Can Smart Girls be Truly Happy with the “Trad Life”?
There is perhaps no greater personal tragedy than the idea of a talented young person never fulfilling his or her potential in life. Modern culture frames marriage and children as an oppositional force to this “fulfilling of potential”; our movies, films and media all imply that getting married and having children are burdens that compete with our goals for greatness in other endeavours.
Specifically, it seems that women must logically sacrifice more of their “other endeavours” than men, especially if the woman holds traditional values that dictate she is primarily responsible for childcare and domestic management. The never-ending and arduous responsibilities of being a wife and mother would seem to make it impossible for a woman to pursue any other endeavours in her young life, whereas a man may pursue his vocation and talents to achieve his full potential in this dynamic.
If this is true, then is it right or good for an intelligent and talented young woman to “waste her potential” by becoming a wife and a mother? Can she truly lead a happy life if she were to abdicate her talents for “the trad life”? Will she be bored? These are the questions that feminists raise, and I hope I have framed them in as good faith as possible, because I believe they deserve serious consideration.
The following information I present not in an effort to boast, but in order to show that I have some authority from which to argue my main point. I am now 29 years old. I have achieved great academic accolades in my life. I graduated top of my class in high school through the IB program, as a Magna Cum Laude graduate with a 95% average. I was the first student in 10 years to get a 7 in Higher Level English Literature. I graduated from my Bachelor of Medical Science degree with a 3.7GPA. I won $20,000 in a national Artificial Intelligence design program. I have a Masters in Neuroscience and was accepted into several PhD programs for Neuroscience as well. I speak six languages.
And yet, I have chosen “the trad life”, I have spent the last three years of my life getting married, looking after my home and being pregnant...and I do not believe I have wasted my potential. In fact, I believe that “the trad life” has put me on the trajectory to achieving more greatness than even I believed I was capable of. In this essay, I hope to explain just how.