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Carme Chacon: When career and motherhood meet
Filed under: Your Pregnancy, Work Life, In The News, Mommy Wars
Carme Chacon is 37 years old and an expectant mom who is seven months pregnant. She's also the defense minister of Spain, which has put her in a difficult position. While Spain has a mandated 16-week maternity leave (paid maternity leave...lets hear a collective groan from our American sisters), some are saying that she shouldn't be allowed the time off, due to the important nature of her job. Others are calling that point of view sexist, saying that if a man in the position fell ill, there'd be no question.While it's hard for us in the States to relate (six weeks unpaid leave is hard enough to pull off), it is easy to understand the crossroads where motherhood and career meet. As women, motherhood forces us to make choices about the direction our lives are taking. Will we step aside from our careers -- careers we worked hard for in our youth -- to raise our children, or will we try to strike a balance between work and home?
MSNBC has an interesting article about the different viewpoints surrounding this issue. Take a minute to check it out, then come back and share your thoughts with us.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
4-26-2008 @ 9:20AM
Mel said..."Others are calling that point of view sexist, saying that if a man in the position fell ill, there'd be no question."
Well, here's the thing. Preganancy is just a tad different than "falling ill." In fact, the two states of being have absolutely nothing in common. Come to think of it though, males in office who get sick routinely vacate their office. So either way, the obligatory and ubiquitous "sexist" battlecry is far-fetched at best, and obsequious at worst.
The bottom line is that if a person cannot do their job, they should allow someone else to do it. This is even more pronounced when the position is defense minister or some such other national security job. The instability of pregnancy and/or illness is fatal to this type of job.
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