Glenn Close Says “Follow Your Dreams.” At What Cost, Though?

Highly respected and iconic actor, Glenn Close, gave a heartfelt tribute to her mother at the 2019 Golden Globe ceremony as she accepted the award for best actress in a drama for her role in The Wife. While I agree with her beliefs about women following their dreams, I think that her message might be misinterpreted when it comes to women who actually choose to be stay-at-home moms. Close received a standing ovation after she said:

I’m thinking of my mom who really sublimated herself to my father her whole life and in her 80s she said to me, ‘I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything.’ And it was so not right, and I feel what I’ve learned through this whole experience is that women, we’re nurturers. That’s what’s expected of us. We have our children, we have our husbands, if we’re lucky enough, and our partners, whoever. But we have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams. We have to say, ‘I can do that and I should be allowed to do that.’

My own mother felt the same way as Close’s did, and that is unfortunate, because it affected my thinking. For women who came of age in the 1950s, being a wife and mother was often their only option. This is not the case today, and the scale has tipped so far that women who choose to be wives and mothers—stay-at-home mothers—are often made to feel that they are slackers, especially by other women. This concerns me greatly. If a woman is free to follow her dreams, shouldn’t she be allowed to follow the domestic one without being made to feel less than the career mom?

Here’s where I relate. I dropped out of college, got married, and had three kids—bing, bam, boom. I was  a stay-at-home mom, and even in the 1990s, I often felt that other women, who had careers, looked down on me. Eventually, I began to feel that there was no meaning in my life, even though from the earliest I can remember, my biggest dream was to have children.

It’s absolutely crazy that I thought my life had no meaning, because there is no job in the world that is more important than raising the next generation. So, I put my kids (and husband) on a back burner, got both undergraduate and graduate degrees, and then found a full-time job. Suddenly, I had a “profession.” I had a graduate degree. I traveled. How grand. I was fulfilled!

My kids and husband? I am grateful that they still speak to me.

I’m not saying that women shouldn’t follow their dreams. I’m not even saying they shouldn’t work or go back to school when they have kids. I’m saying that if they choose to stay home with their kids, they shouldn’t be looked down upon, and they shouldn’t be made to feel less than.

I’m sad that Glenn Close’s mother, and my own, felt that they hadn’t accomplished anything when they looked at their husbands and children, over whom they had profound influence. Our mothers were likely made to feel inferior by people who believe that homemakers rank lower than career women.

On a related note, the logic that women aren’t worth anything because they support their spouses (partners) and children would have to be extended to anyone in the helping professions, right? We don’t say that nurses and teachers haven’t accomplished anything. They can see their results in the eyes of their patients and students. Wives and mothers can see their influence in the eyes of their spouses (partners) and children.

Bottom line: If a woman wants to be a brain surgeon, she should pursue that dream happily, and if she wants to be a stay-at-home mom, she shouldn’t be made to feel that she does not have as much human worth as the brain surgeon.

Also, women should not sublimate themselves permanently to anyone. But there are times when the needs of others are more important than our own.

So, women should follow their dreams, as Glenn Close passionately said. But their dreams might be to serve others, including their partners and children. We all have our paths in life to follow. It is not for us to judge the worth of another person’s journey.