No, not WMD, as in Weapons of Mass Destruction, although there are a few similarities - they can both be quite dangerous, sometimes even explosive, and always mysterious. But, I’m pretty sure that the MWD does exist, unlike the elusive WMD. MWD refers to the “Modern Woman Dilemma,” a term a handful of us on this list coined which describes the competing desires to pursue careers and at the same time to maintain the domestic nest.

I realize that I am not, by any means, speaking for all modern women, but there is a set of us that does like both to spend our days planting tomatoes and baking fresh bread, and, at the same time, to stretch our minds and contribute to the household purse as well as the greater society through work, and we are stuck trying to reconcile, rather than be torn asunder by, these competing demands. Because, the fact is, when you have a job on top of looking after the contents of the nest, it just adds up to too much and the quality control breaks down somewhere. As Sandra Tsing Loh, a particularly sarcastic writer for the Atlantic on all things modern woman, says, “You can have it all . . . if you live like a man.”

So, to my dilemma of late - Do I take a job that sounds really fantastic and would probably lead up the ladder to higher places with more responsibilities? Or, do I, an early thirty-something woman who’s been married for six years, opt for something less ambitious that isn’t likely to lead up that ladder but would, instead, leave more room for growing that domestic nest a bit. On one hand, I feel the need to make use of my long years of schooling as a way to repay the world around me, which has given me such great experiences. In which case, I should just seize the moment and take the more challenging job because I don’t want to miss out on a neat opportunity. But, on the other hand, I have the urge to take the easier career path in order to prepare the nest in hopes of filling it – a kind of “build it and they will come” philosophy – to prepare a physical and temporal space in my life for the coming of a helpless being who’s going to need every ounce of my time and energy.

All of this assumes that working is not a financial necessity, which is rarely true. It just costs a lot to live – to have a house, a car, food, heat, and a little money to have fun with, like to travel, if you have that bug, which we definitely do. There is also the compulsion to work more now if you want to work less later, in order to build up the nest egg. And, even if I had the freedom and desire not to work, there’s the problem that most of my friends work and I’d have no one to play with during the day except for a small group of stay-at-home moms who are quite occupied with child rearing (that’s another cultural discussion for another time, bringing me back to Italy where people asked why I worked as a married woman, regardless of whether I had children or not).

To the resolution of my dilemma – No go on the more challenging job. Instead, I’ve landed somewhere in the middle in keeping my current job, which has changed quite a bit since I took it more than a year ago. When I first took my job, I picked it because I was in hopeful nest-building mode. I was an Administrative Assistant, working part-time and I left my work behind at the appointed hour. Now, my position has morphed three times, and I am deep into a major project in the organization and am working full time. I still feel like I’m in a holding pattern, though, as, even though I’m full time now, this is not the job I would have picked had I been solely focused on a career a year ago.

So, there it is, the MWD - thought I’d get a little discussion going about it to share with everyone, as I have talked with all of you about it at some point or another and perhaps there is something to be learned from our collective wisdom and experience. In that spirit, if you like, please add your two cents to my ramblings.