> In our society we generally don't rear our >daughters to be home bodies - they are educated to achieve and survive in >the corporate world - its a jungle out there! You don't have to make it an either/or choice. You can do both -- depending on the choices make in terms of husband (critically important), career (also critically important), timing of child-bearing, etc. It is possible to have a career, have a husband and children, and be with the kids a lot while they are small children, and be a good cook, and even have friends, too! My first child was with both parents constantly for the first 3.5 years of her life, my second child was with my husband constantly for the first two years of his life, and my third child was with me constantly for the first year of his life. All this while I was either in school or teaching and doing research. My first, a daughter is about to leave the nest, and she does not have the perception that she will have to choose between being a "home body" and having a career, though she surely is not aiming for the corporate world -- rather for medical school or to become a bioethicist. In most "traditional" cultures, work and home life are all part of a seamless whole -- work takes place at home and in the fields, and children go whereever their mothers are. Same for fathers. It is unusual to find public and private spheres as separated as they are in Western industrialized countries. Kathy D. mailto:[log in to unmask]