And Baby and Me

NOT long ago I received an invitation to a party "Come as you will be in ten years," it beckoned. Intrigued, I decided to check it out. Classmates came dressed as doctors, lawyers, and executives. There even was an astronaut. But the three who shocked the crowd the most came pregnant one dangled diapers, one bulged in a business suit, and I toted twins. With a three-to-one ratio (doctor to nondoctor), we felt very pregnant but very safe.

People found us startling. Maybe the reason was that in the past four years or few months or few days we've thought about what we hope to be doing in life but little about how we might live. We haven't considered whether marriage and children are likely or what those relationships might be like. Parents may no longer provide all the necessary models.

I doubt that women come to Dartmouth to find husbands anymore. You don't find Marriage 28 in the prospectus of courses. You don't find it in the basement of Phi Delt, either. Though taught from birth to be mothers, we've been educated at Dartmouth to be "leaders of tomorrow." So we're setting out with classmates to find our magic careers.

The search began for some with graduate, law, business, or medical school applications, corporate interviews, more individually designed plans, any combination of the above, or none of the above. Some plan to travel the world. Others remain undecided and find the suspense mounting: "I'll take two law school applications, five business school forms, and four graduate school guides. And . . .

uh . . . can you throw in an acceptance?" While waiting to hear from graduate schools, many made the corporate recruiting circuit. Unlike the Gile Circuit (where dormitory residents descend on fraternity tap-rooms), civilized behavior is at a premium and people dress to kill. Every senior I encountered said the inter-viewing was "for Experience." (I've yet to figure out who Experience is and how she or he liked it.) But many landed interesting jobs or at least found out where they didn't want to work.

Now comes another set of questions. Will careers shape or be shaped by our personal lives? After camping in the country for four years, urban living may be traumatic. One friend does not worry at all about starting a job with a prominent firm in a big city. Rather, she's consulted maps, wondering, "Where will I jog?" Others worry about the "three-month syndrome" will they want to move, to change bosses, change friends, after three months in the same way they changed professors, classes, and classmates every term at Dartmouth?

We women consider options many of our mothers never had. Moms grew up with different expectations. Dads, on the other hand, lure daughters into their fields law, banking, business, medicine, journalism. . . . Once there, it's apparent that it still is a "man's world." Friends reported seeing signals in interviews: the overwhelming number of male interviewers, the informal drinks with the boys, the off-color jokes. Recent graduates find this true, too, even at professional clubs where, for example, equal facilities for women still are lacking.

Now comes the real clincher. Suppose marriage makes sense? How to make it sensible? A few may face the seemingly trivial problem about the surname. Whose to take? It may not be trivial if, for professional or personal reasons, someone wants to keep her own. One could hyphenate. If Zelda Golden-Baron had married Stanley Goldowitz-Berenberg, I would have been Beth Ann Golden-BaronGoldowitz-Berenberg and I doubt I'd ever get a by-line. After debating this issue with my recently married cousin (who kept his own name), we came up with this system: First, if a name is a pain, then throw it out. But who'd agree to that? So, alternately, take the name of the woman if she was born in an even year and the name of the man if she was born in an odd year. (Most '80 women were born in 1958.)

The name presents one stumbling block, and there is more trouble ahead. She's in medical school, he's got a job. Who will do the laundry when she rushes out to lectures? She works, he works. Who will move when she gets a promotion? It will take strong individuals if roles are switched, flipped, and thrown out.

One role many of us will keep is the reproductive one. The puzzle may then become how to reconcile children with a career. One friend has plotted graphs and charts of the optimum year, month, and day when she can take off from her legal career, have the babies, and not hurt her chances at promotion. Even at Dartmouth, few female professors can serve as models Perhaps they could have the kids and then teach the toddlers to grade papers. (I might have done better on my Music 1 exam.)

What's becoming apparent is that decisions must be shared. Women alone can't possibly choose between a family and career. Realistically, most women must work, and want to. If Kramer vs. Kramer taught us anything, it was that fathers are parents, too. If both can be breadwinners, both can be breadmakers.

Hearing of the job offers and acceptances so far, it seems that equal education leads to equal opportunities. I have no doubt that the guys I've met here will succeed in their chosen careers. I hope that they're equally skillful in personal relationships. I've no doubt, too, that the women I've come to know and respect will do well. We've learned what a "man's school" is all about and we've seen it change to become also our school. Maybe the world can change, too. And me? I had triplets.