There was an editorial column written by Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe printed in the Atlanta paper on Friday. She was discussing a trend in which "elite women" (intelligent, well-educated women) were opting out of the job market to be stay-at-home wives/moms. With the high-divorce rate, a woman who stays out of the job market may be unemployable when she's 40 or 50 and her husband divorces her (or drops dead of a heart attack). "Life is long. Hands-on parenting is relatively short. The costs may be lifelong," says Goodman.
I can see that women your age see women their mom's age stressed to the max because they've tried to "have it all" - success at work and at home. I know I've regretted times that I've been too tired for my family due to my work, even though because I'm a professor, I've never not been home when they got home from school/work, never missed one of my daughter's basketball games or even practices (until she got old enough for that to be embarrassing). But if you don't work, you'd lose your family's health insurance if you lost your husband, and like Goodman says, it's not "easy to opt back into the work force after you opt out."
I dunno. There's no good answer. I can understand all sides of the issue.
Every night before I go to bed I iron the kid's clothes for school the next day. Some people do their ironing all at once...I iron as needed.
Stay at home wife = clean sheets? NOT!!!! The housekeeper changes those! Do we need to start a collection for your laundry Kimmi?
