It’s my coworker’s last week of work before she starts her new teaching job. She’s confided in me that she’s worried about this new job because she has never wanted to teach. In fact, people have always suggested teaching as a career path for her & she has always vehemently rejected it.
Nonetheless, she’s currently leaving her creative job that she enjoys to do a job that she hates. Why? Because she needs more money & stability. Why? Because “we want a family.” Important context: one of the reasons that she doesn’t want to teach is because she hates children.
Who is we?? Does she even want kids? Or does her husband want kids & she doesn’t realize that she doesn’t have to have kids just because that’s what someone else wants & because that’s what’s expected of her as a woman? Important context part 2: this same husband left a very lucrative job that he hated so he could take a job that he loved for a significant pay cut.
I understand that the majority of American households require two incomes to afford children, but I also understand that in dual-income households with heterosexual partners the woman still does the majority of childcare & domestic work in addition to her job outside of the home.
So this woman, my coworker, is going to go to from a house where she does most of the cooking, cleaning, planning, etc. to job that she hates & then back home where she will do even more work to raise the children that she may or may not even want…just so her husband can work a job that he enjoys & lives the life that he wants…
Maybe I’m biased because I’m financially self-sufficient, debt-free, & able to build up my savings & investments in my current role. Maybe I’m biased because I’d rather be single than settle for a partner who can’t provide. Maybe I’m biased because I’ve always been staunchly childfree. Maybe I’m biased because I’ve seen the divorce statistics of couples who marry in their twenties & of couples who marry after less than a year of dating. Maybe I’m biased because they’ve been married for less than six months & fight so much that they take turns sleeping on the couch.
Idk. It just makes me sad. Not my circus or whatever, but good luck to her.
