The conundrum that causes American women to be forced to choose between being a devoted mom or having a real career is that we have a system that expects you to go all in on one or the other and doesn't support some means to travel back and forth between the two nor be serious on a part-time basis about your career. So for many American women, taking time off from a career to be home with the kids -- even just to give birth and take some maternity leave -- is a career killer.
I was a homemaker with a "1950s style" marriage for about two decades and then I got divorced and I had a corporate job for a few years. That was a long journey for me, not just in terms of time but mentally, emotionally and logistically.
There were a lot of pieces there that had to be dealt with long before I got that corporate job. I have three ideas that grow out of those experiences for how to resolve that tension between homemakers and career women in the US and quit putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to CHOOSE one or the other.
People who take time away from work to further their education typically improve their future earnings instead of hurting them. I acted on this knowledge by going to college part time and intermittently while raising my children.
Currently, American women who want careers tend to put off having children so they can complete their educational goals. This then leads to women missing out on having kids, facing increased health risks for having kids later, and facing increased risks of birth defects.
It is already possible to get federal student aid for going to school part time. We should do what we can to make it more feasible and more normal for women to have kids in their twenties and pursue their educational goals on a part time basis while devoting time to their children so they can stop being forced to choose between a real career and a family.
At first, I did stereotypical wifey stuff that benefited my husband's career and my children. That was often a really negative experience where I was treated terribly and at some point I made the conscious decision that I would start doing volunteer work that somehow did something for me and wasn't just me doing for my family.
This is how I ended up doing pro bono professional work online -- it even had a spiffier name than volunteer work -- for an educational organization that was, at that time, trying to make the transition to a formal charity, a process later abandoned. This supported my efforts to homeschool my kids but it also was a growth opportunity for me and taught me new technical skills and ended up being something I felt comfortable putting on a resume to try to get a job when I got divorced.
So if you do volunteer work while home with the kids, try to find something that does something for your career in some way. Take it seriously as an opportunity to develop yourself, network and so forth.
Hobbies are another avenue for potentially laying the foundations for a future career. If you spend time at a craft and get good at it, it's possible to transition that to paid work, though you will need to learn the business end of things. We could do more as a society for helping women value and monetize such skills.
This has myriad impacts on both male and female life paths, none of which are terrible in and of themselves but they add up and kind of nickel and dime you to death, careerwise, for a great many women.
As just a couple of examples of the very many I have read about over the years:
People doing something they are actually interested in tend to be more successful at it and make more money and so forth. So don't act like your career dreams and goals are unimportant. They aren't.
Taking dreams and interests seriously is one of the things men are more likely to do than women which sets us on different paths and leads to different outcomes, careerwise.
These days, you can take classes online and so forth, so don't throw in the towel too readily. Even if you have no hope of going to your dream school, at least do some research and see if you can find a summer camp or online program or something that actually serves your dreams and goals in some meaningful way.
But women don't just do this to themselves. Other people actively help murder their educational and career dreams in myriad ways by not taking women's dreams seriously enough.
When I was involved with Tagfam.org, I heard over and over again that when women go to college and have trouble with the math part of the degree they want, they are frequently told "Oh, hey, you can just go into early childhood education instead."[1]
Men are not similarly told by everyone all the time to just casually throw in the towel on their dreams because some part of it is hard. Men get expected to put in the effort -- audit the class, get a tutor, whatever -- and make it happen.
In essence, they get told to "Man up and get 'er done." But we do not get told to "Woman up and get 'er done."
I was a homemaker with a "1950s style" marriage for about two decades and then I got divorced and I had a corporate job for a few years. That was a long journey for me, not just in terms of time but mentally, emotionally and logistically.
There were a lot of pieces there that had to be dealt with long before I got that corporate job. I have three ideas that grow out of those experiences for how to resolve that tension between homemakers and career women in the US and quit putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to CHOOSE one or the other.
College
Most things that take you away from a job lower your future earnings capacity, so women end up hurting their careers when they take time off to be home with the kids. The one exception to this that I know of is education.People who take time away from work to further their education typically improve their future earnings instead of hurting them. I acted on this knowledge by going to college part time and intermittently while raising my children.
Currently, American women who want careers tend to put off having children so they can complete their educational goals. This then leads to women missing out on having kids, facing increased health risks for having kids later, and facing increased risks of birth defects.
It is already possible to get federal student aid for going to school part time. We should do what we can to make it more feasible and more normal for women to have kids in their twenties and pursue their educational goals on a part time basis while devoting time to their children so they can stop being forced to choose between a real career and a family.
Volunteer Work and Hobbies
While married, I did a lot of volunteer work. I had some time to devote to something other than family but not enough to get even a part-time job. Volunteer work was less of a commitment and had more flexibility and fit into my life.At first, I did stereotypical wifey stuff that benefited my husband's career and my children. That was often a really negative experience where I was treated terribly and at some point I made the conscious decision that I would start doing volunteer work that somehow did something for me and wasn't just me doing for my family.
This is how I ended up doing pro bono professional work online -- it even had a spiffier name than volunteer work -- for an educational organization that was, at that time, trying to make the transition to a formal charity, a process later abandoned. This supported my efforts to homeschool my kids but it also was a growth opportunity for me and taught me new technical skills and ended up being something I felt comfortable putting on a resume to try to get a job when I got divorced.
So if you do volunteer work while home with the kids, try to find something that does something for your career in some way. Take it seriously as an opportunity to develop yourself, network and so forth.
Hobbies are another avenue for potentially laying the foundations for a future career. If you spend time at a craft and get good at it, it's possible to transition that to paid work, though you will need to learn the business end of things. We could do more as a society for helping women value and monetize such skills.
Dreams and Goals
Women have a tendency to do what's convenient and low risk to further their careers and this is one of the things that holds women back. We tend to put our families first and men tend to put their careers first, which all of society supports and encourages.This has myriad impacts on both male and female life paths, none of which are terrible in and of themselves but they add up and kind of nickel and dime you to death, careerwise, for a great many women.
As just a couple of examples of the very many I have read about over the years:
- Women are more likely to go to whatever school is available locally and take whatever college major they can find locally that kind of, sort of relates to their interests so school fits easily into their current lives. Men are more likely to go to whatever school best serves their career goals, even if they have to uproot the family and move someplace else to attend college.
- As entrepreneurs, women are more likely to bootstrap it -- ie self fund out of whatever they can earn -- and men are more likely to take out business loans or get venture capital or the like so they can rapidly grow their business.
People doing something they are actually interested in tend to be more successful at it and make more money and so forth. So don't act like your career dreams and goals are unimportant. They aren't.
Taking dreams and interests seriously is one of the things men are more likely to do than women which sets us on different paths and leads to different outcomes, careerwise.
These days, you can take classes online and so forth, so don't throw in the towel too readily. Even if you have no hope of going to your dream school, at least do some research and see if you can find a summer camp or online program or something that actually serves your dreams and goals in some meaningful way.
But women don't just do this to themselves. Other people actively help murder their educational and career dreams in myriad ways by not taking women's dreams seriously enough.
When I was involved with Tagfam.org, I heard over and over again that when women go to college and have trouble with the math part of the degree they want, they are frequently told "Oh, hey, you can just go into early childhood education instead."[1]
Men are not similarly told by everyone all the time to just casually throw in the towel on their dreams because some part of it is hard. Men get expected to put in the effort -- audit the class, get a tutor, whatever -- and make it happen.
In essence, they get told to "Man up and get 'er done." But we do not get told to "Woman up and get 'er done."