Reply to Millennial women are saying no thanks to parenthood

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t want to derail this thread so let’s please not get into Ali Wong and her marriage, but I just wanted to mention that I started thinking seriously about this after watching I think it was her Baby Cobra set? Where she talks about wanting to be a SAHM mom because she thinks being a working woman is a scam. [b]The current configuration where women continue to be expected to be beautiful by misogynistic standards, sexually available at all times, do all the childrearing, all of the mental load of running a household, AND get a degree and work full time is NOT what feminism fought for or is about. It is a scam. [/b]

Dating in my late twenties was illuminating to me because I found that misogyny and sexism were as prevalent as ever but look different now. Highly educated and high achieving Millennial dudes all wanted a woman who earned more than them and wanted to freeze her eggs and wait until her late 30s to have kids so they could maximize their own time to travel and party and focus solely on themselves. They openly looked down on women who wanted to have children or who didn’t prioritize high earning careers. They claimed it’s because they were feminists but really they just wanted women to take care of them and wanted zero family responsibilities. They also had zero regard for how hard it is for women physically and emotionally to battle infertility in their late 30s and 40s in order to buy their manchildren husbands a few extra years of party time. [/quote]

I totally agree with this, especially the bolded. There's also this very specific component to it that I think hits women right when they are postpartum where you look at what you are expected to do just in that first year after the baby is born and it is INSANE. Even if you are a white collar professional with a decent maternity leave, you are supposed to line up full time care for your baby, start storing up breast milk since of course you have to breastfeed, then return to work full time one day while leaving your infant in the care of someone else, hit the ground running at work with no decline in productivity or focus, pump breastmilk throughout the day while working, manage whoever is taking care of your baby, continue to stay on top of doctors visits, your baby's health, weaning, keep them in diapers and clothes as they grow, pay attention to developmental milestones, etc. Oh and by the way, you are supposed to do all this while pretending like your hormones are not on some kind of Level 10 roller coaster ride from hell, and if you didn't know that hormones can continue to have major swings through the first year of motherhood, particularly for breastfeeding moms and especially related to changes in feeding and sleeping schedules (which are heavily impacted by return to work), well, you're about to find out.

It was staring down that gauntlet that made me decide it was a scam. If you asked men to do that, they'd just never have children. Ever. The fact that so many women I know do and it's treated as normal and *expected* in many circles is nuts to me.

I couldn't do it. I think I'm lower functioning than other high achieving women and I just couldn't do it. I had PPD and cried every day and just did not have the will to get myself through that gauntlet. I quit my job, we tightened our belts and I SAHMed for two years while doing small freelance jobs to help out financially, and then I returned to work part time. And that's what ensures that I don't lose my mind and my family functions, but it also means that my career has hit a brick wall and will probably never recover from it. So I did do an end run around the scam so much as reallocate the BS that is working motherhood in a different way. Yay?

I love being a mom but I think the expectations placed on moms today are just stupid.[/quote]

But I don’t get why you bought into this? I ignored all that “supposed to” stuff, kept my job, and outsourced whatever I could afford. Where did you get this message? Maybe turn off the social media or DCUM or whatever you think is dictating you. It’s reminiscent of 1950s conformity. Why are women willingly giving up the one thing that keeps them close to on par with men, their paycheck? You couldn’t rip that out of my dead hands.[/quote]

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