The Feminine Mistake
There’s a new book out now called “The Feminine Mistake”. Leslie Bennetts, the author, uses as her premise that women are taking a risk—too big a risk—in quitting their jobs to stay home and raise their children. The economics don’t work, she argues, and at any given moment your husband could die or leave you with nothing—nothing but bills, and kids to raise.
Obviously a conversation starter—or maybe a conversation stopper, depending on who you’re talking to! I’d argue that having kids is a risk, right from the start. You risk your heart and your sanity—along with your nice wardrobe, polished nails, a pristine white couch. I knew I’d love my kids, before I had them—but I was never so determined as when I looked at my 4 day old baby and said “I would do anything for her. Anything”. I’d argue, that you don’t know what love is, until you have a child.
For me, doing “anything” for my baby—now, babies—meant stopping a promising career in marketing that I didn’t love every day but certainly enjoyed, a lot of the time. The risk of financial ruin was far outweighed by the certainty of me missing my kids. Big moments, like walking, and small moments, like the funny things they say every single day. Like when Coco head-butts me, AGAIN, because she’s such a voracious hugger. I worry about money, a lot, but I worry about my happiness if I didn’t have this time with my kids.
A quote I saw from Ms. Bennetts points out that women “…don’t have to be partners in a law firm”…that is, they can have a job that takes less time or is lower level. I’d argue that this is WORSE. A job is that much more difficult if you don’t care—walking away from your kids is even less desirable when you detest every minute you spend in the workplace, when you’re undervalued and underpaid.
Of course, companies are getting better at that. That’s the premise of our forum—that working moms can achieve some sort of balance. But to call spending time with your kids a mistake, to say leaving a career is a risk…life is risks. This one at least has a pretty solid payoff, at the end.