In their new book, Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us about Work and Family (University of Georgia Press, 2009, ISBN: 0820334049), authors Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy examine the reasons why women choose to leave their high-powered careers for the “quiet life” of raising their children.
The Opt-Out Revolution
So many women have chosen “Sesame Street” over Wall Street in recent years that the media has dubbed it the “opt-out revolution,” a phrase coined in 2003 by New York Times writer Lisa Belkin.
The underlying message behind the media hype was that women were leaving the workforce as a kind of backlash to the feminist movement of the 1960s. Critics claimed these women were naïve and didn’t fully understand what they were giving up.
Moe and Shandy challenge this idea. Through their own research and interviews with hundreds of college-educated women who chose to stay home, the authors reveal that the women are well aware of the choices they are making. They have weighed the social, economic and psychological factors of their decision and have made an informed choice to stay home. Here are just a few of the issues covered in the book:
Stress and the 100-Hour Couple
The authors examine a recent trend in marriages in which both spouses are highly paid professionals working a collective 100 hours or more per week. When a child enters the picture, there is simply no time left to run the household. Because women still bear the brunt of most housework duties, many women are choosing to reduce their work hours or leave work altogether in order to cook, clean and take care of the children.
The Financial Challenge of Child Care
It’s no surprise that families have a hard time finding quality child care. Those who can afford the highest quality care are often placed on waiting lists. Those who can’t afford the best can expect to spend as much as one third of their paycheck on child care. Others just can’t find care that is suitable for their children. Sometimes the logical response to the child care crisis is simply for a mother to stay home.
Societal Pressure and Being a Mom
Some women feel that providing a paycheck is their way of “loving” their children. Others feel that the time they spend with their kids is more important than the money they can provide. These ideas come from societal images of “ideal” mothers, and many women feel a great deal of pressure to be available for their children. This is another reason many women decide to choose family over career.
Glass Ceilings was written by an anthropologist and an economist, so at times it reads like a scholarly journal. However, working mothers who are thinking of leaving the workforce or those who have already left will enjoy reading about other women who share their feelings. The book makes a strong argument for women who choose family over work and shows that the pressures of being a mom have not changed much since the feminist movement.
Kari Lomanno - Kari Lomanno is a high school English teacher and mother of two children ages 9 and 7. She lives in Chesapeake, Virginia with her husband ...
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