@OhiBro, if you are in private practice as a lawyer, yes, the long hours are expected and it makes it really hard to have balance in your life. When my girls were little, I remember coming home to feed them dinner and hang out with them and put them to bed and then heading back downtown to work. It was brutal. In-house jobs don’t pay as well (but the pay is still decent) and the hours are more manageable typically. At a firm, there is also pressure to bring in business so you are expected to do a lot of networking “off hours” that also eats into family time.
Interesting that so many feel men don’t want to marry in their 20s. Two of mine married/will marry at age 23 - both having met their spouses in college. A fair number of their peers are also married or in committed relationships with that in mind. We’re in PA. The one soon to be married will be living in or near DC - FDIL is graduating from a major DC college.
H got married at age 23 too. Perhaps it’s genetic?
My current 25 year old is unattached and feeling old - everyone he knows (and might like) is already in a relationship. He’s not sure where to search - tried online with no success as of yet.
Divorce often wrecks both ex-spouses’ personal finances, and can create additional problems for any children.
Yes, some married people divorce without the nastiness that results in both giving most of their money to divorce lawyers, and they happen to have no children at the time. But that is far from universal.
Good point about getting pushed into careers. In the case of women, however, there seems to be a more active effort specifically aimed at them.
Also, I didn’t mean to give the impression that divorce is always easy. In my experience, it seems there are middle-aged people who choose to be single, those that are single but want to be married, and those that are divorced and possibly remarried. The people I know from the middle group were usually discouraged in some way or afraid of commitment / divorce, which is unfortunate for their personal growth.
I find myself looking for the “Disagree” button quite a bit in this thread.
Divorce, if there are children involved, has innocent bystanders who suffer as a result.
Even in the best of circumstances, there are difficulties. For example, let’s say that the mother has custody but the children regularly spend weekends with their father in a town a dozen miles away. (I’m taking this example from my own childhood.) It sounds good, and in some respects it is. But in this instance, what was lost was the chance for the children to spend time with their friends and participate in community activities on the weekends. It made growing up very lonely. To hear over and over, “No, you can’t go swimming with your friends on Saturday because you have to be at Dad’s on Saturday” is not a happy thing for a school-age child or teenager.
Money is also a concern after divorce. The same incomes that supported one household have to stretch to support two. The same number of people are involved, but the cost of living increases because two residences cost more than one, and both parents need places to live that are large enough so the kids can sleep there, too. This has an impact on the children as well as the divorced adults.
And then there’s the stepparent issue. Divorced people often marry again, and if either or both of them has children from previous relationships/marriages, the situation is almost always challenging. It’s hard to fit pieces of old puzzles into new frames.
Finally, let’s remember that if there are children involved, divorce never ends. The former spouses still need to be parents together – an awkward situation for many ex-couples and their new spouses. There will be graduations and weddings and grandchildren, and it will not always be possible for the ex-spouses to be there for their children without having contact with the former wife or husband.
My parents were divorced. So were my husband’s parents. Three of the four were remarried at the time of our wedding. Having all of those people together in the same place was among the most uncomfortable experiences any of us have ever been through. You could almost see the waves of stress circulating around the room.
To add to the difficulties that children of divorce face, in the context of these forums, if/when they apply to college and try to get financial aid, they may find that some colleges want them to get cooperation from both divorced parents, which may be impossible if there are still hard feelings about the divorce (and the financial problems resulting for divorce mean that they may have less actual parent contribution even if the college sees both incomes and new spouse incomes as indicating capability for more expected parent contribution).
@OhiBro I’m a mom in my mid-50’s. I was a strong math and science student and in the 80’s was “encouraged” to pursue something in STEM. I don’t think this encouragement was a plot to push me into a STEM field to equalize a gender gap. I believe there was a growing need/trend to STEM fields and encouragement toward the perceived opportunities was a natural result. Why do I feel this way? Because my husband was also encouraged to pursue a STEM field due to his math and science abilities, as were many, many others…male and female.
Was I told I may have an advantage due to my gender? Truthfully, yes. But it is important to remember that “being encouraged” isn’t the same thing as “being forced”. I appreciate the message that women should not limit their choices based off old stereotypes. I understand how that message can be threatening to some, but as long as men are not discouraged to pursue STEM employment, I see nothing wrong with it. I’m in the camp where ‘competition is a good thing’. It forces us to do our best.
And for what it’s worth, I chose to major in Chemistry and taught high school Chemistry and Physics. My husband majored in Engineering. He realized he had no desire to be an engineer in his junior year but realized it was too late to change his path, so he got his Engineering degree and went straight for his MBA. It worked out well for him, but we realize how lucky he was. Nowadays it’s difficult to go straight through for an MBA with no “real” work experience and coming out with only $20K debt.
I’ll add that I disagree that women are more likely to be pressured into a career they don’t like. I think everyone is feeling pressure to make “enough” to support the ever-increasing cost of living.
Why aren’t men who choose to work outside the home encouraged to go into teaching so they can spend summers at home caring for the children?
^ Or, to put it differently, why do people assume that women should be their childrens’ primary caregivers?
There is some biological basis to this assumption, but in our culture, where the father typically remains in the picture, there’s no rational reason that child raising isn’t an equally shared task/opportunity.
S seems to have found someone nice through an online dating app, so don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, apparently. Personally I can’t imagine it either!
{Sidles over} I have a lovely 23 y-old niece who recently rejoined the singles pool…
As for careers convenient to wives/moms, the nurses I know seem to have the most life flexibility. Nurses are needed everywhere, and they can get shifts around the clock so are not limited to 8 to 5 hours. Of course, you have to be a work horse to handle the workload and the 12 hour shifts and a saint to deal with the patients and doctors, but I’ve seen a lot of women make it work very well.
My kids are still single at 29 & 31, as are most of their friends. They all have college degrees and are doing pretty well. S has had a GF for > 2 yrs, they met online. Unfortunately none found true love in college, though they did make friends they are still close to there.
For our family, we made choices that worked fairly well for us. I took a longish break from my career to care for our kids and returned to work part time thereafter. It allowed H to devote more time and energy to his career, including travel. I have no regrets and was grateful we could make things work out.
If your niece is anywhere near Rochester, NY, likes cats, and wouldn’t mind connection to a future doctor, send me a pm! I will admit he’s rather busy studying at this point in his life. (Hey, if matchmaking worked for ages… it’s not like we’re setting a wedding date and letting them know!)
Plus… didn’t I just hear somewhere that nurses get to mostly play cards making that an ideal job, esp for “women?” 
I don’t see young women being forced into STEM at all. My daughter attended a STEM heavy college. She and all of her female friends pursued their majors based on interest and aptitude. I am an engineer and in my 50’s. I was encouraged to be a teacher or nurse in spite of an obvious math aptitude. My parents didn’t attend college so I had little guidance. I basically fell into engineering on my own, but it took 5 years. I appreciate that the universe of options is open to young women.
Sometimes, women will find their gender to be an advantage. Sometimes, it will be a disadvantage.
The linked article is exactly my life. H and I are at peace with the choices we made.
The point of the article is that our current workplace system does not allow a couple to raise children and both keep high powered, high paid jobs. This has resulted in more mother’s than father’s taking jobs with lower hours and pay. While this may be a reasonable compromise for each family, our country as a whole is missing out on the vast contributions these women could make in terms of innovation and invention. This isn’t just about individual women missing out on opportunities, this is a self imposed brain drain for our country.
What about the parent who’s working the 80-hour weeks? Some studies suggest that chronic 60, 70, 80 hour weeks actually make the employee less productive than a 40 hour week. That would mean both the employers and the family would be better off with Mom and Dad each working 40 hours rather than Dad working and Mom not employed or underemployed.
@roethlisburger I just taught an afterschool class for an hour a week and I was exhausted. Except for one year the kids were lovely and I taught an art class so they were happy to be there. And it was still exhausting. All my teacher friends seem very stressed, especially by all the IEP and 504 plan paperwork. Having the same holidays as kids is a huge plus.
I found being a solo-practitioner architect worked pretty well. I could keep the practice small while the kids were young. I often met clients in the evening or on weekends when DH was around. My commercial clients could all be scheduled for school hours.
Most teachers are hard workers and teaching is stressful to do it right. But it is also a profession you can get away doing very little unfortunately.
Not only that, but if it’s the mom who gave up the long work hours/promotions - income - then she will suffer financially for arguably the rest of her life. Spousal support or no, there’s no getting back the income building years.
My D is in a STEM field and my S is not. I encouraged them to do what they like and are good at. Future earnings were a consideration as well. But i don’t get to choose FOR them, they did what they wanted.