The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In

[effervescent]

Sheilah O’Donnel tells herself that her new home, a townhouse in a development in Chevy Chase, Md., just a stone’s throw from a Safeway, isn’t really all that bad. Sure, it’s near a gas station. And the front window, with its cheerily upholstered cushions, overlooks a dreary parking lot. And yes, it’s kind of small - “an apartment,” O’Donnel, who

Comments

[audacian]

I needed to read this today. I struggle with this quite often. It's helpful to hear the experiences of others.

[mycenaes]

This is so depressing, and tbh, the husbands in this story sound like assholes. :/

But thanks for linking this. It's weird, I remember reading about and watching those stories about the joys of motherhood or w/e when I was a kid (I'm 24 now), and even then, I had a feeling that it wouldn't end up exactly how people expected.

[roseofjuly]

Every single one of them! EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

[hey_feygele]

Honestly, I can sympathize with some of what they quote the guys saying in this. My wife's been out of work for about 2 years and isn't looking to return any time soon. It's hard for me not to feel a little resentful after working full time at weird hours with a long commute, plus going to school part time, plus also sharing in household and parenting responsibilities. There's a part of me that thinks things like, hey, why don't I get time to myself? Maybe I could have been an astronaut, too! I mean, of course I wouldn't be an astronaut. But I think it's hard to notice all the time your partner gets to spend at home with the kids and their hobbies and not feel a little left out.

I mean, it seems like there's a pretty sizable class difference between our family and the families in the article, so maybe it doesn't even make sense to compare the situations. I don't know.

[roseofjuly]

My mother was a SAHM for 16 years. And perhaps it's because of the significant class differences between my family and the families usually profiled in these stories (my family was on the edge between working class and lower-middle class), but my mother didn't stay at home with her "hobbies." I don't even remember my mother HAVING any hobbies, and I think she herself didn't really discover what she liked to do until she went back to work

[iolarah]

My mom did this. She got her BA and her teaching degree, worked for a few years, got married and had me and stayed home with me until I started kindergarten. After that, she went back into teaching and got her Masters, and finished her career as a principal. I don't know that she had a lot of trouble getting back to work once she decided she was going back, but it was the early 80s (and not in the US), and it might have been easier then. Either way, I suspect she would say that she had no regrets about staying home, or about going back. I'm glad she stayed home with me for a little while, and I'm glad she was able to go back. She loved her work, and I have some great memories of being little and at home with her.

[lsmsrbls]

I wonder if teaching is more forgiving of taking time off than other professions. My mother-in-law (who just retired from teaching elementary school) did not take any extended time off when she had her sons. Most of her coworkers who are her age still have years to go before they can retire because they all took off at least a few years (and usually 5-10) while their kids were young.

[maynardsong]

My mom was a homemaker until my brother went to preschool, then she went to school to get a Master's in Info Systems and worked in her final semester. This was the mid to late 90s...

[nextdrinksonme]

“Once she started to work, she started to place more value in herself, and because she put more value in herself, she put herself in front of a lot of things - family, and ultimately, her marriage.”

God forbid she has value in herself. I have a feeling the marriage ending had less to do with her self worth and more to do with him wanting, even subconsciously, to stomp her down.

I always kind of wonder how this trend negatively affected women still in the workforce. If it's a large movement to get to a position of power and then just leave to take care of kids, why would any company want to spend the time and money on putting a woman in a position of power?

[roseofjuly]

There's some evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, that this is actually a problem for women in the workforce - especially women with children who have no intention of leaving. They're treated as though they may leave at any minute. In fact, sometimes it's this treatment that forces them to leave in the first place. In Stone's book (the book cited above, Opting Out) many of the women left not because they really wanted to but because their employers wouldn't allow them to arrange their work in a way that they could still work and have a chance for advancement AND care for their families.

[roseofjuly]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I prepare to finish my PhD and enter a postdoc. I want to be a researcher - I want to be an administrator, eventually - but I also want children and a happy home life. So I'm confused about how I should prepare