Tag Archives: career woman

The Lost Job

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Fempire, parenting, Red Pill

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A meeting with my oldest’s guidance counselor led to an interesting teachable moment afterward.

The meeting was a fairly standard, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” one. Would she go to college? Trade school? Etc.

After the meeting she expressed some valid concerns, including feeling like she wasn’t ready to choose. And to be honest, she is fairly young to make such a decision.

I explained it was just the start of the discussion and that she really has several years to figure it out. There are tests she can take to help her narrow things down by identifying her aptitude’s and interests.

Seeing the opening I dropped in a red pill. “You know when I was your age, there was a really important job option nobody ever talked about.”

”Really?” she asked. “What?”

”The job of taking care of the homefront,” I replied. “Supporting a husband so he could work while the wife took care of all the tasks that help keep life running smoothly like cooking, cleaning, gardening, and childcare.”

I explained when I was her age they told us what a “waste of our potential” staying home and taking care of things would be.

But as she has seen firsthand as the child of a “career mom,” what happens is that stuff either doesn’t get done or gets done on the margins.

I pointed out some people we know who have taken that path, and how well it has worked for themselves and their families. I explained how I often felt I had been sold a half truth, and that had I chosen a different path my life might have been far less stressful, difficult, and overwhelming.

I could tell she liked the idea that maybe she didn’t have to be a career gal like myself. That maybe there was another way.

She said she did want to have an education, and job skills, and to have some work experience, “just in case.” I used her former babysitter as an example of someone who had done just that, and how if her husband ever needed her to take the lead because he was ill or something, she had the education and marketable skills to do so.

It was a really good discussion and one I hope she factors in as she chooses her life path.

Time will tell. But at least she and I are having the discussions I wish someone would have had with me at her age.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

 

Busy

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Fempire, parenting, Red Pill

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This is a busy time of year for me and will be for the next few months. As they say, one must make hay while the sun shines.

That said, at this time of year I can also really question the messages I received in early childhood and beyond. That it was all about having a career, being successful, being, “just like a man.”

Perhaps all that is possible minus children, and indeed before I had kids I focused mainly on building my career. But now I find myself in the situation that my busy season coincides with my kids summer break.

I sometimes try to picture what life as, “just a mom” would be like. Sadly it’s so foreign to me, and has never been my world, that I can’t really even picture it.  What would I do with all that time? Who would I “be” without my career? I really have no idea.

One of the big reasons I was encouraged to have a career was because it was supposed to provide a woman with freedom. Freedom from dependence, freedom from being left in the lurch, the freedom of being able to support oneself.

What they don’t tell you is it becomes a trap, too. Once you have a career, especially a successful one, people naturally expect you to continue. Having a career often involves significant investment (education, time, energy, etc.) walking away from that career means losing all that investment. And having a career does provide income, income you and others then often don’t feel you can give up once you have it.

Something else they don’t tell you is everything has a price. There’s no magical path of all upside.

My career has created revenue, yes, but has come at significant cost, as well. To both myself and others. It’s simply impossible to have it all. So I have a great career, but it takes away from other spheres (important, critical ones) no matter how hard I try to “balance” it all.

So is it really freedom? Is it really better?

These are the questions I ask myself as I pay others to take my kids swimming or to enjoy some summer fun while I work.

I guess i did it. I really am just like a man, at least in one way.  Men rarely get to take summer off, spend the days playing with their kids either.

Yay feminism.

What do you think? Please share in the comments.

Making Our Dreams Come True…

24 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in Fempire, Red Pill

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While listening to a vintage top 40’s radio show rerun, a song I had completely forgotten about reminded me of a Single Independent Woman (SIW) sitcom I watched often during my childhood: Laverne and Shirley.

Does this song ring a bell? (I apologize in advance if it gets stuck in your head now! Lol.)

Let’s look at the lyrics:

Making Our Dreams Come True

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated
We’re gonna do it!

Give us any chance – we’ll take it
Read us any rule – we’ll break it
We’re gonna make our dreams come true…
Doin’ it our way

Nothin’s gonna turn us back now
Straight ahead and on the track now
We’re gonna make our dreams come true…
Doin’ it our way

There is nothing we won’t try

Never heard the word impossible
This time there’s no stopping us
We’re gonna do it

On your mark, get set and go now
Got a dream and we just know now 
We’re gonna make our dream come true
And we’ll do it our way – yes our way
Make all our dreams come true
And do it our way – yes our way
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you! 

This is how Wikipedia describes the show:

“Laverne & Shirley (originally Laverne DeFazio & Shirley Feeney) is an American television sitcom that ran for eight seasons on ABC from January 27, 1976, to May 10, 1983. A spin-off of Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley followed the lives of Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams), two friends and roommates who work as bottle-cappers in the fictitious Shotz Brewery in late 1950s Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From the sixth season onwards, the series’ setting changed to mid-1960s Burbank, California. Michael McKean and David Lander co-starred as their friends and neighbors Lenny and Squiggy, along with Eddie Mekka as Carmine Ragusa, Phil Foster as Laverne’s father Frank DeFazio, and Betty Garrett as the girls’ landlady Edna Babish.

Noted for its use of physical comedy, Laverne & Shirley became the most-watched American television program by its third season [emphasis mine], and was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award in 1979.”

I found myself wondering how much this show affected my impressionable young mind, and the minds of other girls of my generation?

I also wondered what a follow-up would show? What would Laverne and Shirley be up to now? How did their plan work out? What specifically was their “dream” and did it come true?

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

Working Mom Blues

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in parenting

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Even though I work from home, I still face many challenges other working moms do, and some unique to work from home moms.

For example, my youngest is home sick today, and was yesterday as well. And that’s the struggle of being a working mom — it doesn’t matter that I am under the gun with a big deadline this week, and had an important meeting I had to cancel, and have a long to-do list of mission critical stuff otherwise. It all screeches to a halt, or a slow crawl at best.

I am not sure how moms who work in an office do it — I can’t imagine I would be able to hold down a traditional job and take off as many days a year as kids get sick. I wonder how many working moms are forced to make this choice — send your kids to school sick or send them to daycare sick. Neither is ideal, both for the sick child of course, and because this only spreads the illness around to other kids.

If I worked at a traditional job and had to take the day off, I’d go without pay but at the same time I would not be trying to do what I have been for the past two days… try to work in bits and spurts anyway. When you work from home and run your own business, there really is no “on the clock and off the clock.” Or one has to be really strict with themselves, because it’s just too easy for those lines to blur.

Not that I am not thankful I can make a living from home. At least I am not working 9 to 5 and then commuting on top of that three hours a day. I know many working moms face that situation, and I can only imagine what that schedule must be like. Grueling.

I suppose what I am feeling and am trying to say is being a working woman and being a working mom are two different worlds. And the worlds “working” and “mom” don’t always fit together so well.  In fact, I often feel like I am doing a half a$$ job at both.

I know being a SAHM has its challenges too, everything does (and I am not implying being a SAHM is not a job in itself, clearly it is!) But part of me wishes when my kids had a sick day, I could just spend it nurturing them without feeling anxiety about all the things I need to get done for work that I can’t, yet also feeling guilty for not being able to simply be in the moment with a sick kiddo either. To add to it, I am now sick myself.

It’s times like this I really resent who ever sold society on this working mom bit and that because of that I was raised to think I somehow could do it all, and all at once, and not skip a beat, and if I couldn’t I was some kind of a failure. I’d really like to slap that someone (or multiple somebody) right now! Instead I write about it, push back on the crazy or at least call it out, because somebody has to, right?

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant. It helps to get it off my chest. (Not that I really had time to write it but better than just stuffing the emotions, or blowing up, hopefully my taking the time to write this not only helped me feel better, but will help someone else, too.) This too shall pass. Back to double duty, and really I am just going to do my best and try to feel while maybe not perfect, it is enough, and try to have a cheerful heart despite the current situation. As I often remind myself when I get in a funk, things really could be a whole lot worse (My child could have a serious illness instead of a minor one, I could have no work or income and we could be losing our home, etc.) and for that I am thankful they are not!

What do you think? Please share in the comments.

False Idols

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Fempire, Red Pill

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One of the women my mom held up as an example of all a woman could do and be was Gloria Vanderbilt. My mom admired her New York social scene, her career as a fashion designer, her success and acclaim.

I really didn’t know much about her myself, except that she released a line of blue jeans that was fairly successful, and designed clothing. I had always assumed she started her company and built her success from the ground up.

Well, last night during some random insomnia web surfing, I came across the full story. Gloria Vanderbilt was actually born into immense wealth, the granddaughter of a railroad baron, the child of her father who rather than be a titan himself had lived a playboy lifestyle and drank himself to death by his early 40s, leaving his barely 19-year-old bride and 18 month old daughter behind.

Gloria was raised by her mother until the age of 10 when she was the subject of a bitter custody battle between her aunt and mother. While her mother traveled the world living off the interest of Gloria’s trust fund ($5 million at the time, which made little Gloria along with her older half sister one of the richest women in the world at age 21), Gloria was apparently largely raised by a nanny who had concerns about the child’s environment.  Allegations of neglect and immoral behavior on her mother’s part, combined with testimony by young Gloria herself, ended up with her being placed in the custody of her aunt, her father sister.

From there she attended exclusive schools and was raised in a family that owned multiple homes on Fifth Avenue in New York, including one that took up an entire New York city block.

Now I don’t mean to take away from what Gloria did with her life, or to imply she did not have her own crosses to bear — including the early loss of her father, the early years with(out) her mother, multiple failed marriages, one son who disowned her, and a son who killed himself in his 20s — but for her to be painted as a role model for what the average gal could achieve with moxie and hard work was, to say the least, disingenuious.

It makes me wonder what the background of many of the other early “successful career women” is. Were they also women who started with means and status far above the usual? I will have to look into it as time allows.

In any case, beware false idols. Things are not always what they are portrayed to be.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

The Error of Apex Fallacy

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

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If you haven’t heard the term “apex fallacy” before, it means the misbelief that the experiences of those at the top are, could, or should be the experiences of all.

For example, women have been told things like:

All men play the field, so it’s only fair for women to play the field just like men do. Except the reality is it is really only the very most attractive or wealthy or high status men who can easily play the field with as many women as they like. Most guys, even guys who are self proclaimed pick up experts, actually have to work very hard and get rejected many many times before they succeed. So women who are “playing the field just like a guy does” actually don’t realize that finding a guy willing to have sex with an average woman is not nearly as difficult as finding a woman who is willing to have sex with an average guy.

Another example is in career expectations. Many women have been led to believe all men have exciting, fulfilling, top level, upper management, high level, well paid, white collar, CEO type jobs and so women should expect to have the same. But again this is apex fallacy at play. In fact few men have jobs in that category. Most men work average, not very exciting, not very empowering, not very fulfilling jobs. All men do NOT have top level jobs and yet women have been mislead to believe that all women deserve top level jobs or it’s “not equal.”

Or consider the claim that, “men can do whatever they want.” In reality very few men can do whatever they want. Such men would need to have the power, wealth, status, connections, etc. to get away with doing so. Most men do not have these things and are restricted by the limitations of life like most people.

Once one starts looking for apex fallacy, the examples can be found all over the place. So while girls may be told “you can have it all” the reality is very few people have it all. Such apex fallacy sets women up for a lifetime of feeling cheated and oppressed, underappreciated and underpaid, held back and victimized when in reality they are doing as well, or even better, than the average man.

Apex fallacy. Don’t buy it!

Can you think of some more examples of apex fallacy? Please share in the comments.

 

 

 

 

Balancing Family and Work

15 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in parenting

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I found the quotes in this article about Kellyanne Conway turning down a top White House appointment very interesting.

Now, no doubt Conway has been working non-stop for the past year plus. She has a super quick wit, a resolve of steel, unwavering loyalty to her candidate, she’s tenacious as a bulldog, obviously driven, passionate about her beliefs, and doesn’t back down when the media attacks. She broke through the “glass ceiling” by becoming  the first female campaign manager for a presidential candidate. And her candidate won, to boot.

One would think she’d jump at the chance to be a central figure in the new administration, after all she has done. She’s certainly earned it. But no. Why? As she puts it:

“And when I was discussing my role with other senior campaign folks, they would say, “I know you have four kids, but…” I said, “There’s nothing that comes after the ‘but’ that makes any sense to me, so don’t even try.” Like, what is the “but”? But they’ll eat Cheerios for the rest of life? Like, nobody will brush their teeth again until I get home? I mean, it just—what is the “but”?

No doubt she’s missed a lot of her children’s lives this past year. And she recognizes that.

And she continues:

“And I do politely mention to them that the question isn’t, would you take the job? The male sitting across from me who’s going to take a big job in the White House. The question is, would you want your wife to? And you really see their whole—would you want the mother of your children do that? You really see their entire visage change. It’s like, oh no, they wouldn’t want their wife to take that job. So, it’s all good.”

Good for her for recognizing her children will only be young for a short time, and that being their mom during those critical years is also a very important job. And that she is the only person in the world that can do it.

Sure she could hire childcare, have family watch them, or even employ personal nannies. But none of those people would be her children’s mom, and she knows it.

It seems rather than viewing her decision as, “throwing it all away” she seems to get there are seasons in a woman’s life. Politics will be there when her children are grown (maybe she will be the first female president?) but her children’s childhood will never come again.

Imagine having Kellyanne Conway as your mom, pouring all that into you. What child wouldn’t want a mom like her in their corner?

 

 

 

 

Are Women Being Raised to Fail?

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Relationships

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Something I realized very quickly after discovering the red pill was that myself and most women (and men) born in after the late 1960s in America have basically been raised to fail in life and love.

Now I am not saying it was intentional. I really do think at least some people thought changing the social contract between men and women was going to be a step forward. Progress. Better. Utopia, even.

Of course others involved in the movement did so because for whatever reason the old social contract wasn’t working for them. Maybe they were trapped in a bad marriage. Maybe they had been abused. Maybe they were not attracted to or interested in men. But something all these women who started the feminist movement had in common is they were not happily and successfully relating with men, and so were they really in the best position to advise women how to fix that?

Pretty much all the advice I got growing up from multiple sources about how to be a happy, strong, successful woman turned out to have done more harm than good in my life and relationships. And as I look around at the other “modern” women I know, they too are experiencing the same.  Relationships not working. Priorities out of wack. Lack of balance. Workaholism. Unhappiness. Frazzled. Families falling apart. Dysfunction. Depression. Anxiety. Confusion. Etc.

My theory is that this is the blue pill version for females. Men were sold the “Be nicer. Be more sensitive. Be more like a woman,” line at the same time women were being told, “Be tough, be outspoken, be more like a man.”

Simultaneously, women were also being warned that men were the enemy, that they couldn’t be trusted, that they needed to always be financially independent of men because of that, and that they always needed to be on guard against them.

It wasn’t until I saw my babysitter living a truly traditional life that I actually saw how the old social contract worked, and worked pretty well. (You can read about her in more detail here.)

She’s always happy. She loves her life. She loves her husband. Her husband loves her. Their kids are happy and well behaved. She’s gracious and feminine and mild. And rather than treat her like a doormat, he cherishes her for it. She oversees the home and children sphere, he brings home the bacon. Of all the marriages I have seen, theirs has the least amount of discord or unhappiness of all. It works. It works really well, actually.

It’s something to ponder for sure, whether these social changes of the past 40 years have actually made life better for women. And men. And children. Or are things worse?

What do you think?

 

 

 

A Pre-Feminism Tale

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Fempire

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The other day I was talking with a friend who is in her early 60s. She happened to mention, in passing, that her grandmother had been a doctor.

Yes, that’s right, her GRANDMOTHER had been a doctor, specializing in head injuries, no less.

Now considering my friend is a baby boomer, that means her grandmother became a doctor many, many years before feminism supposedly opened up such opportunities to women. How could that be? So naturally I asked more questions.

Interestingly, it turns out her grandmother followed the path currently advised by the red pill, she married young to a good man, had their four children young, raised them while her husband worked his career, and then once their children were grown (her early 40s) she went to college, became a doctor, and started her career. Her grandmother practiced medicine well into her 80s.

It had never occurred to my friend that what her grandmother had accomplished, becoming a female doctor, was perhaps unusual for her time until I pointed it out.

This story is a good example of how today’s thinking that women should put off marriage and children until after she establishes her education and career may not be the optimal path after all. Or that if she marries and has children young, she will “miss” her chance to have a career.

Traditionally women followed their ideal biological life path — having children in their early 20s during their prime childbearing years, then shifting gears toward career as they reached their perimenopausal and menopausal years — when they are unencumbered by children and also will not have to “pause” that career once it is underway, like a woman who aims to establish her career early in life likely will when/if she chooses to have children later in life.

I have known many women of my generation (including myself, I am in my mid-40s and have young children) who put off childbearing until the last possible biological moment because they were mislead that they had all the time in the world to have kids, but not a career.

I was lucky to concieve both times easily and quickly despite my advanced age. Two of  three dear friends heartbreakingly never conceived despite expensive ($10,000+) infertility treatments. A third did finally succeed (happily!) after many tens of thousands of dollars and multiple attempts and is now finding just how difficult it is in reality to maintain a demanding career with an infant. Yet she’s afraid to take time off, lose her connections, and then be unable to restart her career later. A fourth friend didn’t start thinking of marriage and kids until she was in her mid 30s. She has yet to find a mate and at 45, children are now unlikely.

Sadly, these women followed the supposedly new and improved life script, only to find out it has some drawbacks they had never been advised of. No path is perfect. All paths involve possible trade offs. And they always have. And they always will.

It’s something young women of today would be wise to ponder. Does the path recommended to women today really make the most sense based on what she wants in life?

Perhaps the path my babysitter has chosen (to get her degree, have kids, then pursue her career with some additional refresher training when her children are older, then pursue her career in earnest for the second half of her life) lines up more naturally with a woman’s seasons of life?

The thing about life paths is there often aren’t do-overs later when one regrets the path chosen or is unhappy with the trade-offs. So best to figure it out early, and be sure you have thought things through. Both paths involve risk and uncertainty, is one path riskier and less certain?

Discuss. Deliberate. Ponder.

 

Equal or Better?

06 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Gender, Red Pill

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Have you ever noticed that women tend to be very selective about which parts of the equality pie they actually want when it comes to equal rights?

For example, women want to be doctors, lawyers, or CEOs, but I never have heard any woman question why garbage collectors are mostly men, or fight to bring that ratio closer to 50%. No. Women don’t want the downsides of being “just like a guy” only the upsides, only the gravy, or for the sweets people, the cherry on top.

Well sisters, that ain’t equality! Simple as.

As I have written about before, men do a lot of the suck jobs and the boring jobs and the dangerous jobs and the hard jobs that make life work. And they don’t expect a gold star for it. (But a sandwich and a smile and a “thank you” would sure go a long way.)

Also note, equality is not the same as extra rights. People don’t like to play with those who demand they get every toy in the sandbox and that everything always goes their way. For many women equal rights seems to be translating into “I can do whatever the hell I want and if you cry foul, you’re a sexist hater!” (Or worse.) The oppressed become the oppressor. Again, that’s not equal.

Anyway, talk amongst yourselves 🙂 What do YOU think equality is all about? Is it even possible? Ideal?