Reply to NYT: professional moms who opted out of work after kids are now opting back in

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "NYT: professional moms who opted out of work after kids are now opting back in"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it is so embarrassing, to every single one of us women, that we spend SO much time worrying about what other moms are doing. Work outside the home, work primarily at your home, work part time, work full time, work because you need the money, work because it's part of who you are or a calling, DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO for your family and your own personal happiness. Since when is a career synonymous with personal fulfillment? Are we all so one-dimensional? I don't assume that a big time job haver gets her personal fulfillment exclusively through work anymore than I assume a non-paycheck earning mom gets her fulfillment exclusively through their kids. I am sure there are some women who check one of those boxes or the other, but most of us, thank god, are complex people who manage to do a ton of things in life that offer us fulfilment. Some of us find child rearing to be tedious. Some of us find working to be tedious. Some of us find both things to be tedious! Some of us are working for the weekend and some of us can't wait to go to work on Monday. Who the hell cares? To be clear: I care if you are a crappy mom or parent, because your kids are valuable human beings who deserve good parenting. But I don't care which road you take to get there. There is not one right answer.

It's embarrassing that we complex, nuanced, intelligent women believe in the Santa Clause type fallacy that there is ONE path to fulfillment, security, happiness, and ONE right thing to do, and for fuck's sake, that that thing is the rat race.

Signed, a woman with a kick ass job. [/quote]

Because trends do affect all people.  It affects expectations in the work world.  It affects the economic stability of the country.  But I would argue that the focus on upper class women and their choices is not as important as a discussion on the middle class, where there is a lack of choice and families are struggling b/c neither spouse earns enough to support the family on one income but even with both incomes, childcare is too much, causing families to go into debt.  The answer I hear is "don't have children."  The problem for society there is that then having children becomes solely a luxury of the wealthy or an activity of the destitute.  For a country that has nonstop beat the drum on the importance of the middle class, it is a concern that having children is becoming too expensive for the middle class and there aren't subsidies or programs to assist them.  This is a huge shift in the demographics of our country, and it will only lead to a widening of the gap between the rich and poor, because the middle class will quickly die out.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics