My wife of 42 years has worked part-time since our kids were born. Then for a while she worked full time when we became empty nesters. But she went back to part time when money wasn't so much a reason to keep her working.
Here is the secret. Women that are completely void of family commitments, and are honest with themselves that they don't want a family, should compete head-to-head with males in workplace for upper level jobs and responsibilities.
But reality is such that women cannot have both and expect to be happy and expect to have a healthy marriage and family situation.
They also cannot be happy if they lie to themselves that they don't want a family to be replaced by a career where they compete head-to-head with males in the workplace.
Feminists can scream at the wall all day about this, but biology and evolution rule.
1. There is an inherent, biologic call for procreation. Denying that denies the realities of evolutionary biology. A career can occupy 40+ hours of your week but it can't replace a family.
2. Not working in a 9to5 career doesn't mean not working at all. Women can change their relationship with work over time. They can work part-time, work from home, start businesses, freelance, etc. It's not about removing women from the workforce, it's about creating a new structure of work that's more flexible to raising a family.
The point is not removing women from the workforce… that is a powerful point of view. I hope the evolution of entrepreneurship, work from home, and the gig economy will provide more flexible and compatible ways to keep women’s talents an active part of our economy.
It would be nice if stay at home moms gained some sort of compensation, tax break? while staying home. And what about long term incentives?
I am a feminist in that I want every woman to have access to whatever job she wants. If she chooses to stay home fine, if she needs to work part time, fine. If her marriage should falter or spouse dies, becomes disable there should be programs to make sure they aren't homeless and destitute. who pays for these programs and yes these programs can be scammed big time.
What if a woman or man wants to have a bunch of kids but has no backup or family support? should we require certain benchmarks to be met in order to qualify for aid? What happens if they just want to stay home and make babies? Is this something that we as a society support and encourage.
What happens if a woman has kids with three different men, none which she married. Has one or two kids with each man. Refuses birth control, but does want food stamps, housing, school vouchers, expects schools to educate and help their children grow up to be responsible for their own lives, yet they are consuming public (tax funded)programs.
What about the limits on access to welfare? you can apply for a certain time period after that you are on your own. Our world changes daily now and retraining for jobs that no longer exist, colleges are too expensive and a racket, no trade schools and the work is looked down on.
Right now with all that is hitting us women and men, we are just holding on till the next paycheck. That paycheck doesn't go that far.
Your perspective seems to me, to be saying if you are a woman stay home, raise a family, let men go outside and earn the paycheck. With the real possibility of AI taking jobs, tariffs, and the lack of high paying jobs men may not have those jobs for long before AI kicks in, then what, all these people unemployed and no job growth, this a bleak future.
This is exactly it: "Your perspective seems to me, to be saying if you are a woman stay home, raise a family, let men go outside and earn the paycheck. With the real possibility of AI taking jobs, tariffs, and the lack of high paying jobs men may not have those jobs for long before AI kicks in, then what, all these people unemployed and no job growth, this a bleak future."
This is specifically talking about white collar, middle class, college educated career women. (You raise other good points about people who have multiple children with different fathers and the obligations of society to meet those needs, but I think that's a separate conversation).
The jobs career women were told would exist no longer do. And these same women aren't having families because of their careers. So what becomes of them?
I think family and community will help fill the void when technological job disruption comes, but if we're not building families or communities then there's not going to be anything to fall back on.
I agree with you -- women should have the option to choose whatever they want. I just don't think many modern women have been consciously making a choice. They've just defaulted into the college-career pipeline that society has given to them.
I don't think there's a way to directly compensate SAHMs but suspect there will be some incentives for them in the future. I'd love to see no income tax for families. That would be a good place to start.
Maybe they aren’t having kids is because they can’t afford them? If we as a society don’t value, destroy the family unit. If we don’t support this basic survival concept we don’t survive. If a woman stays home she has a lower rate to contribute to an IRA. If she and husband divorce or separate the years she spent home raising kids is not financially recognized or compensated. In a world where credit scores seriously impact where you live and thrive, she is starting from scratch if the husband puts everything in his name. Even if we do all the household work, raise kids, educate them, take them to soccer classes, art classes we judge them differently than a working woman. It is simply wrong.
It doesn’t matter whether you are blue or white collar anymore. College educated or not. We as Americans have widely different views on how we want to live and survive. No one is 100% right or wrong, situations, real life requires us to adapt to survive. the next ten years or so are going to impact us in ways we can’t not begin to imagine. Yes some of us want to stay home, others are either going to want, or have to work. There are so many different reasons for women to work let’s just support them, acknowledge them, and respect whatever their decisions.
My wife of 42 years has worked part-time since our kids were born. Then for a while she worked full time when we became empty nesters. But she went back to part time when money wasn't so much a reason to keep her working.
Here is the secret. Women that are completely void of family commitments, and are honest with themselves that they don't want a family, should compete head-to-head with males in workplace for upper level jobs and responsibilities.
But reality is such that women cannot have both and expect to be happy and expect to have a healthy marriage and family situation.
They also cannot be happy if they lie to themselves that they don't want a family to be replaced by a career where they compete head-to-head with males in the workplace.
Feminists can scream at the wall all day about this, but biology and evolution rule.
This is so well point. You raise two things:
1. There is an inherent, biologic call for procreation. Denying that denies the realities of evolutionary biology. A career can occupy 40+ hours of your week but it can't replace a family.
2. Not working in a 9to5 career doesn't mean not working at all. Women can change their relationship with work over time. They can work part-time, work from home, start businesses, freelance, etc. It's not about removing women from the workforce, it's about creating a new structure of work that's more flexible to raising a family.
The point is not removing women from the workforce… that is a powerful point of view. I hope the evolution of entrepreneurship, work from home, and the gig economy will provide more flexible and compatible ways to keep women’s talents an active part of our economy.
I hope so too. I suspect more entrepreneurship could allow women to reach their potential rather than constantly being limited by their employers.
Thoughful piece.
It would be nice if stay at home moms gained some sort of compensation, tax break? while staying home. And what about long term incentives?
I am a feminist in that I want every woman to have access to whatever job she wants. If she chooses to stay home fine, if she needs to work part time, fine. If her marriage should falter or spouse dies, becomes disable there should be programs to make sure they aren't homeless and destitute. who pays for these programs and yes these programs can be scammed big time.
What if a woman or man wants to have a bunch of kids but has no backup or family support? should we require certain benchmarks to be met in order to qualify for aid? What happens if they just want to stay home and make babies? Is this something that we as a society support and encourage.
What happens if a woman has kids with three different men, none which she married. Has one or two kids with each man. Refuses birth control, but does want food stamps, housing, school vouchers, expects schools to educate and help their children grow up to be responsible for their own lives, yet they are consuming public (tax funded)programs.
What about the limits on access to welfare? you can apply for a certain time period after that you are on your own. Our world changes daily now and retraining for jobs that no longer exist, colleges are too expensive and a racket, no trade schools and the work is looked down on.
Right now with all that is hitting us women and men, we are just holding on till the next paycheck. That paycheck doesn't go that far.
Your perspective seems to me, to be saying if you are a woman stay home, raise a family, let men go outside and earn the paycheck. With the real possibility of AI taking jobs, tariffs, and the lack of high paying jobs men may not have those jobs for long before AI kicks in, then what, all these people unemployed and no job growth, this a bleak future.
This is exactly it: "Your perspective seems to me, to be saying if you are a woman stay home, raise a family, let men go outside and earn the paycheck. With the real possibility of AI taking jobs, tariffs, and the lack of high paying jobs men may not have those jobs for long before AI kicks in, then what, all these people unemployed and no job growth, this a bleak future."
This is specifically talking about white collar, middle class, college educated career women. (You raise other good points about people who have multiple children with different fathers and the obligations of society to meet those needs, but I think that's a separate conversation).
The jobs career women were told would exist no longer do. And these same women aren't having families because of their careers. So what becomes of them?
I think family and community will help fill the void when technological job disruption comes, but if we're not building families or communities then there's not going to be anything to fall back on.
I agree with you -- women should have the option to choose whatever they want. I just don't think many modern women have been consciously making a choice. They've just defaulted into the college-career pipeline that society has given to them.
I don't think there's a way to directly compensate SAHMs but suspect there will be some incentives for them in the future. I'd love to see no income tax for families. That would be a good place to start.
Maybe they aren’t having kids is because they can’t afford them? If we as a society don’t value, destroy the family unit. If we don’t support this basic survival concept we don’t survive. If a woman stays home she has a lower rate to contribute to an IRA. If she and husband divorce or separate the years she spent home raising kids is not financially recognized or compensated. In a world where credit scores seriously impact where you live and thrive, she is starting from scratch if the husband puts everything in his name. Even if we do all the household work, raise kids, educate them, take them to soccer classes, art classes we judge them differently than a working woman. It is simply wrong.
It doesn’t matter whether you are blue or white collar anymore. College educated or not. We as Americans have widely different views on how we want to live and survive. No one is 100% right or wrong, situations, real life requires us to adapt to survive. the next ten years or so are going to impact us in ways we can’t not begin to imagine. Yes some of us want to stay home, others are either going to want, or have to work. There are so many different reasons for women to work let’s just support them, acknowledge them, and respect whatever their decisions.