(sigh)
The past couple of days I've taken a few hours off from being miserable to read Leslie Bennetts' book, The Feminine Mistake. Boy, is it enlightening.
This is a non-fiction account of several women's lives after giving up careers for home and family. Some of these women had high-powered jobs with unlimited earning power; some were in routine jobs making decent money but would never be rich. Their decisions to give up their careers once they married resulted in their downfall once their husbands either decided the wives were no longer interesting/attractive/"significant" enough to be their partner once their own fortunes escalated/etc., etc., etc. Some of the husbands eventually became ill/developed addictions/lost their jobs/thought the women spent too much time with the children/left the marriage for a "trophy" wife.
Men. How shallow they can be.
And women. How stupid we can be.
I have always felt that a lot of the problems stalking children today is that there is no one around to raise them properly... we are all working. There's no one around with enough time to really listen to them. No one around to encourage and support them. We are just too busy to really have time to spend with our children, so we hire nannies, tutors, counselors to deal with whatever needs they have. Then we are STUNNED when they develop emotional issues, addictions, problems in school. I still believe this.
However, Bennetts makes so many valid points in her book that I can't help but be swayed to change my mind somewhat. Two years ago I most likely would not have given it too much thought; but after what happened to me and my 40-year marriage, I have better insight into her point of view and believe that, as women, we'd better be willing to stay independent financially after we're married, no matter what the men's earnings are. No matter how much they insist we quit our jobs; no matter how many times they tell us to forget the nannies and stay home and raise HIS children. Once we leave our careers to raise a family, we have opted out for independence. By the time the children are old enough for us to return to the work force, we are too old to be competitive. Opting back in is more difficult than we can imagine, and we find this out all too quickly.
Although most of the book's scenarios don't necessarily apply to my situation, there are variables that do. Because I married and had our children fairly young, I was in my mid-thirties when I went to work in earnest. By then the children were old enough and independent enough themselves that this didn't create many issues. So, my career was significant enough and long enough to provide me with a retirement apart from his. Lucky me. And because of his decision to leave, the divorce settlement was more favorable to me.
But here's the thing. While I was fortunate to not to have to worry too terribly much about finances, I found that I was seriously dependent on him for other things -- and THAT has been what created so much turmoil in my life. When he was working and traveling so much when I was at home with the children, I handled all the finances. When he retired and I still had several years before I could, he took them over. Therefore, by the time he wanted out of the marriage, I had not so much as looked at what was going on with the money for several years. Our finances were slightly complicated, but he was an excellent manager of them; I just needed to re-familiarize myself with them. The worst was the role dependence I had -- he took care of the "guy" things and I handled the "girl" things. I did not WANT to deal with remembering when the oil needed changing in the car or when it had to be inspected; I did not WANT to call a plumber or electrician when something broke because HE usually fixed stuff; I did not WANT to deal with tax issues, yard work, pool repair, investments. Once he was gone, I had all of that to do in addition to dealing with the emotional issues surrounding the end of the marriage. I nearly did not survive. But I traded cars, managed to get a budget in place to deal with the change in income, sold my home, purchased a new one -- decisions I made by myself. I was terrified, but I had no choice and feel proud of myself for having accomplished those things.
The point here is that I have changed my mind about women staying home to raise the children. We need to establish ourselves as the important components to the work force as well as to our families and ourselves, and we can't do this by proxy. So, in order for the children not to suffer while we're doing this, it's obvious that the men are going to have to step up to the plate and assume more responsibility for child rearing. Why we've let them get away with NOT doing that is astounding to me. Yeah, yeah...they may make more money/have to travel/have long hours...but those can no longer be excuses.
I'm not sure I like what I see, but my eyes have been opened.
(sigh)
6 comments:
I'm 45, in a bad marriage, left my job 10 yrs ago to have a child. I need to get this book! Thanks for the information!
For the past several years I have been concerned at the prospect of staying home with my children (that I don't yet have). I think it started when my friends started having children, and quit their jobs to stay home with them. Every conversation we had was about their children, what I thought about their children, and when I was going to have children. Many of those same friends' marriages also changed now that they stayed at home with their kids. It seemed too easy for the partnership to devolve into the man being the HEAD of the household, and the woman being subservient. With at least one couple, I think both partners had those ideas in their heads all along - my friend was all to ready to be a MOM (and, basically, ONLY a mom), and let her husband make all the decisions; her husband all too easily took to the role of sole bread winner and decision maker. He started lording over her and micromanaging every penny she spent. She would ask him for help with their toddler and TWIN infants, and he would say "I just got done working 8 hours; I'm "off work" now". She would not retort that she had also been working the 8 hours he was gone - working with 3 small children, errands, housework, etc. Neither of them really seemed to think their work at all of equal importance. I have thus been wary of staying home with kids, for fear that it would be too easy to start feeling guilty and inferior for not making any money; for fear that I would also become almost unbearable to talk to for those of my friends who don't have kids. That once my kids were grown, I would be left with no remaining life of my own, having given it all to them.
Then, I got to visit an old friend of mine. She has kids, but still works. Sure, we talked quite a bit about her kids, but we also talked about OTHER STUFF!!! We work in the same field, so discussed related issues; she seems more aware of the outside world - we still had things in common, even though she is married with children. That about sealed it for me - that I would work. I would get to use the degrees I've earned, make money, keep a more varied group of acquaintances, maintain more independence, and hopefully still manage to raise emotionally healthy children who will see that their mom loves them, but also loves herself, too.
Fortunately, my guy seems to understand, appreciate, and support all of this. Maybe he'll even stay home with the kids while I go to work....
I read your blog regularly but don't comment usually. But this post reeled me in.
Because you're from the generation ahead of mine, its understandable u felt the way u did. times are different now though andn women have come into their own. most men my generation WANT their wives/girlfriends to work and have a life. The stigma of the working mother is so over!
I have several friends that the husbands have left after the women worked and put them through school, then quit and had families when the guy finally began a career. This is not the exception, and their lives are ruined for the most part. of course, we'd like to blame the men, but the women are not blameless since it was their stupidity to do such things.
What women do for love is almost criminal, but it's the men who need to be locked up!
I read this post with a great deal of interest, and I think your points are well taken. I also think you're right about what's wrong with kids today -- nobody's there to raise'em. Women used to feel they could have it all, found out it was harder than they thought, some changed their minds and went back home. But lots of them are still in the work force, and we can only hope that the children of those women will be taught enough respect and responsibility to get them through. It's a tough, tough issue.
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