This graph from a recent Pew study shows that 62 percent of working women would prefer to work part-time. This leaves out housewives, most of whom presumably prefer their status.
So to all the women out there who would like to stay home but get the message from others that, "Everyone wants to have a career now, and you must be a loser if you don't," politely tell those people to go to hell.
In my experience, working mothers who don't want to be in the work force are there not because of peer pressure so much as out of economic necessity. It's hard to support a family on two ten buck an hour jobs, let alone on one.
ReplyDelete"So to all the women out there who would like to stay home but get the message from others that, "Everyone wants to have a career now, and you must be a loser if you don't," politely tell those people to go to hell."
ReplyDeleteBy the time they figure out that they never wanted careers in the first place, they are often too old to have as many kids as they wanted. Plenty of my friends fall into this category. Most of them are educated in things like engineering, programming, medicine etc. and married to guys of similar sort. They are smart enough but going into these careers was really more to prove they were capable than that they ever really wanted to do it. I also have a couple of doctor friends who share a dermatology practice so they only work about 20 hrs a week. One has four kids the other just two.
I think KingM is right most are working to pay the bills. Educated women who are family oriented can often quit if they want to and some do. Others do the part time thing. I agree it takes some confidence to say, hey, I am not an idiot, I just have other priorities. I tell people there isn't much point in being affluent if you still can't do what you want. Surely the company can find a man to engineer the reservoirs.