So the lesson learned here is: If you're unemployed for a long time, it is harder to get back into the paid work force. It may take much longer to get a job. You may have to start from a lower rung in the hierarchy. You may not get paid as much as before you left the work force.

And the only reason this is news is because it is about middle-class and upper-middle-class women making this shocking discovery.

Ok, I'm going to go back to looking at pictures of cats on the internet now.

Oh meh, meh, and meh. The author is tedious and confuses her own personal opinion and observed anecdotes with meaningful trends. She's also yet another drop in the bucket of water poured over the heads of parents by those who would like to make a buck while pillorying their efforts. Snooze, snore, etc.

BTW, I'm an opt IN mom, with a "stay at home" husband. Who works his ass off. And is very much my equal.

As an observation, anyone else feel depressed by proxy when these obviously unhappy and bitter authors do so little to hide their grudge, agenda, and personal unhappiness?

http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Madness-Motherhood-Age-Anxiety/product-reviews/1594481709/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Anonymous wrote:This article is such a snoozer. And why do these articles always feature women in Chevy Chase or Bethesda? Really, can't the writers find people outside their social circle to write about? Barf.

Agree. Or the women are from Montclair, NJ. So predictable.

Anonymous wrote:The first paragraph is beyond obnoxious. They imply that living in a townhouse in Chevy chase md is like living in the slums. It's near a Safeway?? Gasp.

I know, right?

It's hard to have sympathy for many of these women, who probably had gift wrapping rooms in their 6 bedroom houses. They were the generation that started the whole "parenting is a job" that you must do perfectly--the whole Martha Stewart pretty as a picture perfectionism that drives me nuts.

Anonymous wrote:The "Opt-Out Revolution" was a myth to begin with.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/the-many-myths-about-mothers-who-opt-out/274354/

http://www.cjr.org/essay/the_optout_myth.php?page=all

And I am tired, tired, tired of the idea that women's issues = the issues of well-educated, affluent, white, urban women.

To be fair, they did manage to profile an African American family.

The "Opt-Out Revolution" was a myth to begin with.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/the-many-myths-about-mothers-who-opt-out/274354/

http://www.cjr.org/essay/the_optout_myth.php?page=all

And I am tired, tired, tired of the idea that women's issues = the issues of well-educated, affluent, white, urban women.

This article is such a snoozer. And why do these articles always feature women in Chevy Chase or Bethesda? Really, can't the writers find people outside their social circle to write about? Barf.

It's a first world problem, at least a 1% problem
I notice they didn't highlight a family where single income "dad" lost his job.
I think people don't do enough research on how women worked in the past. They worked as cooks, maids, secretaries and other jobs, many which were "pin" money - but was really necessary for the household. Many of the jobs weren't reported in economic number. Women have always worked. We just had a little blimp there were more stayed home than the usual top classes.

If you marry well, give up your college education, your good paying job to be a SAHM, use some of your highly educated common sense while you ride the Mommy gravy train and funnel some of that high income husband money into an emergency fund for yourself and your kids in case the bloom falls off the rose.

Other than that, boo hoo.

The first paragraph is beyond obnoxious. They imply that living in a townhouse in Chevy chase md is like living in the slums. It's near a Safeway?? Gasp.

*so it goes*

And do it goes -- women opt out of career then opt back in. This was my story and I prefer working to staying home. Personally, I hope we are moving towards a time when work and gender roles are becoming more fluid and both men and women both can make choices that work for their families.

I think one of the main reasons I didn't stop working is that I worried about this with my husband:

" Many of the women I spoke with were troubled by the gender-role traditionalism that crept into their marriages once they gave up work, transforming them from being their husbands’ intellectual equals into the one member of their partnership uniquely endowed with gifts for laundry or cooking and cleaning; a junior member of the household, who sometimes had to “negotiate” with her husband to get money for child care.

The husbands hadn’t turned into ogres. Their intent was not to make their wives feel lesser. But when traditional gender arrangements were put into place, there was a subtle slide into inequality. “The dynamic changes,” said Hope Adler, a former manager at the professional-services firm..."

For Sheilah O’Donnel, I have zero sympathy. All I can say do is smirk and think "idiot ... thought she had it made with a rich husband who was going to take care of her ...."

Anyone care to discuss?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html?hp