort, and college degrees.

I think this is a perfectly ok "career choice". So long as they realise that it's a short phase of life. I've been a SAHM full time for 8 years but now my littlest is heading toward pre school in the new year and its time for me to start thinking about one of those job thingies...

Since he could talk, my eldest son has always said when he grows up, he wants to be a daddy. He probably means - just like my daddy. He's always talking about where he'll live when he gets married and maybe it'll be another country, depending on where future partner comes from. Domesticity definitely appeals to him.

[Peas n carrots]

I wanted to be a princess mainly for the clothes, though I had little interest in hanging out in a castle all day. Belle from Beauty & The Beast really appealed to me...she saved her father's ass, and the Beast's as well. She was brainy too, and wasn't afraid to turn down the local jerk.

I also wanted to be an archaeologist, paleontologist, and a crypto zoologist at various points in my life. Luckily my family was very encouraging and said I can do whatever I want. I ended up in the business world, but I'm glad to have had family that never told me my uterus was worth more than my brain.

[Katiebug]

We will have to agree to disagree then. I am not a mom yet, but I have a friend who had a career before she got married, and right after she got married and became pregnant she became a SAHM. I have another friend who did the same, but in a different way. First her and her hubby worked together-- and she could still technically be a SAHM, and later she began working at home exclusively. Another friend the just recently became a SAHM... She has two children both school aged, one of which she decided to homeschool, which is why she quit her job. Another who stays at home now after having children because she believes raising them is more important than the job she had outside of the home.. The list goes on and on, although I have no other friends I can speak of who worked outside the home and now are SAHMs.

ETA: totally forgot the point of my post: I was going to say that these women all had very good careers before they chose to stay home.. One a hairstylist, a pre-school teacher, a social worker, and one a PE teacher. All of those career require time, energy, effort, and college degrees.

I hope you make sure to tell every father you know who works outside the home that he's not raising his kids, or that raising them isn't as important as his job. :roll: No one ever fucking questions a man for continuing to work when he becomes a dad; it's virtually expected of him by our society, yet everyone feels able to question a woman's "choice" to work rather than staying at home. It's a colossal double standard. Usually it's accompanied by additional comments about "letting strangers raise kids" and "putting career ahead of family." I'm a working mom who was raised by two working parents and the idea that working moms aren't raising their children is absurd and offensive.

It's not even really a choice a lot of the time - having a parent be at home with the children is increasingly rare due to the recent economic climate in the US. I know a lot of moms of young children, we're all well-educated white collar professionals, and nearly all of us have to work as do our partners just in order to keep our families afloat. When my husband and I have a second child, our child care costs plus his commuting costs will wipe out his entire paycheck, but it's worth it to us in the long term (i.e. decades) to keep him in his career path. He'd be a pretty good at-home dad, but he likes his job and I'd never ask him to give it up because the finances will be tight for a couple of years.

I have no problem with women (or men) choosing to be SAH parents if they can afford to do it. However, I think that all too often those parents ignore the long term opportunity costs of that decision. We're raising our daughter with strong female role models so that she sees that she can be a doctor, a nurse, an engineer, a businesswoman, a teacher, or whatever she wants to be - AND a mother if she so chooses. If she decides to take time out of her career path to care for her children full time, she will at least be well aware of what she's risking in the long term. That's the exact same thing we'd tell an adult son who wants to be an at-home dad, by the way. The opportunity cost of leaving the workforce may be even more significant for men, due to societal bias.

[Nothing2CHere]

Since you folks are all so brilliant, I'll just use your words to make my additional point. I believe that the bolded by Katiebug:

I have no problem with women (or men) choosing to be SAH parents if they can afford to do it. However, I think that all too often those parents ignore the long term opportunity costs of that decision. We're raising our daughter with strong female role models so that she sees that she can be a doctor, a nurse, an engineer, a businesswoman, a teacher, or whatever she wants to be - AND a mother if she so chooses. If she decides to take time out of her career path to care for her children full time, she will at least be well aware of what she's risking in the long term. That's the exact same thing we'd tell an adult son who wants to be an at-home dad, by the way. The opportunity cost of leaving the workforce may be even more significant for men, due to societal bias.

Really illustrates the point that emmiedahl was making when she wrote this:

There is plenty of that in my life, but it is not "what I do". It's what I do when I am not doing what I do, if that makes sense.

Also wanted to add that I have already started telling my husband that when our son LittleBabyNothing starts dating (he's 5 months old right now), I'm administering an IQ test to any gal who wants to date him. No SOTDRT SAHD for him, I want him to find himself a smart, educated woman!

[Katydid]

I love her!

[Austin]

I don't mean this in a rude way.. I mean it curiously... If after your daughters get married (assuming they do), one of them tells you they would like to quit their job to be a stay at home mom, would you not support them? I only ask because I don't understand this line of thinking.

I'm not emmiedahl, but I tend to agree with what I think is her underlying thinking.

Active parenting/mothering, for lack of a better term, is a relatively short phase in most women's lives. I personally chose to stay at home with my children for 10 years, and I don't regret any of that. But motherhood is not a career, in my view. It's a time in a woman's life (those that choose to have children) and is important work, but their childhoods end. Mothers must have an identity beyond "mom", IMO. And every parent should be prepared to support their children financially should the situation arise that they must.

I am really not diminishing the important work of raising children. While I am a professional woman, it is also true that I consider raising my children the most important work I ever did or ever will do.

It's a complex issue and I'm afraid I'm not articulating this very well, but I don't think it's about not supporting an adult daughter who wants to SAH with her children for a time. I don't have daughters but would support any of my adult sons if they chose to do that for a time.

[klf7412]

I hope you make sure to tell every father you know who works outside the home that he's not raising his kids, or that raising them isn't as important as his job. :roll: No one ever fucking questions a man for continuing to work when he becomes a dad; it's virtually expected of him by our society, yet everyone feels able to question a woman's "choice" to work rather than staying at home. It's a colossal double standard. Usually it's accompanied by additional comments about "letting strangers raise kids" and "putting career ahead of family." I'm a working mom who was raised by two working parents and the idea that working moms aren't raising their children is absurd and offensive.

It's not even really a choice a lot of the time - having a parent be at home with the children is increasingly rare due to the recent economic climate in the US. I know a lot of moms of young children, we're all well-educated white collar professionals, and nearly all of us have to work as do our partners just in order to keep our families afloat. When my husband and I have a second child, our child care costs plus his commuting costs will wipe out his entire paycheck, but it's worth it to us in the long term (i.e. decades) to keep him in his career path. He'd be a pretty good at-home dad, but he likes his job and I'd never ask him to give it up because the finances will be tight for a couple of years.

I have no problem with women (or men) choosing to be SAH parents if they can afford to do it. However, I think that all too often those parents ignore the long term opportunity costs of that decision. We're raising our daughter with strong female role models so that she sees that she can be a doctor, a nurse, an engineer, a businesswoman, a teacher, or whatever she wants to be - AND a mother if she so chooses. If she decides to take time out of her career path to care for her children full time, she will at least be well aware of what she's risking in the long term. That's the exact same thing we'd tell an adult son who wants to be an at-home dad, by the way. The opportunity cost of leaving the workforce may be even more significant for men, due to societal bias.

I didn't say it was more important to be home.. She did. Just clarifying. I think you can be a fantastic Mother at home or outside of the home.

[valsa]

I didn't say it was more important to be home.. She did. Just clarifying. I think you can be a fantastic Mother at home or outside of the home.

I think people were questioning your choice of words, not her beliefs. The way you phrased the bolded part made it seem like "raising your kids" and "having a job" are mutally exclusive. Or, if that is just her opinion, does this woman think her husband, who obviously works, is not raising the children?