Reply to Women whose partner's make enough for them to stay home, why do you prefer working?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'll go. DH and I both come from generational wealth and have worked for approx. 20 years (we are 43 and 45). I will continue to work for a million reasons but the highlights are:
- Genuinely love my job (big 4 consulting; I like the subject matter, my clients, and the substantive work).
- Continuing to build nest egg for my kids and not being the generation that drops the ball. Although I recognize that family money got us to where we are today (paid for education), I'd be embarrassed to be living on what we inherited rather than what we earn.
- The biggest one: my daughters and, to a lesser extent, my young female colleagues. I am beyond disappointed by my friends who are smarter, better educated, and (formerly) higher earning than their husbands but who have chosen to SAH. I fight the gender battle every. single. day. at work and I don't think these women appreciate the larger repercussions of their decisions. They make hiring, retention, and promotion SO much harder for their daughters when they embody the stereotypes/expectations that I am always fighting against. At this point most of my friends are no longer working or have "mom" jobs (self-employed consultants, tutors, etc.), and maybe I am crazy but I hate that my young daughters are growing up in a world where they see that, where they unconsciously internalize it and what it may mean about them, and where in the workforce they will have to battle expectations not that different from what my mom fought in the 80s. That is insane to me, and it is really difficult for me to understand how my friends don't see that and what sort of example/precedent they are setting.
- I hate cooking, gardening, and cleaning, and having a job gives me an excuse to outsource them.
- Prestige. This is probably a DC/NY/SF-specific thing, but it makes me very proud to tell people my job. I especially love watching men who completely underestimate me, and saying something snappy to the (typically older) women who rudely check in all the time to see if I am still working. They are ALL expecting that at some point I'm going to cave and join my friends, which I guess gets back to the point above about feeling like those of us working are trying to carry the mantle for our daughters.

I get that in a Barbie world, it would be liberating for women to have the choice whether to remain in or leave the workforce. But men aren't doing it; so until they are, all the women doing it -- even those who feel like they have "earned it" or like it is temporary or for their kids -- disappoint me. And don't get me started on the women who are staying at home to raise the next female CEO/president -- unless they are idiots, they are lying to themselves if they don't see that this is a self-perpetuating cycle. [/quote]
 
Lol. You’re working so…your daughters and her friends might not internalize that they too can make choice to stay at home? How about recognizing the autonomy of your fellow women to make the best choices for her and for her family? I hate when feminism gets twisted into the morality of mandatory paid employment. Gross.[/quote]

Perhaps PP is extreme, but we have teenagers and you would be shocked when teenagers say their SAHM is "unemployed" or "doesn't have a job".  I don't know if they realize their mom was some high-powered whatever, but it comes across as pretty demeaning.
[/quote]

Why would I have a problem with my teen saying I don’t have a job? How is that demeaning?  It’s the truth.  Other teens don’t need to hear about my prior career.[/quote]
It's embarrassing once your kids are past elementary school.[/quote]

Not to me it isn’t.  You do you, but I am not taking on any shame because I am a SAHM and yes, unemployed.[/quote]

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