The Feminist Housewife: Can Women Have It All by Choosing to Stay Home? — New York Magazine – I’ll be honest – this piece made my head explode with rage. I can appreciate how it would simplify a lot of people’s lives to have someone home to take care of the kids. And hey, as a kid I would have loved a Mom who was home to take care of stuff every day. I just resent the fact that this “choice” is really only there for the upper classes who can afford it. (“Low six figure income” is middle class?!) I resent that this “choice” seems to be taken up by the woman rather than the man 99.5% of the time. And I resent the fact that the author waited til the last paragraph to bring up the thing that was screaming through my brain the whole time: What happens after? What happens when the kids go to school, or the partner dies, or he leaves her when she’s old? Isn’t that why our mothers and grandmothers wanted us to have our own careers and bank balances, so we’re not out of options if the worst happens? Maybe I’m a pessimist for immediately jumping to the worst case scenario.
Or maybe it’s just the woman who named her kids Archer, Fable, Reverie, and Boheme. SERIOUSLY? I hope they all grow up to run an artisanal pickle company.
Edited to add: Okay, here are two responses that are much more reasonable than anything I could write. There’s Nothing Retro About the Retro Housewife If She Gets to Choose and Why the Opt Out Story Won’t Die. The lesson here is that stories like the first one are trolling, making everything out as black and white to get a rise out of fools like me. When in reality, most of us just do the best we can and don’t really reflect the extremes. I feel better now.