Earlier today my girlfriend surprised me with another article for my blog. It is on the futility of wanting to “have it all”, i.e. wanting a family and a “career”. In the West, the vast majority of women have been brainwashed to think that they have to get e-duh-cated, and end up with dried up eggs, but with multiple degrees in bullshit. This puts them in the uncomfortable situation of having to desperately look for a partner when they are well past their prime. In more traditional societies, as “Sleazy’s Gal” is going to elaborate, plenty of women also think they can have a career and a family, but more traditionally-minded women realize that raising a family isn’t something you do in your spare time.
Lately, I’ve encountered highly educated and qualified Asian women who don’t seem to want to stop climbing the ladder and upgrading their credentials. One of them is juggling full-time work in a demanding job and a part-time Master’s, with the intention of eventually pursuing a PhD. Why, you may ask? “Out of interest.” I should add that she’s overweight, and if not yet attached, will probably come across quite unattractive to men. I hope she won’t come to regret her decisions, but her story got me thinking about the educated female’s dilemma between early motherhood vs chasing a “career”.
Let me be clear that when I say educated female, I’m not referring to those who’ve sunk themselves into debt studying useless courses that may as well be ideological indoctrination. I’m referring to those who have a good shot at getting a decent job because they completed a productive degree, or otherwise because they hail from an elite university. Thus from such a female’s point of view, she could have a real chance at climbing the corporate ladder, and settling down to be a mother in her twenties represents an opportunity cost of sorts; a shame that she’s not fulfilling her potential, or that she’ll never know how high she could have reached if she strived.
If those words sounded a little heartfelt, well it’s because they are. From the time I was a teen, I knew and felt that I wanted to be a mother one day. My view had however all along been that I would strive to have it all: be a career woman, mother, and wife, in no particular order. After all, I saw my own mother try that for the most part. And I even want three little tots at the very least! Meeting The Sleaze has significantly deflated this ambition as he has helped me see how this is unrealistic, but I’ve to admit that it’s still difficult for me to fully accept and feel comfortable about being a young mother (2-3 children before the age of 30), and a stay-at-home one at that.
I attribute this resistance to brainwashing and societal norms normalising later marriages and motherhood. I’m sure you’re well versed with the Asian nerd stereotype that is borne out of our culture privileging credentials and studying hard. Unfortunately, I think the combination of this aspect of Asian culture with feminist rhetoric that women are limitless and can have it all makes young motherhood and being a homemaker harder to accept. After all, one didn’t graduate with a good degree and do all this CV-building just to stay at home, right? I don’t seriously think this way however, because I certainly see the benefits of children having an educated mother. Another reason for resistance is the feeling of utmost dependency on one’s partner when one is a SAHM (just like in the good ol’ days, lol!)
Therefore as much as I love the idea of nurturing children, cooking, and holding the fort at home, I can’t help but be in some discomfort regarding this degree of dependency on a husband, as well as be wistful about what could possibly have been should I strive to reach my fullest potential at the workplace. It helps immensely that The Sleaze is such a competent provider whom I know will appreciate me for playing a domestic role in the home and even wants that, but it’s also helped to hear the idea of “careers” being debunked by the likes of Gavin McInnes and Jordan Peterson. I have a hunch that this dilemma isn’t my isolated experience, but who knows; many women around me seem to have chosen their priorities easily, all right.
I’ve been taking an introductory foundational English Composition course that’s been centered around the contrast between young adults of today and a generation ago, mainly having to do with the introduction of technology. It doesn’t really make bold contrasts between gender, after all, English as a major is very deep into Liberalism and Leftism. The topics and studies provided are still quite interesting, though.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=all&referer=
We’ve been juicing this 2010 essay about the infantilism of 20-30 year olds and what has caused it for about 2 month. A psychologist interviewed in the article named Jeff Arnette mimics what I would consider a right-leaning perspective, that people have been trying to skip around the fundamental things like marriage, education, work, moving out of their parents’ house, and becoming financially stable. Most of these are failed to be met even at 40, and sometimes, all of them aren’t even their goals.
I just thought I’d share it so that I’m not the only one being tortured by reading it over and over again to write papers.
Thanks for sharing! “Emerging adulthood” does seem like a plausible enough life stage…
what’s SAHM?
but what about Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg??? You an lean in (er, is that wear a low cut and lean in to show your cleavage????)
SAHM stands for “stay-at-home mother”.
“I can’t help but be in some discomfort regarding this degree of dependency on a husband”
Two points about that “dependency” issue you raise:
First of all, yes it is a dependency, but in many countries should there be a divorce (or death of the husband/partner), the woman is being taken care of quite well. I agree that this has quite a severe impact on the pension later on, as well as on career choices after several years at home, but it’s definitely a softer landing than it was 100 years ago.
I’d like to add that this dependency, at least in my eyes, is a necessary evil which puts on a healthy pressure much like the death penalty for say drug consumption in some countries does: You think twice about doing it. Think twice about whom you get involved with as a woman and once you do make your choice, you make sure you make it work from your side. The better the initial due diligence, the less “make it work” effort you have later. Yes, people change, but they usually revert to what they are anyway. So, I’m much in favour of that pressure, because divorce has become too much of a luxury problem financed by men, directly via alimony or indirectly via tax money. I truly believe that if there was much more at stake for women, families would be much healthier because they’d chose wiser. You can see that this is true when you look at men “opting out” which is nothing but the end game of seeing odds stacked against you. If we could meet somewhere in the middle between fear, respect, love and purpose the human race would have a much better shot compared to the perverted situation the west is in right now.
The second point is that speaking about dependency of a woman on a husband is just one side of the coin. As romantic as it sounds, a man is also dependent on his woman. All these MGTOW and other movements can say what they want, but a woman can be truly THE inspiring force in the life of a man.
The dependency you speak about seems to be of tangible nature – either loss of a provider or opportunities which have been lost out career-wise. But let’s keep it simple and just call the spade a spade: It’s about money.
I can tell form my own experience that being materially broke, beyond broke, in debt or having literally no food in the fridge is nothing compared to the first time I got my heart broken when I was 21.
My argument is that men are dependent on women emotionally. Yes, yes…. I know we’re all strong and can do it on our own and conquer the world. And when you look at old couples who had deep love for each other for many decades and the woman dies first, the man usually dies within a short period of time. Not so women – they outlive their men by quite a bit.
Dependency is not just something women experience. Men’s dependency is maybe a bit less obvious but damn sure it’s there.
The discomfort a woman feels about being dependant on her man is her hypergamous instincts reeling against the lack of options. She can be very judicious in choosing her partner, but she can never be 100% sure that he won’t leave her (possibly but not necessarily for another woman), or (much more likely) she may want to leave him (possibly, but not necessarily for another man) at some indeterminate point in the future. Being dependent curtails her options (although it has largely been ameliorated through state sanctioned divorce rape of men).
In my culture, divorce usually isn’t seriously considered even if the woman is working and has financial independence. But yes, I can imagine how the dependency a SAHM has on her husband would increase the pressure and motivation to make the marriage work and keep the household functioning well.
Regarding your second point, Molyneux had a housewife call in who struggled with feelings of dependency on her husband (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlrNiLW1C4c&t=917s). And he too reminded her of how her husband is likewise dependent on her, but just for different things. Bearing in mind how there’s mutual dependency helps, but admittedly still cannot negate all of the discomfort. No thanks to female empowerment :/
You would need to think about risk of losing the breadwinner in a different way like disability or accidental death. I dont know insurance costs. Even if you pick the right person that thing can still happen. You could also try parttime SAH jobs like copywriting or supporting a shared (internet) side business. Being at home its much easier to handle mail packages. I heard that good copywriters can make 100k a year or more depending on commission so that could mean an early retirement for both.
Or, just go full SAHM since making healthy and delicious food yourself costs quite much time and its well worth it to avoid toxic industrial foods. We can look at the pacific islands where ppl who start eating western diets actually become sick and when hurricanes arrived and shipments are temporarily halted they suddenly get healthier. I wish I stopped eating fried foods earlier. There really does not exist healthy fried foods. Avoid products from the food mafia.
Some women are only women in form but men in content. Ask those who are studying and graduating from dental schools. Don’t know what they think, how they feel.
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost