wah

[flea]

Casper up again for unexplained freakout at 12. Up until 1:30.

Tired. (Possibly dehydrated - must remedy by ingesting non-caffeinated beverages).

Work sucks. (Somehow my morale just drops when Big!Boss says, "Let's just roll with the punches and help each other." Call me old-fashioned, but I am a fan of leadership and a plan, not winging it when not equipped with actual wings.)

Too introspective last night. (Argument in favor of having another child - no time to be depressed becasue too tired).

New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html) about ivy league women planning to drop career for child-rearing when they reach 30 depresses me on so many levels (only rich women, or women married to rich men, can afford to do that; what about divorce; what about co-parenting and the importance of fathers; what about the fact that it's society's failure to support parents that makes this necessary; god, even at 18 I think I was not that spoiled and naive and is it evil of me to wish they all get heaping doses of reality sometime in the next 12-20 years? Life is hard. You can't fucking plan it, girls. You've been lucky so far, and you can't count on being lucky forever, and even your smarts and hard work and wealth might not save you, though they certainly give you a leg up over the ignorant, lazy and poor.)

Wah. Wah. Wah.

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I skimmed the beginning of that article and then skipped it, realizing that I didn't need the blood-pressure hit.

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

That article made me so angry I was shaking. Seriously. And then I felt bad, because I'm completely in favor of women staying home if that works for them and their family--my own mother stopped working after I was born--but God, the unexamined assumptions.

(This may have been mostly an emotional reaction to the fact that in the increasingly unlikely event I have children, the idea of being trapped at home all day every day with a toddler sounds vaguely like a circle of hell. Maybe not the ninth, but a circle, for sure.)

[orthoepy.livejournal.com]

Oh, those women make me so angry. I have nothing against being a stay at home mom, but the blanket assumptions they are making just kill me.

I mean, logically, from an actuarial point of view, men should stay home with kids, because they have shorter life expectancies and thus don't need to save as much for retirement, so they can afford to take five or ten years off. I didn't hear any of those young women worrying about retirement. Or divorce. Or even think whether they were even suited to care for young children! They just assumed. And they all assumed they could work part-time, without thinking about the infrastructure changes that would need to happen for that to work. Arrgh. And they've been sold that it's "their choice" not that it's been driven by corporate need, so we'll see if they work to change any of it ...

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Woof. That article struck me primarily as a sign of elite colleges going off the need standard. What do you want to bet that the scholarship kids are not singing the same song?

Also, what fool goes to law school, and then immediately becomes a stay-at-home mom? Law school is incredibly expensive, and the scholarships are few and far between. (Flatmate has one, because she's committing to public service, but even so it's only partial.) Unless mummy, daddy, or hubby is rolling in hundred dollar bills, there isn't a justification in the world for borrowing $125,000 (and spending 3 years) to obtain an asset you won't use.

I suspect these are the same kinds of elite freshmen who arrive in Cambridge in September, looking for 1-BR apartments within walking distance to Harvard, for less than $1000/mo. We laugh at these people.