Stop blaming women for holding themselves back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to prioritize. This is nothing new. Take a different job, or career, or don't have kids, or have only one, live near family.... The possibilities are endless so choose one and make it work.

Exactly. So they need to stop telling women we can have it all. You just can't. Men can have it all.

No, you only think men can because of the idea that it's ok for men to be less involved in their family life if they make a big salary. DH has turned down jobs that would increase our HHI by 75K because it would mean he would work long hours and it wasn't worth it to him. It's a myth that all men can have it all (I say all men because there are some who care more about money than family )

Agree with this. DH is very unhappy that his work gets him home at 7:30pm, which means he gets about 20 minutes with the kids (bedtime stories, basically), PLUS he is on the outs at work for not working longer into the evening like most people (laywer) even though he works from home at night.

Just goes to show it's not a WOMEN problem, it's a PARENT problem. Parents need to stop being punished for having children (without which our economy will obviously not function, considering the importance of birth rate and economic growth/stability) by having sensible leave policies established and by the whole of the U.S. examining how rational it is to expect people to work 12-hour days (during which most employees probably accomplish little more than they would during an 8-hr day) or billable hours (a vestigial and terrible way to pay attorneys, if you ask me).

It's only people who are poverty level or making hundreds of thousands of dollars who consistently work 12 hour days.

[Anonymous]

WOHM here, lawyer and sole breadwinner with SAHD spouse who does almost everything around the house. It's a great setup in many ways, but I am still not in the same position as my male colleagues with SAH wives. I might get flamed for this, but kids want their moms in a visceral way that I don't think applies to dads. Even though DH was the primary caregiver and spent more time with DCs when they were little, they wanted Mommy when they were sick, awake at night with nightmares, lonely, etc. They cried and clung to my leg when I had to travel. And so I had to choose between not meeting their needs or getting the stinkeye when I left work on time (or as my a$$hole colleague called it, "early"). Work won for several years and I am trying to rebalance. I don't have a good answer for how to balance the biological realities of pregnancy, BF'ing, etc., with a demanding career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality is that no one, male or female, is going to make it into the c-suite working 8 hours a day. That's life in the corporate world. Everyone has a choice about what type of work-life balance they are comfortable with, and they should make a decision based on their personal goals. It is ridiculous to think someone "owes" you something or to get bitter because you can't have it all. No one can have it all... Make your decision and embrace it.

I'm 50, and I totally agree. I had the big bucks and high powered career for 9 years, then I had kids. I know I can do it - I did it! I'm happy making low six figures now because I can take off work when I need to care for my children, and have dinner with them almost every night. The trick is that I saved a whole big bunch of money, drive a five year old car, and didn't trade up houses but instead paid off my mortgage. Obviously harder choices for someone born in 1985 but the essence of the advice is the same - work hard and save like a banshee at the beginning of your career, then take a step back and enjoy your kids in your 30s and beyond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ We're two income, one child. We make very good money. We do NOT spend money on fancy kitchens, bathrooms, computers (we have old laptops and iPhone 5s because we had been using old phones), haven't been on a vacation ever (to include a honeymoon).

Know where our money goes? Housing and childcare. They eat up about 70% of our take home pay.

Hang in there, this used to be us. But kids grow up and mortgages get paid off, and then you start banking some real cash.

yeah, we don't make $200k....we're low 6 figures together. I don't see a way out of it in this area - you cannot live anywhere convenient to work and I won't compromise location (proximity of work/home means more time with my child). It's impossible here unless both people are in the high 100s or more if you want to live close in/near metro

But if you make low 6 figures together, you're not both pulling 12 hour days, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WOHM here, lawyer and sole breadwinner with SAHD spouse who does almost everything around the house. It's a great setup in many ways, but I am still not in the same position as my male colleagues with SAH wives. I might get flamed for this, but kids want their moms in a visceral way that I don't think applies to dads. Even though DH was the primary caregiver and spent more time with DCs when they were little, they wanted Mommy when they were sick, awake at night with nightmares, lonely, etc. They cried and clung to my leg when I had to travel. And so I had to choose between not meeting their needs or getting the stinkeye when I left work on time (or as my a$$hole colleague called it, "early"). Work won for several years and I am trying to rebalance. I don't have a good answer for how to balance the biological realities of pregnancy, BF'ing, etc., with a demanding career.

It's very, very true. Flame me, too, then. When I left to have my baby, it was seen as a major inconvenience (I don't have a high powered job or anything) and they honestly acted like I had a miscarriage. No one spoke to me about my child, never called to make sure I was ok. Nothing. Every male colleague whose wife has a baby - we have cards to sign, money to contribute to food delivery, BABY SHOWERS in the office. It's ridiculous.

I don't get it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WOHM here, lawyer and sole breadwinner with SAHD spouse who does almost everything around the house. It's a great setup in many ways, but I am still not in the same position as my male colleagues with SAH wives. I might get flamed for this, but kids want their moms in a visceral way that I don't think applies to dads. Even though DH was the primary caregiver and spent more time with DCs when they were little, they wanted Mommy when they were sick, awake at night with nightmares, lonely, etc. They cried and clung to my leg when I had to travel. And so I had to choose between not meeting their needs or getting the stinkeye when I left work on time (or as my a$$hole colleague called it, "early"). Work won for several years and I am trying to rebalance. I don't have a good answer for how to balance the biological realities of pregnancy, BF'ing, etc., with a demanding career.

Get a less demanding, less well paying but still satisfying career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
But if you make low 6 figures together, you're not both pulling 12 hour days, right?

Nope. Even if we wanted to, it wouldn't be possible with childcare. 12 hours at a desk = 14 hours of childcare a day? Why should someone have to work 12 hours a day in order to afford housing and childcare? That's really all we want (and savings so child can have an education). If one of us worked that long every day, one of us would definitely have to stay home.

My husband likes to say "we might be broke, but we're rich broke!". At least if we spent money on fancy things, we'd have something to show for it! But instead, we have excellent child care and have easy commutes so we can see him.

We make it work, but it's not easy and if something breaks, it's hard to stomach (broken computer, car repair, ect)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ We're two income, one child. We make very good money. We do NOT spend money on fancy kitchens, bathrooms, computers (we have old laptops and iPhone 5s because we had been using old phones), haven't been on a vacation ever (to include a honeymoon).

Know where our money goes? Housing and childcare. They eat up about 70% of our take home pay.

Hang in there, this used to be us. But kids grow up and mortgages get paid off, and then you start banking some real cash.

yeah, we don't make $200k....we're low 6 figures together. I don't see a way out of it in this area - you cannot live anywhere convenient to work and I won't compromise location (proximity of work/home means more time with my child). It's impossible here unless both people are in the high 100s or more if you want to live close in/near metro

But if you make low 6 figures together, you're not both pulling 12 hour days, right?

Not pp but my DH consistently works 12 hour days. He works for the fed gov and doesn't make 6 figures.

[Anonymous]

This is SUCH BULSHIT. Anyone I know who has made this work has had: 1.Family money to supplement their lifestyle and or 2. A husband who was in a highly paid YET flexible profession, that allowed his wife to "lean in," as it were, while he ran his lucrative architecture, IT, finance consulting practice from home and could at least be there to keep the children alive. So don't pretend there isn't a huge amount of LUCK that makes it so these women can pull down 200k in fed jobs or have big private sector salaries just because they're harder workers than everyone else.

You can do everything right and still get screwed making 60k a year with a law degree and have 4 mouths to feed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Waaaahhh! God gave me a uterus and it's not fair I can have kids and it puts me back careerwise. Sorry, less empathy here for the "power woman" whining about not being able to "lean in" and more for the Walmart Mom who must subsist on a minimum wage to support her kids.

Walmart woman could have made the same choices I made. No sympathy. Shouldn't have had kids (plural).

Really? Are you sure she had the same opportunities as you? I know, OP, that very many people in this country are in poverty situations through no real fault of their own. I was fortunate That I grew up in an affluent two parent household. My parents paid for private school and college. Everything wasn't handed to me on a plate, but I started on third base. I just finished reading Factory Man, a book about the collapse of the furniture manufacturing industry in the U.S. A and the workers in small Virginia and North Carolina towns who lost their jobs. Was it their own fault that the Chinese were dumping products on the U.S. market below cost? In "The Corner, David Simon's book about one year in the life of an inner city drug market, Simon writes that very many middle class Americans imagine that they cold bootstrap their way out of poverty, when in fact when given the same life circumstances and life set skill of some of our poor they could not.

The social, family and institutional dysfunction is too great. You are in no position to judge OP. You really aren't.

“You put a textbook in front of these kids, put a problem on the blackboard, teach them every problem in some statewide test, it won’t matter. None of it. ‘Cause they’re not learning for our world; they’re learning for theirs. They know exactly what it is they’re training for and what it is everyone expects them to be. It’s not about you or us or the test or the system. It’s what they expect of themselves. Every single one of them know they’re headed back to the corners. Their brothers and sisters, shit, their parents. They came through these same classrooms. We pretended to teach them, they pretended to learn and where’d they end up? Same damn corners."

-- Bunny Colvin, The Wire

[Anonymous]

Thank you for quoting Bunny Colvin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for quoting Bunny Colvin.

+1 and for giving us a break from the absolute shitstorm of "get a different job, don't have kids" asshatery that's been going on for much of this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to prioritize. This is nothing new. Take a different job, or career, or don't have kids, or have only one, live near family.... The possibilities are endless so choose one and make it work.

This. And I don't know why women think it's specific to them. These issues exist for men too (find me a guy who "has it all" career wise and is as an involved father/husband as they want to be). Yes, it's worse for women because so many think they should have it all, but the whole problem isn't specific to them.

I know many. In fact I would say almost all the professional fathers I know would fit this definition. Men have received and internalized vastly different messages about what it means to be enough of a father, and they often feel no guilt at all about being around late at night and on the weekends. Wake up and don't be ridiculous.

I agree. My husband is super involved- more of the "default" parent than me, despite the fact that he works full-time and I work part-time these days- but he's totally at ease about missing weekends, nights, when he has to. Part of that is he has a laid-back personality and knows when he can't change things he shouldn't get upset.

But on the other hand, I really do wonder if his standards are different. He seems to have a "as long as I make sure they are well-provided for I'm a good dad," or even a "I'm so bummed for myself; I wish I could hang out more with the kids" mentality versus the "I'm a horrible parent, feel guilty and hope I'm not messing my kids up" feeling which is what I have when I have to travel or miss bedtime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm with you, OP. And I believe it starts with fair maternity and paternity leave. And changing the culture surrounding taking time to raise your infants.

I've lived in areas of the world where this is true. All the thinking about how northern Europe is so wonderful flies out the window when no one will hire you when you are of child-bearing age (and sometimes they explicitly explain why).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this is a tired topic, but it gets me riled up every time. A Harvard Business Review study confirmed it too. Women aren't leaning out or holding themselves back. The game is rigged (and often women hold each other back- that part is not mentioned except for in the comments!)

http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/12/stop-blaming-women-for-holding-themselves-back.html

A quote from the article:
"Try harder. That’s the message that women hear all around. Try harder to be happy. Try harder to be skinny. Try harder to be a good employee, mother, wife, daughter, friend. Try harder to feed your family nutritious meals and to give your child every possible opportunity. Try harder to find “flow” at work. Try harder to succeed. But, as the HBS study reminds us, when there’s a whole lot of trying without commensurate succeeding, then you have to start to consider that the game is rigged. And the risk to entertaining that thought is great indeed, for the thought that follows is a weighty one. What are we going to do about it? Perhaps the first step is to stop channeling all of that criticism inward or toward individual women and instead turn it outward. Companies need to try harder, too."

You don't have to listen to these messages. Unplug from so much media and enjoy (and control your own) life.