Maybe so, but my point was, in my marriage it would seem like lecturing. I have tried hard to find the balance, to get what I want. Say something too many times, the wrong way or the wrong time, they instantly get turned off.
@Aspieration, kudos to you. There are many marriages where the women bear the major brunt of child-rearing and household management whether they are working FT or PT. In cases where the husbands are intoxicated with their professional success and prefer that over responsibilities to their family, then therapy should be in order. At the very minimum, they (husbands)should acknowledge the spouse’s contribution to the family and sacrifices (professional or not) made are equally important to their professional career and it is also the reason that they are able to devote so much time to their professional duties.
Post #55 sounds condescending to me. I would feel like I was being told how to relate to my own kid. People relate to kids differently, not sure there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ (obviously hitting is wrong)
@missypie I have questions. Well, first I have reflections. I’m angry for you that you do not receive the professional recognition for your efforts that you richly deserve. From what you wrote, your workplace sounds toxic to women and given your skills and work ethic, I would seriously consider a different environment. Obviously in reality this may be easier said than done, I understand how difficult it is to get in-house gigs. But I think there is a third way: not leave the workforce vs tolerate the stifling environment. You are ambitious and ambition deserves a runway. Take your talent, your work ethic and your experience and find a better runway. Since this is not an “emergency” situation (you are not miserable, just profoundly unsatisfied) you can take you time and find a practice that is more woman-friendly/values what you have to offer. Talk to other senior women in the practice after you get an offer and try to get the real scoop before committing. Again - I realized this is all reasonable in theory and may be impractical in reality. This is just my armchair feedback based upon the vignette you provided.
Can you tell me more about your Aspie son? How old, what is his profile (e.g. math genius? computer geek?) and what is his current situation? Feel free to PM me if you prefer. My Aspie, S1, is a huge reader (easily thousands of books by age 9) which has made him exceptionally articulate and a font of knowledge (especially scientific and history). So all the tests of reading comprehension, vocabulary, fund of general information are off the charts. The rest of his skills (e.g. math) are average. His first impression is very positive. He’s super smart, knowledgable, passionate and (if I do say so myself) adorable. But then things go awry. 1) He has no automatic respect for authority figures and will yell at/fire teachers, his principal, etc. explaining to them their incompetencies. (This makes me look like an extremely bad parent and I’ve had to do a tremendous amount of relationship repairing mostly unsuccessful ie he’s been kicked out of three different schools.) 2) He does not adjust expectations about the minds of others based upon context. He will yell at a toddler in a playground for trying to kick his soccer ball. He will yell at exhausted, end-of-day-fried me for being “lazy” and not monitoring the temperature of his bath which eg is running too cold. Lots of yelling and btw the ages of 1ish and 9ish lots of biting and scratching (he was never a hitter or kicker) and 3) LOADS of ripping up/destroying his work. The aggression is gone (THANK GOD) but the yelling, which diminishing, is still there, and just this weekend he crumpled up a craft he was working on because it kept “slipping around” while he was painting it. Crumble. Tears. Yelling. I soothed him and we moved on. That was my daily life for years.
@busdriver11 H thought my snappy little text was hilarious: “Very funny! Yes dear.”
@missypie: If they didn’t value your hard work, why should you keep busting your butt for them? It’s time to step back a tad and start preparing an exit strategy. If you don’t, they’ll assume you are anyway, due to your age.
Very good. 
I think my H must be a lot touchier than yours. I think I must be the only one in my family with thick skin.
Great that husband took the text as the intended humor.
Aspieration, I will PM you in a bit.
As for my job, my D is getting married in 10 months, a sort of complicated Hindu-Christian fusion event. It would make sense to stay put until then (but I’m open to job tips.) I’m working with my therapist to feel okay (i.e. it’s my conscious choice to stay.)
It’s not a toxic environment to women…folks are certainly cordial enough - no one is mean or overtly jerky. Picture a 23 year old male who offers you his advice on menopause…I imagine us all being some level of polite but dismissive - why would we listen to him? We wouldn’t harass him, but we certainly wouldn’t take notes when he talked, or seek out his advice in the future. But perhaps the guy is doing cutting edge research on chemicals that can stop hot flashes. Most of would never know because we think we are correct in our belief that his advice is not valuable.
Not the best analogy, but I hope you see my point.
I am always adding big smiley faces and things like ridiculous dancing skunks to my texts, just to ensure they know the spirit of what was intended. That seems to help with my crew, a lot.
However, my humor is apparently not always appreciated. After one slightly off kilter comment to my son, I just got the response, “You’re my mom”. Apparently moms can’t get away with tasteless jokes like dads can.
Sounds like some of our cc posters. With cousins. 
LOL, busdriver. For sure.
I do want to acknowledge that I guess I have finally gotten a taste of the “real world.” Yes, women make partner at law firms at a much lower rate than their male counterparts, yes, it is harder to bring in clients. But once we have the clients, they do not dismiss advice for which they paid $600 an hour. And within the firm, yes, a woman still needs to be better at everything than her male counterparts, but the numbers generally speak for themselves. If you have clients that pay, then your “accomplishments” are there in black and white (or dollars and cents) and it’s difficult for your partners to devalue them. Looking back, I guess I have been “spoiled” in expecting to be taken seriously and listened to, and then actually being taking seriously and listened to.
If those of us who are dissatisfied in our careers move toward acceptance, is it a plus or a minus? Can we learn to be content for our own mental health, or is that a betrayal of ourselves and “the cause”?
I am quite aware that many other groups grapple with this issue. (We have started watching Master of None -a couple of weeks ago, we saw the “Indian actors always being expected to use a thick ‘Indian’ accent, when auditioning for the cabdriver role” episode.)
It depends what the dissatisfaction is caused by, and it depends where we are in our careers. At my last [very intense and horrible] corporate job, I just kept telling myself, “This is not my real life” and “They’re paying me a huge amount of money to put up with this.” It was the worst job I ever had (for lots of reasons) but for two years the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. Until they didn’t anymore, and I quit.
I don’t think we’re required to try to change the world if the cost is our mental or physical health.
Read a great book some time ago: “Women Don’t Ask” by Linda Babcock. Excellent advice. We (women) often just assume we will be compensated for a job well done - whether financially at work, or even appreciation at home. Doesn’t work that way. Men have no problem asking for what they deserve. We should too - except we often have not been taught the fine art of negotiation. Highly recommend the book.
True, kjofkw, some of the time. I have told my daughters about the book and how women need to ask. I have personally learned over the years to be direct.
But we also need to learn that there are some situations in which we are faultless. Sometimes we have to open our eyes and realize that another person is being thoughtless, dismissive, selfish, jerky or sexist, without thinking that we have done something to contribute to, or even deserve, such treatment.