Sequel to the classic Belkin opt-out piece

kristennd · August 2013

So this is starting up again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

BeachBum73 · August 2013

That's interesting. I didn't read the original article, likely because I was not pg or was newly pg in 2003 and didn't plan on staying home. I think it's rather hard to relate to considering they profiled women with prestigious degrees, high paying jobs, etc. I am just an "average" college grad working in a corp job that I'd love to get out of

.

My situation might be different than others because although I love some of the perks of working, I don't love my job and would rather to be with my kids more (for right now). My youngest is 3 and I'd love to be able to stay at home with him for the next couple of years before he goes to school. I'm not cut out for the corporate world but not sure what I'd want to do.

aglenn · August 2013

Interesting article, but is any of this really new information? Yes, exiting the workforce has implications for your future earning potential, especially if you don't have a strong network of people in high places. I think the hard part is figuring out what the solution is. Sure, in an ideal world we would all dabble in part-time work that was fulfilling and yet didn't get in the way of our personal lives, but that isn't realistic for the vast majority of people.

SoMoNY · August 2013

Opting out is easy but getting back in is a bitch.

Companies are reluctant to hire people that have been unemployed more than 6 months so why would they ever hire someone who has been out 5/10/15 years?

aglenn · August 2013

milkergirl1 said:

But the issue I had with the article is the statistics that women are not CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, etc. That stat is used so often, and I don't think it has anything to do with working moms or inequality. I think many women have no desire to be in some of those leadership roles (please share your view if you think I'm wrong on this point). I know I have no desire at this time to move into management in my job, even though I've been approached to move into management time and time again. And it has nothing to do with starting a family.

Well, I think the point is that women choose not to pursue those jobs in inequal proportions because they are more likely to make career decisions that favor work/life balance and/or take some time out of the workforce or on reduced schedules, etc. Obviously not everyone wants to be CEO whether they are male or female, but you have a situation where more women than men are earning advanced degrees and succeeding in the workplace but they are not equally represented at the top.

MoreThanABride · August 2013

I am having a hard time getting back into things after a 12 week maternity leave - I can't imagine how hard it would be after years.

KL777 · August 2013

I read the article. I thought it was interesting. I SAH for nearly three years and was able to "get back in." I got a good amount of time at home, which I truly value, and still was not out too long from the workforce to make it extremely difficult to get back in.

I agree that one has to have a plan if they "opt-out" for a period of time (volunteer in their field, work part-time in their field, mompreneur, etc.)

JoAnna914 · August 2013

I vividly remember the original Belkin article because it came out during a time in my career when all of my colleagues were "opting out." It was very difficult for me to watch - I felt abandoned in a male-dominated career, like my sisters-in-arms were giving up the fight. My husband even suggested at the time that we should consider a family and that maybe I'd want to stay home - I looked at him like he had eight heads, lol. My reasons for always working are illustrated in this article, and illustrated by the fates of quite a few of those women I knew who opted out. Husbands die, leave, lose their jobs; the working spouse gets resentful; yes, the home spouse will end up doing more housework; and very, very few people (male or female) can jump right back into their careers after a decade-long absence (or a two-year absence) right where they left off. It's not that I don't understand why these women opted out - what every dual-income family does is HARD - but the truth of the matter is that women since the beginning of time did not have power because they did not have wealth, and giving up one's own income is to abdicate one's self-determination, and to give up one's self-determination is to lose one's identity. It is no wonder that the women featured in this article, for the most part, are seemingly lost.

nosoup4u · August 2013

milkergirl1 said:

But the issue I had with the article is the statistics that women are not CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, etc. That stat is used so often, and I don't think it has anything to do with working moms or inequality. I think many women have no desire to be in some of those leadership roles (please share your view if you think I'm wrong on this point). I know I have no desire at this time to move into management in my job, even though I've been approached to move into management time and time again. And it has nothing to do with starting a family.

I don't think that's true. It's the same as male-dominated industries (like computer science), companies claiming they don't have as many women bc there aren't enough women to hire. Instead of making sure they use quotas (or supporting universities that have more women students in those areas) to get an equal number of women.

There are too many constraints in the corporate world (and society) to make it easy for women to have leadership roles and raise a family if they so desire. Women aren't innately less likely to want to be powerful.

laurakaz13 · August 2013

In all honesty, some of the things these women have gone through are what I fear would happen to me if I gave up my career. I just couldn't do it. My self-worth would plummet and I'm just not cut out for staying at home with my child and not contributing financially.

I hate that it is implied I should feel guilty about this. I don't.

Nechie122 · August 2013

I couldn't read the article. It pissed me off. My eyes started to glaze over when I read about the woman who managed to use her contacts at her kid's elite (read: $40,000/year) private school to start her own business. And was STILL whining. I don't buy it as some sort of cautionary tale. Oh, the poor, poor 1%!

I work because feminism isn't some wishy washy notion about "choice" to me. As another poster said, it's about not giving up the power to make decisions about my own life. And part of that is protecting myself financially and having some sort of identity beyond just my role as a wife and a mother.

I'm all for nuanced discussion on how we can help women (and men!) balance work and family. But there was so much hubris and entitlement in that article, it just did nothing for me.

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