Is Feminism Still Relevant?

[Vlad n U 2]

Give them the guillotine.

[Galeongirl]

How can teens be so fucked up in the head already when they're that young?

I really don't see why people value ethics so much when you've dickheads like this around. IMO all rapists can go to hell straight away. Or castrate them, that would work as well.

[Pearl]

Gosh, and this is New Zealand. Not Iran or Saudi Arabia. Male entitlement/misogyny/slut shaming/rape culture/whatever you want to call it has no boundaries.

The question we should be consumed with answering is not how we can educate young girls to be more proactive about avoiding rape, but how we can educate young boys to understand that they are not entitled to the bodies of other people just because they demand them, nor are they entitled to humiliate those same people in order to peacock for their mates. These girls weren’t raped because they drank too much and put themselves in the path of predators; they were raped because masculine entitlement still runs so deep that a group of teenage boys thought it would be a funny thing to do, while high fiving each other over their intoxicated victim’s body.

Rape is an action that’s directly perpetrated, increasingly so as part of a group bonding exercise. But rape culture positions rape as an arbitrary accident girls stumble into when they’ve failed to take the proper precautions against it. Shifting the onus on girls to protect themselves enables perpetrators to continue unabated, content in the knowledge that there will never be any real consequences for their actions. Instead, we are asked to consider their good childhoods and their promising futures - as if choosing to participate in the ritualised group humiliation and sexual violation of another human being is simply a hiccup in the journey to becoming a decent person.

Unfortunately, it is easier to accept that the women you love might are potential victims who need to be protected than it is to understand the men you love might be potential predators who need to be stopped.

And this is rape culture too. The expectation that ‘consent’, as flimsily secured as it might be, is an excuse for men to behave with impunity; to exercise all the most disgusting, degrading attitudes that they might hold towards women either for their own satisfaction or for approval of friends looking on. That a ‘yes’, however shakily it might be offered or assumed, is a contract signed by a woman that surrenders her right not just to dignity and respect, but to complaint when it turns out she was there as a prop not a participant.

This is the environment in which rape culture flourishes.

It is how ‘good’ boys and men go on to commit sexual crimes against the women they’ve been trained not to view as equal human beings, and to then be excused for them with little more than a slap on the wrist and an entreaty to be smarter next time. It is how a group of non-descript lads in Auckland can form a rape club called the ‘Roast Busters’ and brag about it online, believing implicitly in their right to do so as both lords and masters of their own domain.

And it is why these groups will continue to flourish like a poisonous fungus across a society that chooses not to see what’s really going on.

I know this sort of attitude has been around since the beginning of time, but I feel like it is more prevalent. I know its because women are speaking out against rape culture more, but holy shit. What's wrong with some guys and men? Seriously, what wrong with them? (note: that's a rhetorical question)

[Galeongirl]

Sadly it's not all guys either. I know of a case where there were women involved too. I truly cannot understand why on earth they would do that, if they even have the faintest idea how you can completely ruin someone's life and that of those who love them with their actions.

There's far too many people around that are completely fucking looney in their heads. And the innocent ones suffer from this. How is that more ethical than sentencing these assholes to death so they won't make more victims?

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

Sadly it's not all guys either. I know of a case where there were women involved too. I truly cannot understand why on earth they would do that, if they even have the faintest idea how you can completely ruin someone's life and that of those who love them with their actions.

That is very true. There's a lot of women who hate women, or women who think they are inferior to men, either consciously or subconsciously. Sigh!

[jeevey]

Didn't we have a talk not long ago about whether or not rape culture exists?

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by jeevey

Didn't we have a talk not long ago about whether or not rape culture exists?

Topics on FYM are often recycled, especially if they are important.

[BonosSaint]

An important step. We will see what happens.

Three women pass Marine ‘grunt’ test, but Corps holds off on letting them in infantry
By Craig Whitlock, Published: November 20 | Updated: Thursday, November 21, 9:05 AM

For the first time, three enlisted women have passed the Marine Corps’ grueling infantry course, carrying the same rifles and lugging the same 85-pound packs on the same 12-mile hikes through the piney woods of North Carolina as the men.

The female Marines are scheduled to graduate Thursday at Camp Geiger, N.C. — a historic development as the U.S. military prepares to open ground combat forces to women. But in a twist, the three women — identified Thursday as Pfc. Julia Carroll, Pfc. Christina Fuentes Montenegro and Pfc. Katie Gorz -- still won’t be allowed to serve in an infantry unit, at least not for a long while.

Marine Corps leaders say they need two more years to study whether it makes sense to allow women to serve as grunts. They note that no woman has passed the even more challenging infantry training course for officers (10 have tried). Before making a final decision, they said, they want to see many more female Marines try to pass the courses so the results can be evaluated.

“Any force-wide changes to be made will occur only after we have conducted our research, determined the way ahead and set the conditions to implement our recommendations,” Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

In January, after years of debate and legal challenges, the Pentagon announced that it would lift its long-standing ban on women serving in ground combat units by 2016, unless the armed services can justify why certain positions should remain closed. The decision was prompted in part by the recognition that women played a critical role in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where commanders stretched rules to allow them to bear arms and support combat forces.

It remains an open question whether women will be allowed to try to become Army Rangers or Navy SEALs or artillery-shell loaders. Theoretically, if female troops prove that they can meet the same physical demands as those required of men, the doors are supposed to open.

Army leaders say they are developing “gender-neutral” standards for infantry and other combat forces and plan to eventually open those units to women, though they won’t rule out the possibility that they might decide to keep some off-limits.

Virtually all positions in the Navy and Air Force are accessible to women, with the exception of some elite commando teams.

For the Marine Corps, however, the biggest obstacle to integrating women into the infantry may be overcoming a deep-seated cultural resistance to the idea.

The Marines are the most tradition-bound and male-
dominated of the armed services. Only 7 percent of the Corps is female, half the overall rate for the U.S. military.

In a survey last year, one in six male Marines said they probably would leave the service if they were forced to serve alongside women in ground combat units.

And although commanders say they are committed to giving women a fair chance, the Corps isn’t going out of its way to celebrate the fact that three female Marines passed the grinding training course for enlisted infantry. Marine officials rejected a request from The Washington Post to cover the graduation ceremony at Camp Geiger, saying that news coverage would be restricted to a few handpicked media outlets. They refused to identify the three female graduates until Thursday morning.

“The Marine Corps has a culture problem. There’s no doubt about it,” said Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine captain who serves as executive director for the Service Women’s Action Network, a group that advocates for female troops. “It’s the toughest climate for a woman to enter and succeed in.”

The infantry course is marked by long marches, obstacle courses and plenty of rifle practice. Instructors also teach grenade use, patrolling and how to avoid roadside bombs. Men and women train together, but the female Marines are housed in a separate barracks.

In September, 15 women joined 266 men at the outset of the course at Camp Geiger, where the Marines have trained for six decades.

Three women and 221 men made it through the two-month course and will graduate Thursday.

A fourth woman completed most of the hurdles but suffered a stress fracture in her leg that prevented her from taking her final physical fitness and combat fitness tests. She’ll be allowed to finish when she fully recovers, Marine officials said.

The male graduates will join infantry units right away. The women will have to take other jobs, though their successful completion of the course will be noted in their personnel files.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-
Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said it is unfair of the Marines to deny the women the right to join the infantry after they have proved themselves.

“I don’t believe there is a reason to exclude them now,” she said. “Certainly, there are many who thought women could not do this. But they’ve met all the standards that are existing today.”

Others said it would be a mistake to integrate the infantry without female officers or senior female noncommissioned officers to serve as mentors. So far, that barrier has not been breached. Over the past year, 10 women have tried without success to pass the Marine infantry officer course, which takes longer and is considered even more physically rigorous.

“It’s kind of backwards,” said Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), a Marine combat veteran who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “If you don’t have any senior female leadership, it makes it hard.”

Officials with the Marine Corps and the Army said they won’t lower physical standards for combat troops to accommodate women. But Hunter said he was skeptical and suspected that the services might adjust requirements to make it easier to integrate units.

He also questioned whether many women really wanted to serve in the infantry, noting that only a handful of female Marine officers have sought to pass the course.

“If you only have 10 women who are interested, then what is the uproar all about?” he said. “It wasn’t a military push to do all this. It’s purely a political push.”

Statistics show that the overall pool of female Marine officers is small to begin with. Only about 140 female lieutenants are commissioned each year.

The first three female graduates of the enlisted infantry program are likely to have company soon.

Forty female Marines have started courses in the past few weeks. If the first co-ed training class is any guide, about one-quarter will endure to the end.

[Galeongirl]

Marine Corps leaders say they need two more years to study whether it makes sense to allow women to serve as grunts.

Wait what?

[jeevey]

Why Is It Still Legal to Profile Working Moms?

In 1994, Kiki Peppard, a single mother of two, moved to eastern Pennsylvania desperate for employment to support her family. And her strategy worked: the savvy job hunter managed to score 19 interviews. But each time a prospective employer learned that Ms. Peppard had children, the interview abruptly ended and she was not offered the job. It was only when one employer did not ask about Ms. Peppard’s maternal status that the single mother was offered a position.

Sadly, Ms. Peppard’s story is not unique. Countless women report being asked if they have children or if they plan to have children, agreed Lisa Quast recently in Forbes Magazine. And if the answer is affirmative, the interview is ended and these women are summarily kicked out the door. Indeed, this epidemic of “mommy profiling” has become so severe it was the subject of The Motherhood Manifesto, a documentary executive-produced by Joan Blades, cofounder of the family-rights organization MomsRising. Kiki Peppard’s quest for employment kicks off the film.

“Mommy profiling” is defined as “employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children.” Says MomsRising’s other founder, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner,

Mothers are 79 percent less likely to be hired than non-mothers with equal resume and experiences. … Women without children make 90 percent [of a comparable man's salary], as compared to 73 percent for women with children and 60 percent for single moms. … Mothers were offered $11,000 less in starting pay than non-mothers with the same resumes and job experiences, while fathers were offered $6,000 more.

How is it possible that in 2013 in the United States women can still be discriminated against when seeking employment, experience such economic disparity or even be passed over for promotion because of being a mother? Because it is still legal in Pennsylvania—and 27 other states—to engage in “mommy profiling”—to question an employee’s maternal status and deny employment because of what the answers to the questions reveal.

“One employer,” says Peppard, “said that he did not want to pay the cost of my children’s healthcare bills.” Other employers claim that women with families take too much time off for maternity leave.
But studies have shown that employees who have to take time off for sick leave due to lack of exercise, poor diet or other bad health habits take much longer leave than that allotted to new mothers—and are much less productive than new mothers when returning to the job. Employees who are caring for aging relatives take even more time off than new mothers.

So why is it that mothers are the ones being discriminated against? If employers are claiming that they are screening out prospective lost time and lost revenue, should they not screen for these other factors as well? Better yet, why can’t employers just treat everyone equally and not discriminate at all—as the Equal Opportunity Employment Act intends?

Peppard has devoted herself to fighting against “mommy profiling” so that other women will not have to undergo the injustice that she has faced throughout much of her career. After six years of letter writing, she convinced Sen. Jane Orie and Rep. Draig Dally, to introduce a bill in the Pennsylvania state Senate to prevent employers from asking “mommy profiling questions,” but the bills have never made it from committee to the floor for a vote.

“I’ve been trying to get this changed for the last 18 years and it’s very, very frustrating,” says Peppard. “I don’t understand it.”
Recently, it got even worse. After moving to another district in Pennsylvania, Peppard reported to Blades (who also cofounded MoveOn.org) for The Huffington Post:

I contacted my new member of the House of Representatives several times seeking his support and asking him to introduce new legislation (again) to prohibit employers from asking job candidates about their marital/family status during job interviews. He finally called me back and said not only would he never ever introduce such legislation, if he heard that someone else did, he would devote all of his time and efforts to see to it that the bill failed. He said he would never endorse any laws that would interfere in how businesses are run or take away any rights of a business owner.

Peppard thought it might be time to finally give up the fight and leave it for her granddaughter. But then she realized that that was not the legacy she wanted to leave for the next generation of women. Now she is appealing to President Obama, through the White House Council on Women and Girls, to mandate anti-“mommy profiling” laws on a federal level. Her hope is that the federal government will step in where her state so shamefully refuses to.

And for the sake of all the mothers among us, let’s hope it does.

[Pearl]

I've talked to a lot of women in my age group who'd like to have kids, but are afraid of how unforgiving the working world is toward families, especially mothers. Not only do we have to worry about balancing work and family, and having the money to raise children, but mothers don't have as much privileges as other workers. It's like we'd like to have children but the professional world won't let us

Here's a good article from AlterNet via Salon.com where one divorced woman talks about the difficulties she's had trying to get back to work full-time in a tough job market, years after she chose to be a stay-at-home mom:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/majo...-stay-home-mom

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by jeevey

Why Is It Still Legal to Profile Working Moms?

it isn't legal. i've been told this may times when i interview people. i cannot ask about their family status, and i've had people bring it up (unprompted) and i have to tell them, point blank, that that isn't information i can legally ask about.

[anitram]

^

I think the article states that it is legal in certain states.

Definitely isn't legal where I live.

[Irvine511]

if people can be fired for being gay in some states, can we fire them for being unwed mothers?

[anitram]

I also think that from a practical point of view, even if you change the law such that an employer can't ask you about your marital status or children in an interview, that still doesn't change the fact that they can pass on women due to an implied status. If you see a woman who is 26, it is not unreasonable to assume that she may have children in the next 10 or so years.

So the law can only go so far.

[jeevey]

^ Very true. It's illegal in my state but legal in 27 others, as the article states. And what about in the states where it is illegal but women are asked anyway, as happened to a friend of mine? Does it go over well when you inform the interviewer that you are being asked illegal questions? There are such different assumptions about men and women who are parents that it's crazy.

I hear you about your friends, Pearl. Being a mother at all, and especially one who chooses not to work full time, is a very serious financial risk. I mean, it's brilliant and very rewarding, but you don't want to look at the dollars end of it very closely. I thought that article was quite good.

[Irvine511]

given this woman's story, why have kids at all?

The Major Life Regrets of a Stay-at-Home Mom

November 23, 2013 |
We had wonderful times together, my sons and I. The parks. The beaches. The swing set moments when I would realize, watching the boys swoop back and forth, that someday these afternoons would seem to have rushed past in nanoseconds, and I would pause, mid-push, to savor the experience while it lasted.

Now I lie awake at 3 a.m., terrified that as a result I am permanently financially screwed.

As of my divorce last year, I’m the single mother of two almost-men whose taste for playgrounds has been replaced by one for high-end consumer products and who will be, in a few more nanoseconds, ready for college. My income — freelance writing, child support, a couple of menial part-time jobs — doesn’t cover my current expenses, let alone my retirement or the kids’ tuition. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of two teenagers must be in want of a steady paycheck and employer-sponsored health insurance.

My attempt to find work could hardly be more ill-timed, with unemployment near 10 percent, with the newspaper industry that once employed me seemingly going the way of blacksmithing. And though I have tried to scrub age-revealing details from my résumé, let’s just say my work history is long enough to be a liability, making me simultaneously overqualified and underqualified.

But my biggest handicap may be my history of spending daylight hours in the company of my own kids.

Just having them is bad enough. Research shows that mothers earn 4 to 15 percent less [3] than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as less competent and committed [4] than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, told me last year [5] that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.

When Paul Krugman warns [6] that many of the currently jobless “will never work again,” I am petrified — hello, 3 a.m.! — that he means me. I long ago lost track of how many jobs I have applied for, including some I wouldn’t have looked twice at in my 20s, but I can count the resulting interviews and have fingers left to twiddle idly. Before I left full-time work in 1996, my then-husband and I, both reporters at the same newspaper, earned the exact same salary. Now my ex, still a reporter, is making $30,000 a year more than that, while I have been passed over for jobs paying $20,000 less.

As I wander the ghost-town job boards, e-mailing my résumé into oblivion, I tamp down panic with soothing thoughts: I have a comfortable house, for now, some money in the bank, for now, a 9-year-old Mazda that rattles alarmingly but runs, for now. Millions of people are hanging by far thinner threads, and I am genuinely grateful for what good fortune I have.

So this is not a plea for sympathy. More like a warning from the front lines.

The recession has already shifted habits and attitudes and will likely usher in long-term cultural changes about which economists, sociologists and political strategists are churning out predictions as we speak. Here’s mine: The economic crisis will erode women’s interest in “opting out” to care for children, heightening awareness that giving up financial independence — quitting work altogether or even, as I did, going part-time — leaves one frighteningly vulnerable. However emotionally rewarding it may be for all involved, staying home with children exacts a serious, enduring vocational toll that largely explains the lingering pay gap [7] between men and women as well as women’s higher rate of poverty [8]. With the recession having raised the stakes, fewer mothers may be willing to take the risk. If it’s not yet the twilight of the stay-at-home mother, it could be her late afternoon. Certainly it is long past nap time.

Statistics suggest mothers are reaching that conclusion. Between 2008 and 2010, the number of stay-at-home mothers fell [9] from 5.3 million to 5 million. (Stay-at-home dads held steady at around 150,000.) Who knows how many others are frantically sending out résumés? Whether they have paying jobs or not, mothers still handle most of the country’s child care, but that “feels like the last gasp of a dying age,” journalist Hanna Rosin wrote last year in Atlantic Monthly [10]. She quotes Boushey noting that “the idealized family — he works, she stays home — hardly exists anymore.” The image of a mother pushing a stroller down the street at midday may come to seem as quaint as that of a 1950s housewife pushing a vacuum in stockings and pumps.

Stay-at-home mothers obsolete? Those among the 5 million who are alive and well and reading this may already be clicking indignantly to the comments section to defend their choices. Go ahead and vent, stay-at-home mothers. I get it. Fourteen years ago, I struggled with my own decision amid a tangle of internal and external messages. Some still seem valid and others now less so, but the difference was hard to tell amid the hormone-saturated, sleep-deprived, advice-swamped bewilderment of new parenthood.

I became a mother during a moment in history when women faced unprecedented career opportunities yet were expected to maintain a level of interaction with their children that would have made my own mother’s eyes roll practically out of their sockets. I was a busy reporter and naive new mom, two jobs that I was led to believe could not, for all practical purposes, be performed adequately and simultaneously. Oh, and while one was commendable, the other was morally imperative.

Like I needed the extra pressure. I already felt responsible for giving my sons childhoods — those fleeting years that would forever loom large in their lives — full of adventure and learning and treasured memories. If I could have enriched their experience by moving to a farm or hitting the road in an Airstream, I would have considered it. But according to the parenting manuals I dutifully consulted, what my boys required was constant engagement with a loving, omnipresent figure, sort of like if God engaged in daily floor time. The parenting experts never said exactly how children like mine, overseen by an ever-shifting cast of underpaid near-strangers in a commercial daycare center, would be damaged. But I got the impression I might as well have gone through pregnancy throwing back shots of tequila.

Meanwhile, my work/life balance … wasn’t. My husband and I kept erratic hours, handing off babies like batons. At work, I lost choice assignments as I dashed out before the stroke of 6, when the daycare began charging a dollar a minute. My editors, probably well-meaning, set me on what suspiciously resembled a mommy track. While an intern handled the tragic late-breaking news of an honor student murdered by her mother’s crack dealer, I yawned through meetings where citizens complained about potholes. (Though who knew how fabulous a steady-paying pothole gig would look to my underemployed future self?)

And the emotional turbulence! I drove to work with spit-up-stained shirt and tear-streaked face, cried at baby-food commercials featuring mothers and infants bonding in what looked like a weekday-afternoon glow. I felt the time flying past. My firstborn wasn’t yet crawling when I began gazing nostalgically at newborns in the park, with their impossibly delicate fingers and mewing cries. Over at the playground, hulking 4-year-olds hoisted themselves around with huge, capable hands, conversing in vast vocabularies. Soon my son would be one of these giants, his infancy vanished into the chaotic past.

My second son was born. Two weeks later, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Sitting near my dad’s bedside, I showed off the baby to my Aunt Millicent, mentioning my plans to return to my job. She shook her head sadly.

“You won’t believe how fast those years go by,” my aunt said. “Try not to miss them, if you can help it.”

My father died two months later. That fall, my husband found a new job in a different city. And I — feminist, ambitious journalist, daughter of a woman with a successful advertising career — quit a full-time job at a big-city paper and began part-time freelancing work that brought in less, some years, than I’d made as a waitress in college.

I wasn’t worried, frankly, about the long-term economic consequences, partly because nobody else seemed to be. Most articles and books about what came to be called “opting out [11]” focused on the budgeting challenges of dropping to one paycheck — belt-tightening measures shared by both parents — while barely touching on the longer-term sacrifices borne primarily by the parent who quits: the lost promotions, raises and retirement benefits; the atrophied skills and frayed professional networks. The difficulty of reentering the workforce after years away was underreported, the ramifications of divorce, widowhood or a partner’s layoff hardly considered. It was as though at-home mothers could count on being financially supported happily ever after, as though a permanent and fully employed spouse were the new Prince Charming.

I myself witlessly contributed to the misinformation when I wrote an article about opting out for a now-defunct personal-finance magazine. Amid chirpy budgeting tips and tales of middle-class couples cheerfully scraping by, I quoted a financial advisor bluntly outlining the long-term risks. My editor wasn’t pleased. “It’s so … negative,” she said, and over the phone I could almost hear her nose wrinkling. So I, neophyte freelancer eager to accommodate well-paying client, turned in a rewrite with a more positive spin.

Since then, a few writers have reported the financial downsides, notably Ann Crittenden, who calculated in “The Price of Motherhood [12]” (2001) that having a child costs the average college-educated woman more than a million dollars in lifetime income. More recently , Linda Hirshman (“Get to Work,” 2006) and Leslie Bennetts (“The Feminine Mistake,” 2007) wrote manifestos scolding women who opt out. In 2010, Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy outlined the risks of downsizing a career on behalf of family in “Glass Ceilings & 100-Hour Couples.”

But I might not have realized such warnings even applied to me: After all, I was working. Downsizing my career seemed ideal — research shows 60 percent of mothers [13] would choose part-time work if they could. While my kids spent three afternoons a week in daycare, I did what the experts advised: developed my skills, undertook new challenges, expanded my professional contacts. I advanced creatively if not financially, published essays in respected literary journals that often paid (cue ominous music) in copies of the magazine.

But who had time for long-term financial planning amid the daily demands of two small boys? I took them sliding, skating, swimming and skateboarding, supervised art projects, helped with homework, conferred with teachers, drove to music lessons and dentist appointments and baseball practices. I handled all of their sick days, some involving lingering health problems that, if I’d had an office job, would have exasperated the most flexible employer. Not every moment, of course, was sunny and delightful; there was plenty of crying, screaming and slamming doors (sometimes by the kids, too, ha ha). It was harder than any paying job I’ve ever held.

Salary experts estimate the market value of a stay-at-home parent’s labor (child care, housecleaning, cooking, laundry, driving, etc.) at about $118,000 [14]. This hollowly cheerful calculation has always struck me as patronizing, with the effect, if not the intention, of further diminishing our status. Moms — aren’t they the greatest? They should be pocketing as much as a registered pharmacist [15] or the mayor of Chula Vista, Calif. [16], yet they’ll happily accept payment in the form of adorable gap-toothed smiles. An implied, faintly sinister coercion — a good mom doesn’t want money — fuels a system that relies on our unpaid childcare, household chores and volunteer work but offers no safety net.

Few of the arguments for staying home seem as persuasive now as they did 14 years ago. I long ago stopped trusting [17] most advice from so-called parenting experts. The kids I know who attended full-time daycare seem fine, and I doubt my sons would have been damaged if I had kept my job. In at least one crucial way, they’d be far better off: I’d have more money to contribute to their college educations.

Still, like most mothers, I have mixed feelings about my choices, and like most mothers writing complaining first-person essays, I feel compelled to note the upside. I am deeply thankful to have witnessed as much of my sons’ childhoods as I did. I’m a procrastinator, and I can imagine myself thinking of those long playground afternoons as something I would get around to eventually, not noticing the swing set’s shadow stretching ever longer across the sand.

So if some young woman with a new baby were to ask me about opting out I would tell her, as my Aunt Millicent told me 14 years ago, how quickly a child’s early years zip past, how challenging but wonderful they are, how grateful I am for every single moment I was privileged to witness.

And then, unlike my aunt, I would warn her not to do it.

The Major Life Regrets of a Stay-at-Home Mom

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

given this woman's story, why have kids at all?

I always find that argument to be so depressing. There many financial and professional reasons not to have kids, yet I am sure being a parent is so rewarding that many don't regret their choice. They just regret the workforce doesn't allow room for parenthood.

[anitram]

It's a tough article - some tough conclusions as well.

I think that there are several things at play. First, very few people of our generation can afford to have one parent stay at home. It works for people who have one spouse in the top 1% of income earners, and even in that case, with divorce rates as high as they are, how many spouses will feel secure in staying at home to raise their children? Second, for mothers (or fathers) who wish to return to work at some point, it is probably fair to consider when that point should be. The woman in the article has been out of the workplace since 1996, so 17 years. And she works in media. Consider now the vast changes that have happened in that time span - internet, smart phones, social media. People communicate differently, consume news differently. Sad to say but her professional experience is from a time gone by - just 17 years, but it is what it is. A few years ago I was assigned a new assistant (shared her with a senior partner). She is a wonderful person, I just adored her when I worked at the firm. But she had been out of the workforce for about 10 years and it was a real struggle and challenge for her upon returning. When she left, the judge she worked for dictated everything. She came back and everyone had an iPhone and dictation apps. When she left, she typed up documents which can now be scanned and OCR'd. She didn't know how to use that software, how to manage a partner's blackberry, the new version of MS Office, the docking system that was built into smart phones, etc. We struggled along with her and nearly let her go at one point. She was bright and motivated and is now outstanding but I think probably 8 or 9 times out of 10 somebody like her would not have been given chance after chance. And if you asked that senior partner whether he would hire somebody who was out of the workforce for 10 years again, I don't think you have to wonder what his answer will be. So again, if you wish to return to work, maybe you don't decide to stay out for 17 years but you consider your options and how to best optimize your chances. If you want to stay at home, nothing wrong with that, but these are choices that we make.

I came to realize a long time ago that we all set our priorities in life and then live our lives accordingly.

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by anitram

It's a tough article - some tough conclusions as well.

I came to realize a long time ago that we all set our priorities in life and then live our lives accordingly.

Lately, I've been realizing more and more that there is no guarantee in life. No guarantee that marriages last, that your job will be steady or you will be at the top of your game in your chosen field, or that your finances are fully secure. All you can really do is know what wise decisions to make and prepare for anything that could turn your world upside down. I'm not saying we should all be paranoid, but just be careful and stay on our toes.