What's a Single Girl to Do?

A serious question posed by a young single lady was what I thought young women who want to marry and have children, but have no prospect for marriage and motherhood in the near future, should do?

This is something that I have given some thought to as I have a number of daughters, some of whom are older. Are single women supposed to sit at the parental home crocheting and looking domestic until some knight rides by to sweep them off their feet? Or is it possible to do something else with their lives, as they wait for Prince Charming, like get an education or a career? I think the latter is a valid direction for single women.

As a practical matter, as young women mature, they want their own space to govern and arrange. It can be difficult living in your mom's home and having to submit every creative idea to her oversight, particularly if you are entering your 20's. Women want to create their own spaces that reflect their personality and creativity. And if mom has been training her daughters into home management, they also want the space to actually manage a home too. Nor do I think unmarried daughters are to become the family drudges, spending their time serving Mom and Dad and younger siblings by doing the housekeeping and cooking. But what if no man is on the horizen, ready to take advantage of these desires? Must she languish forever in the parental home, frustrated by her training and not able to express it?

I don't believe so. Now, I do think that there are some limitations on what women ought to engage in career wise. I have a definite bias against women police officers, soldiers, firemen, and other occupations that benefit not only from greater masculine strength, but the inherent masculine authority that men have and women don't have that helps them to be successful in that career. If a woman feels she is definitely not called to celibacy and thinks she will eventually marry, I also have a bias against entering into a career path that will require long years of training followed by long years paying off the education debt, and which would be interrupted badly by marrying and having children. An example of this type of career would be that of a doctor. No woman who wants to marry should follow a path where she and others are likely to think she is "wasting" her education and training if she concentrates on the primary calling of being a full time wife and mother. Though she could lay this sort of thing aside, it would likely cause her to become more easily discontented. It can sometimes be tedious doing the daily round of hausfrau and I would think that the temptation of the "if only I had" or the "what if" scenarios are harder to withstand if you left behind an intensive career.

It is possible to find lucrative and satisfying work that doesn't require a great deal of preparation and training. My daughter was telling me today that the average wage of the top income earners at a local restaurant works out to $20 an hour when you factor in the tips. Not bad for a short term stint, and this is something you could easily leave when the time for marriage comes, and it can even be a good part time opportunity if the family ever needed a financial boost.

Ideally, if a woman wants to get educated and then have a career until she is married, one thing to keep in mind is whether or not it is something she could do from home while still fulfilling her primary role or if it is something she could pick up later when the children are grown. Technology has made it easier to do this for a variety of tasks: medical transcription, accounting, book-keeping, and network marketing spring to mind off the top of my head. (Network marketing is my personal favorite. It is an industry most people regard with loathing, mostly because we all remember the way it used to be in the "bad old days" when you had to deceive people into meeting with you, stockpile inventory in your garage, and use a great deal of hype to get anywhere. Things have changed drastically for the better though, and as an industry it is undervalued and its potential is not fully realized by many.)

In short, I see nothing wrong with working or getting an education or even following your dreams based on your talents and interests while waiting and praying for someone to come along. People who are productive and active are more likely to attract a quality mate than those who waste away at home, IMHO.