Reply #37: Several thoughts here. [View All]

[SheilaT]

First off I, like several others, am amazed to find something like this published in 2006, not 1906. Are you SURE of the date on the article? Is there a chance it's a spoof?

Oh, I know that it really is intended to be serious and really was written this year.

The REAL problem with career women as I see it is that there is almost no societal support of a woman who works full time outside the home. Schools assume a stay-at-home mom. Bosses assume you either don't have children or that there's someone else who deals with them. It infuriates me, and is an important reason I managed to stay home for twenty-five years while my children were growing up.

There actually are a reasonable number of stay-at-home moms out there. I personally know of any number, across the income spectrum. But it doesn't matter why a woman works: for personal fulfillment, to supplement the family income, because she's a single mom with no other support, whatever. In Europe there's plenty of support for families.

Every so often a discussion gets started here in which those without children express great resentment towards those with children over what they see as the latter not carrying their share of the load at work. What's always missed in those discussions I feel is that the assumption of total devotion to the job is not questioned. I have always felt that personal life should be more important in the long run.

Fortunately that article will ultimately do no more than start a lot of lively discussions out there.

I wonder exactly how old Noer is. It sounds like something written by a man who is at least 50. And I wonder even more what his personal marital situation is.