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The Saudi Balancing Act
Ashwaq Al- Sadoun
Saudi ArabiaGALLERYCONVERSATION
Making the decision to start working and beginning what I hope will be a long and prosperous career has been extremely difficult.
I have chosen to become a working mother but that does not mean that I have chosen my career over my child, or that I love my child any less than a mother who has chosen to stay at home. It simply means that besides motherhood, I have other needs and objectives. However, these needs will never outweigh my child's needs.
All the same, I constantly ask myself: Will my nine-hour-a-day absence affect my child? And I constantly reassure myself: of course it will affect her, but it will not harm her. If anything, it will teach her, at young age, the value of work. Furthermore, she will see that her mother is a strong woman and will take comfort in and be proud of my independence.
So what of our Saudi society? Why is it so much harder for married women to work than men and single women? Some argue that married women should not be allowed to work because they would neglect their children. As if a woman could simply have a child and then forget about it, abandoning it in order to play grown-up with other adults! These are the same people who argue that family planning is outrageous. They insist that a wife's job is to have babies until she is absolutely unable.
Ironically, it turns out, the fact that our Saudi society pressures women to be "baby machines" and frowns upon women working alongside men actually forces women to bypass marriage and family all together in order to establish a career.
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