This advice on preparing for their futures was given to young women of the Church in 1969 –

A Woman’s Career

Lorraine Roberts

For ten years I have been counseling teenage girls in their vocational inquiries as part of the guidance program for ninth grade students. Year after year, when the girls are asked what type of career they plan to prepare for, the answer received is usually, “Oh! I’m not going to prepare for a vocation. I’m going to be a housewife.”

Many teenagers do not realize how many women spend time working outside the home. In addition, almost a third of all mothers with children of school age are now employed, an d the percentage of women workers is increasing each year. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the single woman works for about 40 years. This includes about one-tenth of all women.

“Even married women, on the average, can count on rather lengthy work life expectancies – about 30 years for those with children, and about 25 years for those without children,” the department has reported.

While mothers are not encouraged to work outside the home, it is still important for them to be prepared to earn a living if it should ever become necessary for them to do so. It is estimated that in the United States high school girls of today will spend an average of 25 years working. Married women who do not have children usually spend a greater part of their time working than do women with children, while women who remain single can expect to spend as many years earning a livelihood as men do – approximately 45 years.

Most young women work for a few years before they marry. Later, for various reasons, they may return to the labor force. The death of a husband is one reason some women return to work. others seek employment because their husbands become disabled due to accidents or illnesses. Sometimes, when her family has grown to young adulthood, a mother will be happy if she can work for a while to help support Johnny on a mission or to help Dick with his college expenses. Occasionally a broken home necessitates a woman’s return to the vocational fields.

These are a few of the reasons why every girl should prepare herself for some kind of work outside the home.

A majority of the girls I interview state preference for professional occupations, such as medicine, law, or social work. These vocational objectives sound good, but they are unrealistic for about 97 percent of these girls, because only about three percent of the population will be engaged in professional fields.

Some girls note that they would like to be airline stewardesses, stenographers or typists, or beauticians. Of these three vocations, the stenographic position is probably the most realistic choice from the standpoint of supply and demand.

Few girls express an interest in the semiprofessional or technical occupations, such as those of X-ray technicians, medical technicians, laboratory assistants. This area certainly needs to be stressed as one that will offer fine opportunities to those who obtain necessary training.

In the next decade the following trends are expected:

The clerical field will probably remain the area offering the greatest number of positions for women. Women hold two-thirds of all clerical jobs, according to one government survey.

There will likely be an increased demand for women in data processing – as key punch operators, console operators, and programmers.

The professional and technical positions are expected to be the most rapidly growing occupational groups. “Between 1965 and 19675, employment in the professional and technical group is expected to rise by nearly 40 percent – almost twice the rate for total employment,” according to the Labor Department report.

“Job opportunities generally will increase fastest in occupations requiring the most education and training,” the report concludes. These are the professional, technical, and kindred workers. Likewise, the less schooling a person has, the higher the rate of unemployment, since jobs for unskilled workers will decline.

Teachers at all levels of education will be in demand. There will be an increased need for women workers in medical and health services.

Full-time and part-time job opportunities will be available for women in sales work, practical nursing, and as counter and fountain workers, char-women, and cleaners.

However, girls should actually plan for two careers: a vocation and the career of homemaker. The career of homemaking demands special education, basic training, and experience. Not only should the homemaker know the art of food preparation, how to sew, the techniques of child care, and basic first aid and home nursing, but she must also be a loving wife who can share her husband’s ups and downs with understanding and affection. She must know how to kiss away the tears that invade the little tots’ eyes, and she must know how to give them the right of amount of discipline and freedom so they might be happy, secure children.

The homemaker must be able to transmit her feelings of reverence and her knowledge of the gospel to her children so they may possess high moral standards and be active participants in the Church as they grow to adulthood. She must know how to help budget the family income in such a way that there will be money left each month for savings. She must know how to buy for greatest value, how to mend, repair, and redecorate. She must know how to manage her time so well that the household chores are consistently completed and there is still time left for a bit of visiting with neighbors.

The housewife must know where, when, how, and how much to help children with their schoolwork. She must be patient with their failures, and lend encouragement and an interested ear to them. She must also possess the ability to close her eyes to many of the daily problems that could cause her to be negative and to nag at her husband and family. She must be aware of the importance of putting on a freshly laundered house dress and applying lipstick to smiling lips before her husband arrives home from work.

When the time comes that she returns to employment outside the home, she will find that running the house properly and maintaining a warm home situation have been excellent job preparation. Teenagers need to know that they will only be as successful tomorrow as they are ambitious today in preparing for their future.