Idiot Parade

Trolling around the interwebs, I discovered this op-ed. Elizabeth Stewart, the author, is pissed off. She’s pissed off because she works a full day, just like her husband, and works her ass off at home as well. She feels underappreciated and at her wits end: “It’s a constant struggle to meet the demands of my various roles as wife, mother, daughter, colleague, lover, friend. I feel as if I short-change everyone all the time.”

By the time I read to the end of the piece, I felt a very close connection with Elizabeth. That may sound pretentious, because I don’t have an impressive or stressful career with an ad agency, nor do I have a husband and child to care for. But I admire her ability to juggle everything in her life, and feel her anger is justified. If I had crawled into bed just four hours earlier, while my husband was at home for most of that afternoon, I would hope that he would volunteer to be the one to get up and clean up our child’s vomit. It’s not out of resentment for the child, and it’s not because I wouldn’t be concerned and want to take care of my sick baby. There has to be an equal division of labor, that’s all.

I scrolled down to the comments, expecting to see more angry women in a little show of girl power. What an unpleasant surprise it was to read the following:

So give up your job and stop whinging. You say you need two jobs to keep a roof over your head? Downsize to a smaller roof and you’ll be just fine on your husband’s salary. And you can ditch the nanny then too and care for the child you brought into the world yourself. Son at boarding school? You chose to put him there, your problem if you miss him. Sorry, honey, but my guess is you’re not short of a bob or two – you’ve just grown acustomed to a certain standard of living and are damned if you’re going to give it up. Fine, but you’re smart enough to know you cannot have it all.
Click to rate Rating 250- Anna, London, 22/2/2009 16:40

Yes, she has a nanny. Yes, her son is in boarding school. Those both cost quite a bit of money. I choose not to begrudge her those things, because she can’t very well leave the youngest at home by herself, and if she can give her son a chance at a better education and future, more power to her.

You need to stop working and let your man take over all fiscal responsibilities until you are out of the weeds. Best of luck, girl. You have simply overcompensated.

Sigh. That one doesn’t need my commentary.

Why do women feel so angry? Glad you asked.
Well of course the irrational (and incorrect) explanation is to blame men. But in fact anger is a disease which starts to seriously inhibit women after the age of about 33. This is the age when the waning interest in them from men finally serves as confirmation that they are losing their looks. It is also the time that they reluctantly come to the realisation that ‘having it all’ is a cruel, feminist perpetuated myth.

That was the tone of most of the feedback, divided about equally between men and women. There were also a number of scoffs at this woman daring to get a bikini wax. How dare she do something that makes her feel attractive.

Obviously, she could be much worse off. There are plenty of single mothers who would die for a dual income and a nanny. I appreciate that, and I’m sure Ms. Stewart does as well. What troubles me here is the amount of people who are so sure that a woman should not have both a family and a career. I want both. I want to go to work, I want to put my education to good use, I want to teach, and I want to enjoy it. I also want to have a baby and raise her to be a loving, intelligent, and all-around wonderful human being. My mother did both. She worked in the morning, my father worked at night. We needed both incomes, and they both wanted to be with their baby. My father was ridiculed by other men for wanting to stay at home with me, and change my diapers, and clean up my sick. Not a glamorous line of work, and I’m sure there were times when the stress from work and from a child drove both of my parents insane. But they managed, and I lost nothing in the end. Two working parents. Daughter who never felt neglected.

It can be done. We can do it all. It’s shouldn’t be a question of whether or not a woman is capable of having a family and a job. It should be a question of whether or not we have the support system to do so, be it friend, boyfriend, husband, or our own parents. Wanting everything includes wanting some help from time to time…and we shouldn’t have to feel guilty about asking for it.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.