I really love this picture, it feels so empowering. It's not a thing to bring your children to these kind of formal events, but Licia Ronzulli has enough respect and authority to bring her little Victoria without any opposition. In this picture she is voting to improve women's employment's rights.
I work 40 hours a week and I have quickly realized since my own son was born that men and women have completely different approaches to the balance of work and children. I am fortunate enough to have a flexible job that allows me to choose my own hours and I choose them to be from the very early morning, allowing me to get home by 1 pm. I understand The Proclamation to the Family when it says men and women's roles are different because even though my husband is an amazing father who can do anything I can do for my baby, take care of him by himself for just as long, we have fundamentally different approaches. I can't imagine only seeing my baby at night, but most men who work do that. My baby goes to sleep at 7 pm (literally screams and fusses uncontrollably if you try to put him to bed later...), I would barely see him if I worked until 5 pm.
Here is the reality: I was raised in a religion that does not support women working. I took that and decided that even though I didn't like children, I would probably want them some day and I wanted to be there for them as much as possible. I was pre-med at Cornell, one of the best programs in the country, and I knew that it would be too hard for me personally to live through med school and residency and being a doctor, on call and obligated to a hospital and patients and to also have a family. I chose to go to grad school, in part, because even though scientists are crazy obsessed people, they pick their hours. I have a friend who works in her lab from 8 pm until the early morning hours because that's when she feels the most productive. The big key in a lab is progress, getting your projects done and analyzing your results. Eventually writing papers and getting them published. Once I realized how flexible it could be, I knew it was where I wanted to pursue science.
That sounds cheesy, like what I wrote in my personal statement in the application (note: definitely not what I wrote in my personal statement) but it is the honest truth. I chose science first because of its stability and second so I could have a family life. I love being at work and I love going home to play with my baby, I can get the best of both and it makes for a pretty great life.
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