Oh, I'm so glad to see someone talking about this! I've wondered about this a great deal: I thoroughly embraced the life of early marriage, young motherhood and the opportunity to homeschool my children that was given to me, and I find myself fiercely joyful at having had the opportunity to invest in this life and my family. But I'm overflowing with wonder and curiosity, and realizing that by the time I reach my mid-40's, all five of my children will be adults and homeschooling is no longer going to make any demands on me.
I hope to have a career, probably in the trades as an electrician, because this would allow me to work alongside my husband, and I would like to start such a career later in life after I've raised my children. I've been studying all of his textbooks, and working on repairing things around the house, and to a large degree I am able to slowly, steadily cultivate my own education in this area over 15 years or so.
I don't know if, when the time comes, the workforce will care what I've been studying and learning alongside my children, but I'm hoping that possessing the skills to prove myself will be enough. I don't want to have to go back to college to prove that I've learned these things: time does begin to feel short sometimes, but I'm working towards such a future, and in 5-10 years I'll see if I am able to join the working world after all. I sure hope so! My rather ditzy, charming teenage self has grown into a far more focused and self-disciplined woman under the sanctification of running the home, and I'd like to build some skills on that foundation.
That's so inspiring! I wonder if we should be pointing our daughters towards something like this multi-stage path, instead of forcing a choice between immutable identity labels like "boss girl" or "trad wife." There's a time for everything under heaven, as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says.
How cool that you've been teaching yourself to be an electrician. I've been wanting to get more into carpentry, woodworking, and furniture restoration for a while. I'd also love to develop clothing patterns if I can discipline myself to sew more properly (slapdash mcgee right here). And obviously, I'm preparing a portfolio for journalism/media these days. Being a dilettante, I'm curious to see how things will pan out, and which skills God will tell me to develop. It's great to see an example of someone thinking through life stages, preparing intentionally, and being A-OK with a riding the wave of a big change with joy!
"I don't want to have to go back to college to prove that I've learned these things" — Gosh, yes. I've heard comments along these lines from mothers who have spent a decade or so homeschooling, half-joking that they deserve a degree or three. Add in the skills of running a household and learning the tools of the electrical trade and.... I wonder how much talent the work world misses out on because women have perhaps gained "unofficial" skills that aren't verifiable in an expensive degree.
One thing that would help, I think, would be to go ahead and do away with the outdated norm of university attendance. You *do not* need a college degree to do the vast majority of jobs, much less a graduate degree. It should be normal for everyone to begin their actual work as soon as they become adults instead of having to waste their youth and throw away tens of thousands of dollars on hollow credentials.
Amelia, your writing never ceases to open my eyes to new perspectives!
As I was reading this, I was reminded of my coworker talking about how when, raising her 5 children as a stay-home mama, she felt a lot of guilt for not having her kids on a "regular schedule" and would keep them up until 10 or 11 p.m. most nights because the only time they got to see their dad was in the evenings after work. Now that her children are college-aged, her husband has expressed a lot of regret around having to work so much during the kids' early years that he felt like he "missed out on who they were becoming."
I'd imagine that a culture that celebrates parenthood and allows flexibility in career timelimes in the ways you described would benefit men greatly, as well. How many other fathers feel that they also, like many women, feel that they had to "choose" between their family and their profession? But I think the choice is felt most profoundly by women who, as you said, bear the burden of the consequences on fertility.
As an aside, I think the sentiment of "you really can have it all!" should be followed closely by "if you work twice as hard as anyone else on the culturally normative track and make huge financial, physical, and temporal sacrifices OR if you are rich enough to have a full-time household staff."
Haha yes that last disclaimer is important! When I was pregnant, my boss recommended me a book called “Lean In” by a female CEO. If I remember correctly, this woman literally built a daycare center in her office building so she could have her kids nearby. So what I mostly got from that book was—if you’re rich like me, you can do anything, and the rest of you are losers 😅
But we live in a consumerist culture that is always looking for people to tell them what they want to hear. So I think it’s common for women to be sold the lie that they can have everything without making any sacrifices.
There’s also the idea of a theoretical sacrifice versus the reality of the actual sacrifice. Someone once asked me in vet school what I would do if/when I had kids. (And I do mean once, I started chasing the dream at five, graduated vet school at 25 and it was brought up exactly once that entire time.) To me the solution was obvious, the theoretical children would go to a theoretical daycare with some awesome people and lots of socialization. However it was a very different reality once I held the actual baby in my arms and looked at my options. We are in a situation where my husband was able to stay home with the kids which is a million times better than sending them to daycare but also far more difficult than if I was able to stay home with them.
Almost all the stay-at-home dads I know have wives in healthcare—nurses and doctors! I think for most of them, the decision was financial. The men were in less lucrative careers, or kind of adrift in terms of their career direction, and their wives were on that direct conveyor belt to a high-paying job. (And with debt from school that needed to be paid off.) Just out of interest, was the decision financial for you?
Yes for all the reasons you mentioned and also my husband is a veteran who received some pretty terrible wounds from his time in Iraq that make it difficult for him to work a regular job. Without my student debt we could maybe make it with him working and me staying home but there’s no way we could do it with my debt. I have friends from vet school that were able to work part time or flat out take a few years off when they had babies so in the right situation it can be done. At this point I strongly advise against anyone but especially against young women pursuing any education that requires loans. If I could do it all over again I would have become a licensed veterinary technician. I could have paid for that degree outright while getting on the job experience and training and financially we would have been better off. Easier to take time off and come back to it too. Could have started having babies in my mid twenties instead of the joys of geriatric pregnancy ha ha.
But younger me was stubbornly driven to the point of stupid so even if someone had spoke wisdom into my life I’m not sure I would have listened.
Ha! I remember that book. It was by Sheryl Sandberg, who was CEO of Facebook. If I recall correctly, her husband tragically died very suddenly a year or two later. I always wondered if she would have been so vocal about the importance of "leaning in" to a corporate lifestyle if she knew how short her time with her husband would be.
The sacrifices, yes. I've realized Every. Dang. Decision.—big or small—is a tradeoff. But we have to be honest about those tradeoffs. I know someone who only had one child so they could more easily work full-time in jobs they didn't even particularly love... and have realized that perhaps that tradeoff wasn't worth it. I remind myself of this framing of sacrifice and tradeoffs in my finite life, and the fact that though I can't change society at large, I know deep down I will not regret having multiple children when I'm old. Have you checked out Kerri Christopher's "Out of the Box" series?https://www.substack.claritylifeconsulting.com/s/outside-the-box
Had not heard of it! I’ll have to check it out. This essay I felt like I was channeling a lot of other Substack writers (badly since I’m a generalist who doesn’t know much of the data and particulars about this topic) so I’m always glad for more resources to learn more. Thanks, Haley!
This is your best essay yet, Amelia!! I love this analogy because it doesn't pit women who aspire to have a career against women who desire a family. We're all just trying to find our own way to thrive in the world.
Nah, going to work for someone else is boring. Too bad we are expected to buy replacements for our traditional work, raising food, cooking, making clothes, doing repairs, raising children and cultivating social ties. The men feel this too. It doesn’t seem like there is any way of going back, so I don’t know what to do.
I got married at 21, had my first baby at 22, and I'm 31 now. I have three kiddos, and even this early into my 30s I can say without reservation that pregnancy is a very different thing than it was in my early 20s. I'm less fertile (it takes way longer to get pregnant )and pregnancy itself is DEFINITELY more of an ordeal. I'm thankful I spent my 20s having babies because, relatively early as it is, my body may already be done.
I’ve thought a lot about this, because so much work that is conducive to motherhood (at least early motherhood, because that’s all I have experience with) is writing/creating on the internet that can be done in evening hours or during nap times (with no need for formal childcare). I am a speech pathologist so I NEED consistent childcare if I am going to work, even a little bit, because all of my work requires face to face being with people at set times. I worked part time with my two kids in daycare for about two years, but it was SO tough even just making those two days work- all the sickness my kids had and then the lost pay of staying home with sick kids while still paying for your spot in childcare. I’m home full time with our now 3 kids and I do hope to return to working as an SLP someday in the future- I am hopeful because this is a women dominated field and most all of my bosses have been extremely understanding and supportive of the desire to be home with your children. I have several examples of older women in the field that took years off to be home with their children. But I know certainly not every field of work has that.
I found that working part-time when I had small children was a net drain financially. I had to pay for daycare even if my kid wasn't there, but as a part-time employee, I did not get sick leave or PTO so I didn't get paid if I wasn't there. This was made abundantly clear during the February where at least one kid was feverish and puking FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH, but I still had to pay for their daycare with my now-nonexistant paycheck. I quit after that.
I also want to add how our monthly cycle affects strength and energy levels, and if you have a condition on top of that, it is even more painful to work. Likewise I noticed the world does not accommodate for people with disabilities and chronic conditions, not really. They say they hire them but expect them to work the same as able bodied people, which makes no sense to me. I do see more companies offering flexible, part time hours now, some of them remote. This would help a lot of people! But I do not think overall the job market would change much to accommodate others. Money needs to be made.
That’s a good point. I am interested in how the rise of remote work will change things in the future. I feel like the “gig economy” is helpful for people, especially women, who need more flexibility. But on the other hand, gigs don’t provide benefits like health insurance, are risky and unstable.
And yeah, in the end, it seems like the people who get the best jobs are just the ones who are most willing and able to sacrifice literally everything to hustle 24/7. These usually just happen to be young, healthy, single men.
I don’t like gig economy; like you said, it doesn’t provide benefits that full-time jobs offer. However, not everyone can commit fully, as some jobs are mentally or physically intense and the hours can be grueling for anyone. But I suppose for someone like me it’s better than nothing lol. I have seen part-time jobs offering insurance and days off as well, which pleasantly surprised me. I think some people are seeing the gaps and making their own changes as employers. I’m hoping the future will provide more jobs like that, with benefits too. I also think in general people can’t work the 8 hours that are expected of them productively. Mentally, we’re productive 4 hours a day, then the productivity just goes down. I hope that someday can be addressed. But again, money needs to be made, I guess lol.
I think it’s often less about money needs to be made and more that work needs to be done. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, I believe most work is actually productive and accomplishing things that need to be accomplished.
In veterinary medicine for example for a long time the average clinic was one or two male veterinarians working 80-90 hours a week. So let’s say the average clinic accomplished 150 hours of work a week. Now that model has shifted and soon the average clinic will be multiple doctors working part time typically around thirty hours per week. It now takes five doctors to accomplish the same amount of work two doctors used to accomplish. On top of that there is actually more work to be done thanks to an exploding pet population and advances in medicine. So many clinics could probably now employ two additional guys running 80 hours a week. This has resulted in a nearly catastrophic veterinary shortage. There is too much work and not enough vets to do it.
More employees means managing more personalities and more interpersonal conflict . It means more employment/benefit expenses. It means more time spent hiring and training people. There’s the added difficulty of either trying to work part time shifts around the schedule of the people you are able to hire or being limited to hiring the people available for the shifts you need. There are a lot of costs associated with hiring more people to do the same amount of work that aren’t strictly about the finances of the bottom line.
I am not saying that it was better for veterinarians or clients or animals when vets were putting in 80-90 hours a week. Nor am I saying that there isn’t value in part time employment and opportunities (if we were limited to full time positions in my clinic we would have doctors and no support staff). Just that there are a lot of factors that are impacted by a reduction in hours worked per employee and the financial impact on the business is probably the least important or least difficult to overcome.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective on this. This is a good point. I wouldn’t want anyone to work 80-90 hours. That’s physically and mentally ruthless and draining. I guess it needs to be a balance. I do speak from my own experience as someone who cannot work full-time and in the office with physical limitations and having to also compete against everyone else who now wants to work remote. I do understand from any company’s perspective, with all the added costs of having more employees, but it has been more difficult for me to find anything stable while more or less accommodating for me today than ten years ago. But at the same time the job market has been unstable lately and is going through changes.
I think you would find this thread (and this response in particular) intriguing. This is the author of "Hannah's Children: The Women Defying The Birth Dearth", and an academic herself: https://x.com/CRPakaluk/status/1818426160428335171
(These are obviously academia-specific but I appreciated how they get the juices flowing in the right direction, ask the good questions, and get us wondering in all the right ways)
I don't have the source for this, but this reminds me of the regular stats for the "gender pay gap" doesn't account for mothers who take maternity leave and can't put in the excess OT that leads to promotions/increased visibility among peers. You'd pretty much have to make an entirely new ladder for women who want to be mothers and want to have a professional career.
I think side hustles and creative mostly-at-home business ventures are the way to go, and when that fails, having contentment to live a more modest lifestyle off of our husband's single income.
Something like the pastorate I think is also ideal because the husband and wife work so closely together. From a financial standpoint, of course, it’s not great. But from a general “good life” standpoint, it keeps the family unified and allows the woman flexibility.
This whole essay came from a conversation Jadon and I had about how horribly anti-family academic career culture is. You’re expected to put in constant overtime on the tenure-seeking publishing treadmill, which penalizes dads but of course penalizes moms even more.
Definitely agree that the pastorate is a more family friendly/oriented job compared to academia.
I'm sure it's encouraging to Jadon that you're willing to support and put up with the frustrations that come with him pursuing his doctorate! I would hope that the sacrifices made now will sow the seeds of the fruit to come.
Your situation reminds me a bit of our pastor's wife. She gave voice lessons all throughout her husband being in seminary, I believe he was only able to work part time. They were dirt poor, he was crazy busy, she had a baby, but the Lord provided. A couple decades later, she is in the throws of motherhood to quite a few teenagers, raising the last of her six kids. And she still has a few voice students :)
I truly enjoyed this! So much so that in answering your questions at the end of the essay, I realized my answers were much too lengthily for a comment and I think may become my post this week. I thank you for asking such thought provoking, essential questions. You are brilliant!
I started writing about this in the 80’s from the perspective of a labor economist. It is pretty easy to see that requiring “equality” between men and women at every point in the life cycle was going to be excruciating for women. That doesn’t / didn’t stop the True Believer in that sort of feminism. They used their influence to regulate many aspects of the economy and pump society full of propaganda to push that sort of misguided equality on everyone.
Fast forward I left academia in 1995 to care for my children. I kept writing but my family was my top priority. In 2008 I started my own pro family think tank the Ruth Institute to advocate for more humane family policies. I’ve never looked back. But I’ve watched MANY women struggling with infertility because they waited too long, or with loneliness because of the difficulty of finding suitable husbands. All in the name of “feminism” and “equality.” So many of our struggle were completely unnecessary. https://ruthinstitute.org/about/dr-morse/
Great points here. I wrote something along the same lines that might answer one of your questions on why it's not curvy. Simply put, we've accepted that to be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man. It's one of the most shocking concessions that we've basically said only the masculine structures have value and the feminine have none.
Yet the ancient archetypes had women as naturally complete and men as needing the vestments of social structures. Now we just accept that women need those to be complete as well, so we cover up who she really is.
You know I usually comment right away on your posts, but I think I need to actually be a mother to answer the question you posed 😂It’s huge and weighty, and the comments suggest as much. I will tell you my answer in ten years 😁 love you and see you soon
Hahaha! I am feeling that weight. I don’t know the answers at all. I’m going to look at all the links Haley posted here. I have the feeling things (culture, economy, tech) are all changing lightning fast right now. I am curious to see how even the questions we ask about womanhood might be different in a decade. I kinda want to set a Google calendar reminder for 2034 to ask you to return to this and lemme know what you think haha 🤣
I will say that I’ve been reflecting on Erika Bachiochi’s work courtesy of Haley’s suggestion to read her and how many assumptions we have about the purpose of the household, the roles of the mother and father, and the shape of a career. Bachiochi shows that when we switched from the agrarian household to the industrial one, 1. men left the home to earn wages, took on the “primary breadwinner” label, and ceased playing the important role in child rearing that we glimpse for instance in the Wisdom literature (father instructing son in proverbs, that sort of hands on accountability), 2. women’s work in the home became trivialized by technology (it would have been hard to argue back in the farm days that the woman’s primary role is hovering around the children when she used to mill flour and milk cows and lead activities that literally insured her husband, parents, servants and children wouldn’t starve), 3. children became the center of attention and the crowning purpose of a household, so that they no longer understood participation in something greater than themselves, and 4. households were no longer productive places where everyone worked together to survive, but instead loci of entertainment and pleasure.
But if we start to question these assumptions, maybe we realize that 1. mom’s “career” isn’t necessary valuable because it’s legible in a post-industrial society, I.e. it’s value is not measured by prestige or money, 2. mom’s career doesn’t have to take away from child’s wellbeing; instead if we see her work as contributing to household productivity (not in economic sense, but in the life giving sense) then the child’s involvement/participation actually benefits the child, 3. dad has a more marked role to play in the household, or a freedom not to confine himself to the role of “breadwinner,” which might make him maximize his wages over any other good.
There was a lawyer I met this summer who took on some high profile cases defending free speech rights for some conservative Christians in a very liberal area and they literally had to post policemen at his door because he was getting death threats. He had five young kids. Some people would say he put his career over his children, but he very wisely kept his children fully in the loop about why they were getting threatened and what he was trying to fight for in the courtroom. He continued this trend of aligning his household to a greater purpose as his children grew up, always including them on what was happening in his workplace and why he was doing what he was doing. The kids ended up all becoming brilliant and thoughtful adults, all firm believers. I think he modeled the career and the child rearing working in tandem and not in opposition to each other.
OOH thanks for jumping back in, Allison! I want to read more about how the family's changed over history. I took a course in college called "Politics & The Family" which had a great reading list that mentioned that agrarian-industrial shift. Sadly, I don't think I was fully engaged with the class at the time. I wasn't asking those questions yet.
Your points in the last two paragraphs articulate a lot of what I've been trying to incorporate into my parenting philosophy—not hovering around kids, acting like they're the center of the world, but instead bringing them alongside you in your work so that they can feel like they're participating and and helping out. Kids have a deep desire to actually contribute. They aren't just pampered pets to be coddled and indulged, and pawned off on professional caregivers when their presence is inconvenient. My baby is already trying to help me fold the laundry by bringing me socks and saying "there" and beaming.
Another example of inviting kids into your work—a pastor at my childhood church told the story of how his dad, an editor at Tyndale, would read his articles out loud over dinner, ask the kids for feedback, and actually make changes based on their individual input. This same pastor also warned not to see home as a personal retreat but as a "mission headquarters," which I think is a good metaphor for what you're articulating!
(P.S. It would be so cool if you would write an essay on Substack or elsewhere about how you and Kraig envision practicing law in tandem with raising a family. You're probably hesitant to say much because it's so hard to know exactly how it will be before it happens, but I'd like to hear you articulate your general vision.)
Yes! You are on my wavelength. Of course she brings you socks hahaha. I can just picture it.
Kraig and I used to have a clear plan for post-grad life, but now it’s starting to be challenged. I suspect we won’t know exactly what shape it’ll take until we’re actually upon it. One thing I know for sure is that law school is way more flexible and appears much more conducive to motherhood than a “real job,” so we moved our timeline up 🤭😉.
Just wanted to say thanks not just for this very interesting article, but an even more interesting conversation in the comments, i really enjoyed reading these perspectives.
Oh, I'm so glad to see someone talking about this! I've wondered about this a great deal: I thoroughly embraced the life of early marriage, young motherhood and the opportunity to homeschool my children that was given to me, and I find myself fiercely joyful at having had the opportunity to invest in this life and my family. But I'm overflowing with wonder and curiosity, and realizing that by the time I reach my mid-40's, all five of my children will be adults and homeschooling is no longer going to make any demands on me.
I hope to have a career, probably in the trades as an electrician, because this would allow me to work alongside my husband, and I would like to start such a career later in life after I've raised my children. I've been studying all of his textbooks, and working on repairing things around the house, and to a large degree I am able to slowly, steadily cultivate my own education in this area over 15 years or so.
I don't know if, when the time comes, the workforce will care what I've been studying and learning alongside my children, but I'm hoping that possessing the skills to prove myself will be enough. I don't want to have to go back to college to prove that I've learned these things: time does begin to feel short sometimes, but I'm working towards such a future, and in 5-10 years I'll see if I am able to join the working world after all. I sure hope so! My rather ditzy, charming teenage self has grown into a far more focused and self-disciplined woman under the sanctification of running the home, and I'd like to build some skills on that foundation.
That's so inspiring! I wonder if we should be pointing our daughters towards something like this multi-stage path, instead of forcing a choice between immutable identity labels like "boss girl" or "trad wife." There's a time for everything under heaven, as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says.
How cool that you've been teaching yourself to be an electrician. I've been wanting to get more into carpentry, woodworking, and furniture restoration for a while. I'd also love to develop clothing patterns if I can discipline myself to sew more properly (slapdash mcgee right here). And obviously, I'm preparing a portfolio for journalism/media these days. Being a dilettante, I'm curious to see how things will pan out, and which skills God will tell me to develop. It's great to see an example of someone thinking through life stages, preparing intentionally, and being A-OK with a riding the wave of a big change with joy!
"I don't want to have to go back to college to prove that I've learned these things" — Gosh, yes. I've heard comments along these lines from mothers who have spent a decade or so homeschooling, half-joking that they deserve a degree or three. Add in the skills of running a household and learning the tools of the electrical trade and.... I wonder how much talent the work world misses out on because women have perhaps gained "unofficial" skills that aren't verifiable in an expensive degree.
See Emily Hancock’s most recent essay “A Knitter’s Lament” on this if you haven’t :)
One thing that would help, I think, would be to go ahead and do away with the outdated norm of university attendance. You *do not* need a college degree to do the vast majority of jobs, much less a graduate degree. It should be normal for everyone to begin their actual work as soon as they become adults instead of having to waste their youth and throw away tens of thousands of dollars on hollow credentials.
Amelia, your writing never ceases to open my eyes to new perspectives!
As I was reading this, I was reminded of my coworker talking about how when, raising her 5 children as a stay-home mama, she felt a lot of guilt for not having her kids on a "regular schedule" and would keep them up until 10 or 11 p.m. most nights because the only time they got to see their dad was in the evenings after work. Now that her children are college-aged, her husband has expressed a lot of regret around having to work so much during the kids' early years that he felt like he "missed out on who they were becoming."
I'd imagine that a culture that celebrates parenthood and allows flexibility in career timelimes in the ways you described would benefit men greatly, as well. How many other fathers feel that they also, like many women, feel that they had to "choose" between their family and their profession? But I think the choice is felt most profoundly by women who, as you said, bear the burden of the consequences on fertility.
As an aside, I think the sentiment of "you really can have it all!" should be followed closely by "if you work twice as hard as anyone else on the culturally normative track and make huge financial, physical, and temporal sacrifices OR if you are rich enough to have a full-time household staff."
Haha yes that last disclaimer is important! When I was pregnant, my boss recommended me a book called “Lean In” by a female CEO. If I remember correctly, this woman literally built a daycare center in her office building so she could have her kids nearby. So what I mostly got from that book was—if you’re rich like me, you can do anything, and the rest of you are losers 😅
But we live in a consumerist culture that is always looking for people to tell them what they want to hear. So I think it’s common for women to be sold the lie that they can have everything without making any sacrifices.
There’s also the idea of a theoretical sacrifice versus the reality of the actual sacrifice. Someone once asked me in vet school what I would do if/when I had kids. (And I do mean once, I started chasing the dream at five, graduated vet school at 25 and it was brought up exactly once that entire time.) To me the solution was obvious, the theoretical children would go to a theoretical daycare with some awesome people and lots of socialization. However it was a very different reality once I held the actual baby in my arms and looked at my options. We are in a situation where my husband was able to stay home with the kids which is a million times better than sending them to daycare but also far more difficult than if I was able to stay home with them.
Almost all the stay-at-home dads I know have wives in healthcare—nurses and doctors! I think for most of them, the decision was financial. The men were in less lucrative careers, or kind of adrift in terms of their career direction, and their wives were on that direct conveyor belt to a high-paying job. (And with debt from school that needed to be paid off.) Just out of interest, was the decision financial for you?
Yes for all the reasons you mentioned and also my husband is a veteran who received some pretty terrible wounds from his time in Iraq that make it difficult for him to work a regular job. Without my student debt we could maybe make it with him working and me staying home but there’s no way we could do it with my debt. I have friends from vet school that were able to work part time or flat out take a few years off when they had babies so in the right situation it can be done. At this point I strongly advise against anyone but especially against young women pursuing any education that requires loans. If I could do it all over again I would have become a licensed veterinary technician. I could have paid for that degree outright while getting on the job experience and training and financially we would have been better off. Easier to take time off and come back to it too. Could have started having babies in my mid twenties instead of the joys of geriatric pregnancy ha ha.
But younger me was stubbornly driven to the point of stupid so even if someone had spoke wisdom into my life I’m not sure I would have listened.
Ha! I remember that book. It was by Sheryl Sandberg, who was CEO of Facebook. If I recall correctly, her husband tragically died very suddenly a year or two later. I always wondered if she would have been so vocal about the importance of "leaning in" to a corporate lifestyle if she knew how short her time with her husband would be.
The sacrifices, yes. I've realized Every. Dang. Decision.—big or small—is a tradeoff. But we have to be honest about those tradeoffs. I know someone who only had one child so they could more easily work full-time in jobs they didn't even particularly love... and have realized that perhaps that tradeoff wasn't worth it. I remind myself of this framing of sacrifice and tradeoffs in my finite life, and the fact that though I can't change society at large, I know deep down I will not regret having multiple children when I'm old. Have you checked out Kerri Christopher's "Out of the Box" series?https://www.substack.claritylifeconsulting.com/s/outside-the-box
Had not heard of it! I’ll have to check it out. This essay I felt like I was channeling a lot of other Substack writers (badly since I’m a generalist who doesn’t know much of the data and particulars about this topic) so I’m always glad for more resources to learn more. Thanks, Haley!
Kerri started the interview series after the popularity of an essay in the same spirit as yours: https://bythesea.substack.com/p/leaning-in-and-out-not-having-it
This is your best essay yet, Amelia!! I love this analogy because it doesn't pit women who aspire to have a career against women who desire a family. We're all just trying to find our own way to thrive in the world.
Nah, going to work for someone else is boring. Too bad we are expected to buy replacements for our traditional work, raising food, cooking, making clothes, doing repairs, raising children and cultivating social ties. The men feel this too. It doesn’t seem like there is any way of going back, so I don’t know what to do.
I got married at 21, had my first baby at 22, and I'm 31 now. I have three kiddos, and even this early into my 30s I can say without reservation that pregnancy is a very different thing than it was in my early 20s. I'm less fertile (it takes way longer to get pregnant )and pregnancy itself is DEFINITELY more of an ordeal. I'm thankful I spent my 20s having babies because, relatively early as it is, my body may already be done.
I’ve thought a lot about this, because so much work that is conducive to motherhood (at least early motherhood, because that’s all I have experience with) is writing/creating on the internet that can be done in evening hours or during nap times (with no need for formal childcare). I am a speech pathologist so I NEED consistent childcare if I am going to work, even a little bit, because all of my work requires face to face being with people at set times. I worked part time with my two kids in daycare for about two years, but it was SO tough even just making those two days work- all the sickness my kids had and then the lost pay of staying home with sick kids while still paying for your spot in childcare. I’m home full time with our now 3 kids and I do hope to return to working as an SLP someday in the future- I am hopeful because this is a women dominated field and most all of my bosses have been extremely understanding and supportive of the desire to be home with your children. I have several examples of older women in the field that took years off to be home with their children. But I know certainly not every field of work has that.
I found that working part-time when I had small children was a net drain financially. I had to pay for daycare even if my kid wasn't there, but as a part-time employee, I did not get sick leave or PTO so I didn't get paid if I wasn't there. This was made abundantly clear during the February where at least one kid was feverish and puking FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH, but I still had to pay for their daycare with my now-nonexistant paycheck. I quit after that.
I also want to add how our monthly cycle affects strength and energy levels, and if you have a condition on top of that, it is even more painful to work. Likewise I noticed the world does not accommodate for people with disabilities and chronic conditions, not really. They say they hire them but expect them to work the same as able bodied people, which makes no sense to me. I do see more companies offering flexible, part time hours now, some of them remote. This would help a lot of people! But I do not think overall the job market would change much to accommodate others. Money needs to be made.
That’s a good point. I am interested in how the rise of remote work will change things in the future. I feel like the “gig economy” is helpful for people, especially women, who need more flexibility. But on the other hand, gigs don’t provide benefits like health insurance, are risky and unstable.
And yeah, in the end, it seems like the people who get the best jobs are just the ones who are most willing and able to sacrifice literally everything to hustle 24/7. These usually just happen to be young, healthy, single men.
I don’t like gig economy; like you said, it doesn’t provide benefits that full-time jobs offer. However, not everyone can commit fully, as some jobs are mentally or physically intense and the hours can be grueling for anyone. But I suppose for someone like me it’s better than nothing lol. I have seen part-time jobs offering insurance and days off as well, which pleasantly surprised me. I think some people are seeing the gaps and making their own changes as employers. I’m hoping the future will provide more jobs like that, with benefits too. I also think in general people can’t work the 8 hours that are expected of them productively. Mentally, we’re productive 4 hours a day, then the productivity just goes down. I hope that someday can be addressed. But again, money needs to be made, I guess lol.
I think it’s often less about money needs to be made and more that work needs to be done. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, I believe most work is actually productive and accomplishing things that need to be accomplished.
In veterinary medicine for example for a long time the average clinic was one or two male veterinarians working 80-90 hours a week. So let’s say the average clinic accomplished 150 hours of work a week. Now that model has shifted and soon the average clinic will be multiple doctors working part time typically around thirty hours per week. It now takes five doctors to accomplish the same amount of work two doctors used to accomplish. On top of that there is actually more work to be done thanks to an exploding pet population and advances in medicine. So many clinics could probably now employ two additional guys running 80 hours a week. This has resulted in a nearly catastrophic veterinary shortage. There is too much work and not enough vets to do it.
More employees means managing more personalities and more interpersonal conflict . It means more employment/benefit expenses. It means more time spent hiring and training people. There’s the added difficulty of either trying to work part time shifts around the schedule of the people you are able to hire or being limited to hiring the people available for the shifts you need. There are a lot of costs associated with hiring more people to do the same amount of work that aren’t strictly about the finances of the bottom line.
I am not saying that it was better for veterinarians or clients or animals when vets were putting in 80-90 hours a week. Nor am I saying that there isn’t value in part time employment and opportunities (if we were limited to full time positions in my clinic we would have doctors and no support staff). Just that there are a lot of factors that are impacted by a reduction in hours worked per employee and the financial impact on the business is probably the least important or least difficult to overcome.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective on this. This is a good point. I wouldn’t want anyone to work 80-90 hours. That’s physically and mentally ruthless and draining. I guess it needs to be a balance. I do speak from my own experience as someone who cannot work full-time and in the office with physical limitations and having to also compete against everyone else who now wants to work remote. I do understand from any company’s perspective, with all the added costs of having more employees, but it has been more difficult for me to find anything stable while more or less accommodating for me today than ten years ago. But at the same time the job market has been unstable lately and is going through changes.
I think you would find this thread (and this response in particular) intriguing. This is the author of "Hannah's Children: The Women Defying The Birth Dearth", and an academic herself: https://x.com/CRPakaluk/status/1818426160428335171
and this: https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-intellectual-life-of-doctoral-student-mothers/#:~:text=Angela%20Franks%20published%20an%20article,to%20support%20women%20with%20children.
and another, because you mentioned this essay spawning from a conversation about academia:
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/how-and-why-universities-fail-women-and-what-to-do-about-it/
(These are obviously academia-specific but I appreciated how they get the juices flowing in the right direction, ask the good questions, and get us wondering in all the right ways)
Great read and the perfect analogy!
I don't have the source for this, but this reminds me of the regular stats for the "gender pay gap" doesn't account for mothers who take maternity leave and can't put in the excess OT that leads to promotions/increased visibility among peers. You'd pretty much have to make an entirely new ladder for women who want to be mothers and want to have a professional career.
I think side hustles and creative mostly-at-home business ventures are the way to go, and when that fails, having contentment to live a more modest lifestyle off of our husband's single income.
Something like the pastorate I think is also ideal because the husband and wife work so closely together. From a financial standpoint, of course, it’s not great. But from a general “good life” standpoint, it keeps the family unified and allows the woman flexibility.
This whole essay came from a conversation Jadon and I had about how horribly anti-family academic career culture is. You’re expected to put in constant overtime on the tenure-seeking publishing treadmill, which penalizes dads but of course penalizes moms even more.
Definitely agree that the pastorate is a more family friendly/oriented job compared to academia.
I'm sure it's encouraging to Jadon that you're willing to support and put up with the frustrations that come with him pursuing his doctorate! I would hope that the sacrifices made now will sow the seeds of the fruit to come.
Your situation reminds me a bit of our pastor's wife. She gave voice lessons all throughout her husband being in seminary, I believe he was only able to work part time. They were dirt poor, he was crazy busy, she had a baby, but the Lord provided. A couple decades later, she is in the throws of motherhood to quite a few teenagers, raising the last of her six kids. And she still has a few voice students :)
I truly enjoyed this! So much so that in answering your questions at the end of the essay, I realized my answers were much too lengthily for a comment and I think may become my post this week. I thank you for asking such thought provoking, essential questions. You are brilliant!
Oh I dearly hope it does become an essay! I look forward to hearing of your experiences and thoughts
Looking forward to this essay from you, Emily!
Thank you for helping me put my feelings into words! 🙏🏻 Brilliantly written sister! ❤️
I started writing about this in the 80’s from the perspective of a labor economist. It is pretty easy to see that requiring “equality” between men and women at every point in the life cycle was going to be excruciating for women. That doesn’t / didn’t stop the True Believer in that sort of feminism. They used their influence to regulate many aspects of the economy and pump society full of propaganda to push that sort of misguided equality on everyone.
Fast forward I left academia in 1995 to care for my children. I kept writing but my family was my top priority. In 2008 I started my own pro family think tank the Ruth Institute to advocate for more humane family policies. I’ve never looked back. But I’ve watched MANY women struggling with infertility because they waited too long, or with loneliness because of the difficulty of finding suitable husbands. All in the name of “feminism” and “equality.” So many of our struggle were completely unnecessary. https://ruthinstitute.org/about/dr-morse/
Great points here. I wrote something along the same lines that might answer one of your questions on why it's not curvy. Simply put, we've accepted that to be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man. It's one of the most shocking concessions that we've basically said only the masculine structures have value and the feminine have none.
Yet the ancient archetypes had women as naturally complete and men as needing the vestments of social structures. Now we just accept that women need those to be complete as well, so we cover up who she really is.
I wrote much deeper on that here: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/rediscovering-the-goddess
You know I usually comment right away on your posts, but I think I need to actually be a mother to answer the question you posed 😂It’s huge and weighty, and the comments suggest as much. I will tell you my answer in ten years 😁 love you and see you soon
Hahaha! I am feeling that weight. I don’t know the answers at all. I’m going to look at all the links Haley posted here. I have the feeling things (culture, economy, tech) are all changing lightning fast right now. I am curious to see how even the questions we ask about womanhood might be different in a decade. I kinda want to set a Google calendar reminder for 2034 to ask you to return to this and lemme know what you think haha 🤣
I will say that I’ve been reflecting on Erika Bachiochi’s work courtesy of Haley’s suggestion to read her and how many assumptions we have about the purpose of the household, the roles of the mother and father, and the shape of a career. Bachiochi shows that when we switched from the agrarian household to the industrial one, 1. men left the home to earn wages, took on the “primary breadwinner” label, and ceased playing the important role in child rearing that we glimpse for instance in the Wisdom literature (father instructing son in proverbs, that sort of hands on accountability), 2. women’s work in the home became trivialized by technology (it would have been hard to argue back in the farm days that the woman’s primary role is hovering around the children when she used to mill flour and milk cows and lead activities that literally insured her husband, parents, servants and children wouldn’t starve), 3. children became the center of attention and the crowning purpose of a household, so that they no longer understood participation in something greater than themselves, and 4. households were no longer productive places where everyone worked together to survive, but instead loci of entertainment and pleasure.
But if we start to question these assumptions, maybe we realize that 1. mom’s “career” isn’t necessary valuable because it’s legible in a post-industrial society, I.e. it’s value is not measured by prestige or money, 2. mom’s career doesn’t have to take away from child’s wellbeing; instead if we see her work as contributing to household productivity (not in economic sense, but in the life giving sense) then the child’s involvement/participation actually benefits the child, 3. dad has a more marked role to play in the household, or a freedom not to confine himself to the role of “breadwinner,” which might make him maximize his wages over any other good.
There was a lawyer I met this summer who took on some high profile cases defending free speech rights for some conservative Christians in a very liberal area and they literally had to post policemen at his door because he was getting death threats. He had five young kids. Some people would say he put his career over his children, but he very wisely kept his children fully in the loop about why they were getting threatened and what he was trying to fight for in the courtroom. He continued this trend of aligning his household to a greater purpose as his children grew up, always including them on what was happening in his workplace and why he was doing what he was doing. The kids ended up all becoming brilliant and thoughtful adults, all firm believers. I think he modeled the career and the child rearing working in tandem and not in opposition to each other.
OOH thanks for jumping back in, Allison! I want to read more about how the family's changed over history. I took a course in college called "Politics & The Family" which had a great reading list that mentioned that agrarian-industrial shift. Sadly, I don't think I was fully engaged with the class at the time. I wasn't asking those questions yet.
Your points in the last two paragraphs articulate a lot of what I've been trying to incorporate into my parenting philosophy—not hovering around kids, acting like they're the center of the world, but instead bringing them alongside you in your work so that they can feel like they're participating and and helping out. Kids have a deep desire to actually contribute. They aren't just pampered pets to be coddled and indulged, and pawned off on professional caregivers when their presence is inconvenient. My baby is already trying to help me fold the laundry by bringing me socks and saying "there" and beaming.
Another example of inviting kids into your work—a pastor at my childhood church told the story of how his dad, an editor at Tyndale, would read his articles out loud over dinner, ask the kids for feedback, and actually make changes based on their individual input. This same pastor also warned not to see home as a personal retreat but as a "mission headquarters," which I think is a good metaphor for what you're articulating!
(P.S. It would be so cool if you would write an essay on Substack or elsewhere about how you and Kraig envision practicing law in tandem with raising a family. You're probably hesitant to say much because it's so hard to know exactly how it will be before it happens, but I'd like to hear you articulate your general vision.)
Yes! You are on my wavelength. Of course she brings you socks hahaha. I can just picture it.
Kraig and I used to have a clear plan for post-grad life, but now it’s starting to be challenged. I suspect we won’t know exactly what shape it’ll take until we’re actually upon it. One thing I know for sure is that law school is way more flexible and appears much more conducive to motherhood than a “real job,” so we moved our timeline up 🤭😉.
Just wanted to say thanks not just for this very interesting article, but an even more interesting conversation in the comments, i really enjoyed reading these perspectives.