Do you think women are forced to choose between motherhood and their careers, or, do women assume the pressure of having to choose between the two?
Tyra Banks became very emotional during her new talk show, Fab Life, while discussing the difficulty she’s had when trying to have children.
“I’ve wanted to say this for so long and did not plan to stay this, did not even plan to talk about this today. I just feel like we’re so hard on each other and judgmental of each other. A woman that is divorced three times is more normal than a woman that has not been married. I’m so tired of seeing on my social media, ‘Why don’t you have kids?,’ You don’t know what I’m going through. You have no idea.”
“For a long time, when I was twenty-three years old, I use to tell myself, ‘In three years I’m gonna have kids.’ Then I turn twenty-four, ‘In three years I’m gonna have kids.’ And just every single year I kept saying that.”
While fighting back tears Banks adds, “And then after a while, it’s like, now I want to and it’s not so easy.”
Prior to Banks’ revelation, model Chrissy Teigen, who’s married to singer John Legend, also shared her own struggles to conceive. She adds, “Just being two years into being married the questions just come from all over. I can’t imagine being that nosy to be like, ‘So, when are the kids coming?’
“Who knows what somebody is going through? I will say honestly, John and I were having struggles. We would have had kids five, six years ago if it happened. But, my gosh, it’s been a process. We’ve seen fertility doctors and then once you open up to all those things to other people, you start learning that a lot of other people in your life are seeing these people and they have this shame about it.”
Teigen advises, “Any time somebody ask me if I’m going to have kids I’m like, ‘one day you’re going to ask that to the wrong girl who is struggling and it’s going to be really hurtful to them.’ I hate it. Stop asking me!”
And actress Gabrielle Union, who wed longtime NBA star Dwyane Wade last year, had this to say in a recent interview. “So far, it has not happened for us. A lot of my friends deal with this. There’s a certain amount of shame that is placed on women who have perhaps chosen a career over starting a family younger. The penance for being a career woman is barrenness. You feel like you’re wearing a scarlet letter.”
While Banks has been a successful model and television host, Teigen a successful print and commercial model, and Union has had had a long running and successful acting career, it makes us wonder, are women forced to choose between their careers and being mothers?
Studies have suggested that there’s a strong correlation between successful women and those who never marry or have children, perhaps, due to putting off having children in the first place.
Do you guys think women are forced to choose between the two roles or assume the pressure of having to choose?
We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Watch more of the emotional breakthrough below:
