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Old 05-11-2011, 11:33 AM
  # 15 (permalink)  
StarCat
Today is a New Day
 
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,766
My mother never accepted my career. She always tried to push me into nursing or pharmacy, because "They'll be flexible, so you can raise a family." Also, with one of her family friends the roles are reversed - the wife works all day as a doctor, while the husband stays home with the kids and has his own private psychology practice - and my mother always viewed that as unhealthy, as if the wife is forcing him to stay home and he's losing his masculinity because of it.

That said, I hold up very well in my job, and while I'll confess my manager is rather jumpy around me sometimes (one of my coworkers told me a funny story of being pulled aside after a meeting we both attended, because he used a swear word in the meeting, and my manager was afraid I'd complain to HR or some such nonsense), I don't feel like I'm treated differently. (My manager's cool, btw. We talked about the swearword thing, I told him I hadn't even noticed, and that if I had an issue I wouldn't think of going to HR without talking to him first.)
The few people who don't know me and try to throw blame my way, thinking I'll be an easy scapegoat, quickly learn that I'll wrap it up nicely, put a bow on it, and politely hand it back, adding their manager in the Cc: line.

My personal life needs some work, due to what I was taught about female roles growing up, but my career is doing great, so I know I'm on the right track.
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