Dear Mrs. Obama,
Recently I read "A Promised Land" followed by "Becoming", I have to agree with you that Mr. Obama is indeed quite verbose and wordy!
Thank you for sharing your story and I am very touched by it. I admire your relentless effort to make the world a better place, especially on the welfare of our children.
Here is part of my story that I would like to share with you. My family immigrated to Canada when I was 15 years old. Despite poor English, I graduated from the top engineering school in Canada, worked for a few years, and later got a master degree in engineering. Very much like your old self, I don't have much of an aspiration, I was just climbing to a secure future. I had my first child well into my 30s, and after giving birth, I stopped working. Do you know anyone like me?!
Almost 13 years later, my family settled in US and my youngest child just turned 11 years old. I wanted to lead by example and show my children, especially my daughter, that women can be more than just Mommy. In the past year, I joined coding boot camp, trying to refresh some knowledge I learned at school. Soon after I started applying for jobs did I realize how difficult it is to re-enter the job market after such a long break. I am in my 40s, not even a stat/number, and I am invisible.
Instead of going back to professional work, many of the skilled moms I know who have no financial pressure use their time to join various volunteering positions while raising kids. This is all great, but inadvertently, I believe this contributes to gender inequality. There are less skilled women at executive levels for girls to model. I feel you were lucky in a sense your sacrifice in the career paid off (that you are able to do more today) , but for many of us, it did not. I can't stop wondering, what if they(young girls) end up like me and waste their education?
To complete the picture for most girls (& some boys), I firmly believe that having new pathways to return to work is critical. We are not going to give up raising babies & family. Currently, we have maternity leave which is great, but it's not enough. There are only a handful of companies that help women with "returnship" in the US. We need more companies to be willing and open up internship possibilities for parents absent from the workforce due to child bearing, chances to contribute again.
Please lend your voice to this cause. We need big companies, more companies to create pathways for this Mommy workforce. Only by giving caregivers opportunities to return to work professionally, would we be able to see more women at the top.
Thank you.
Respectfully,
Valerie
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