I don’t usually read the Sports section, but this excellent article in the New York Times talks about how difficult it is for women to balance work and family…especially when those women work as professional golfers! Writer Karen Crouse focuses on Cristie Kerr, who, at 32, has accomplished her lifelong goal of becoming the No. 1 golfer in the world. However, Kerr feels like she’s still a long way off from achieving her other big life goal: becoming a mom. Kerr says that she always thought she’d have a baby by now, but although she and her husband are excited to start their family, they don’t want Kerr to give up her golf career while she’s at the top of her game.
“For Kerr, the impediment to motherhood is golf, and there is no automatic relief,” Crouse writes. “A woman’s athletic prime and her peak child-bearing years overlap like a total eclipse of the moon. A woman’s fertility peaks in her mid-20s and declines sharply after the age of 35, a real conundrum for golfers, whose games, like the courses they play, take years to mature.”
Babies and when to have them are a hot topic among women golfers, especially since pros like Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa recently left the sport to focus on their families. “Conversations on motherhood among golfers now often include surrogacy, adoption, freezing eggs, assisted reproduction techniques and the side effects of hormone injections,” Crouse writes. Even Kerr is considering surrogacy, but the idea doesn’t seem to sit well with her self-described “control freak” nature. And even if she and her husband, who works as her agent, do enlist the help of a surrogate, how many teams of people will they need to enlist to care for the baby while Kerr is touring all over the world with the L.P.G.A.? Nancy Lopez, who was a golf star in the early 80′s, drives home this point. “It’s definitely different for women,” she said. “Guys, they have a wife who takes care of the children. They can focus totally on golf.” While Lopez, now 53, won 21 of her 48 L.P.G.A. titles as a mother, Crouse explains that the increasing globalization of golf has raised the stakes for parents. The grueling travel schedule really takes a toll on golf-moms (that’s the reason Ochoa gave for retiring from the tour this past spring).
And I thought I had some tough decisions to make!
Tagged as:
ambivalence,
Cristie Kerr,
golf,
golfers,
motherhood,
work and family,
work-life balance
Female pro golfers drive home the point about the difficulty of balancing work and motherhood.
by Corrie on July 13, 2010
I don’t usually read the Sports section, but this excellent article in the New York Times talks about how difficult it is for women to balance work and family…especially when those women work as professional golfers! Writer Karen Crouse focuses on Cristie Kerr, who, at 32, has accomplished her lifelong goal of becoming the No. 1 golfer in the world. However, Kerr feels like she’s still a long way off from achieving her other big life goal: becoming a mom. Kerr says that she always thought she’d have a baby by now, but although she and her husband are excited to start their family, they don’t want Kerr to give up her golf career while she’s at the top of her game.
“For Kerr, the impediment to motherhood is golf, and there is no automatic relief,” Crouse writes. “A woman’s athletic prime and her peak child-bearing years overlap like a total eclipse of the moon. A woman’s fertility peaks in her mid-20s and declines sharply after the age of 35, a real conundrum for golfers, whose games, like the courses they play, take years to mature.”
Babies and when to have them are a hot topic among women golfers, especially since pros like Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa recently left the sport to focus on their families. “Conversations on motherhood among golfers now often include surrogacy, adoption, freezing eggs, assisted reproduction techniques and the side effects of hormone injections,” Crouse writes. Even Kerr is considering surrogacy, but the idea doesn’t seem to sit well with her self-described “control freak” nature. And even if she and her husband, who works as her agent, do enlist the help of a surrogate, how many teams of people will they need to enlist to care for the baby while Kerr is touring all over the world with the L.P.G.A.? Nancy Lopez, who was a golf star in the early 80′s, drives home this point. “It’s definitely different for women,” she said. “Guys, they have a wife who takes care of the children. They can focus totally on golf.” While Lopez, now 53, won 21 of her 48 L.P.G.A. titles as a mother, Crouse explains that the increasing globalization of golf has raised the stakes for parents. The grueling travel schedule really takes a toll on golf-moms (that’s the reason Ochoa gave for retiring from the tour this past spring).
And I thought I had some tough decisions to make!
Tagged as: ambivalence, Cristie Kerr, golf, golfers, motherhood, work and family, work-life balance