Feb 02 2008
Bad Advice
(Cross-posted at BlogHer)
From a genius at Forbes: “Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.” (My DH just wrestled a barbecue fork out of my hand as I attempted to attack the author through the Interweb.)
This is old (August 2006) and many of you may have already seen it, but I just ran across the original article the other day and I was INCENSED. (The full article by Michael Noer and a stellar response are posted in point-counterpoint format here.) Like it’s not difficult enough to figure out what we want to do with our lives and how, now we’ve got this jackass telling us that we’ll be bad wives if we have a career? He’s dead wrong.
In fact, the most important, most selfless, most beneficial thing we could ever do for our partners and families is to find our purpose in life and start living it. (That may not include a “career” in the traditional sense, but for many women, it will.) What kind of wives or partners will we be if we are unfulfilled, yearning for something we can’t even recognize? What kind of examples will we be to our children if we don’t have the courage to identify our purpose and use our unique strengths and talents to express it?
I simply refuse to accept that we have to martyr ourselves and set aside our dreams for the good of our families–we might have to modify them to fit our circumstances, but we never have to give them up. Just as “staying together for the kids” puts undue stress and guilt on your children, so does sacrificing your happiness. Do you want your children to grow up in the shadow of all you could have been instead of basking in the sunlight of all that you ARE?
I want to make it clear that I am not in any way denigrating the choice to be a stay-at-home mom. I believe that raising children can be an integral part of our purpose as women (and/or men), and I certainly hope to be able to stay at home when I have kids. But I don’t think that women whose passion and purpose leads them to a career outside the home are bound to be cheating wives and distant mothers, as the author suggests.
Mr. Noer’s message is one of fear and powerlessness. (”The other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be obvious to anyone who has seen his or her mate run off with a co-worker: When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase that he or she will meet someone more likable than you.”) Don’t let it and poisonous ideas like it keep you from pursuing the life you know is yours to claim.
Good post. I think people pit working vs SAHM’s against each other too much - and sometimes it happens on its own. I can’t help but thinking this is a topic a man just shouldn’t be allowed to write about lol…. oh well. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
grrrr..my comment didn’t take. But nice post, I agree totally. I wrote more last time but now Ih ave to bathe my nearly naked child.
Hear, hear, sister. I have nothing against women that stay home with their kids, but I could never do it. Maternity leave practically killed me — I was so happy to come back to work I almost wept that first day. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my kid, but I need time to be me, and having that time makes me better with him.