Are SAHMs really making “mistakes”?
posted in Work-Life Balance, Career Advancement, Working Moms |*Update: Leslie Bennetts talks about the backlash surrounding her book on the Huffington Post. Worth reading.
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My dad used to say to me when I was younger, “Sara, you should always have a career so you have something to fall back on, even if you’re married.” Basically, he put the fear of god in me that if I didn’t work and have my own career I would be destitute and forlorn if anything ever happened to my prospective husband. Apparently, he was ahead of the times. As I’ve read, there’s a new book out this month by Leslie Bennetts called The Feminine Mistake, the premise of which is, according to Chicago magazine, “that mothers who choose to “opt out” of work and stay at home with their kids often make a grave mistake.”
The research behind Bennetts’ book comes from the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit organization out of The University of Illinois at Chicago run by UIC sociology and gender politics professor Barbara Risman. Bennetts said she was “exasperated” by the “media’s portrayal of women staying at home.” She says that there are “risk factors” to women staying at home instead of being in the workforce - mainly, money (i.e. your husband might die prematurely or be injured and you’ll be left with nothing.) In addition, she believes that women pay a “penalty for opting out for even a year.” Finally, she thinks that there are actual benefits to mothers working more than just money (thankfully for those of us just barely breaking even) - “working women are happier and healthier than women who stay at home.” Bennetts expects backlash from the book. How could she not? She is basically restarting the Mommy Wars at a time when a lot of us are trying to end them. (Disclosure- I have not read the book yet, but plan to.)
But does she have a point? Are there real risks to staying at home and stopping your career to stay home with your children? This story of my mother’s friend really opened up my eyes to the kinds of “risks” that Bennetts is referring to.
My mother’s friend B, was happily married for almost 30 years. Her and her husband live in an affluent neighborhood, have a grown son and seemed to have the perfect life. She was a SAHM who gave up her teaching career to raise her son. Over the course of the years, they would get some financial assistance from B’s family and B thought the money was going towards paying off her house. Four years ago, B’s husband decided to “go on it on his own” for work. He opened up his own practice and went to work every day. Or so B thought. It wasn’t until she received her financial statement, which showed her savings account at a drastically different balance than she thought it should be and when she called the bank to clarify this that she found out the truth: her husband hadn’t gone to work in the past four years and they were broke. He’d run their savings dry and now they have nothing- no house, nothing.
Now there are obvious issues with this story, I know. Did B see danger signs of this approaching and choose to ignore them? Why was her son so depressed over the past 2 years? Didn’t her husband act strange about things? There seem to be a lot of things that don’t quite fit together and a lot of unanswered questions. But the key point that I took away and the one that scares me to no end is - holy crap - what would I do if I was 55, broke and hadn’t worked in 30 years?
While I’m not saying either choice is right or wrong, it does seem that Bennetts’ theories are at least a good wake up call to those women who may be in troubled marriages, or those really on the fence of what they want to do. Bottom line, is, I think, make the choice that you feel comfortable with, but please, I really don’t want you to end up like B.
I will, though, read the book and after I’ve read all the details and understand her argument, make a more informed opinion of what I think. My opinion here is all based on the book reviews! And sorry for being such a downer today, the news of B really bummed me out.
Tags: Leslie Bennetts, Feminine Mistake, opt out, mommy wars, working mom, SAHM
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