There are several lenses through which to look at this:
The first is generational.
Women of the baby boom fought for the right to work. They saw it as a way to fulfill themselves, and they were able to pursue careers that were meaningful to them. I was thinking recently of my mother-in-law, who has worked for 40 years as a social worker. Even though she's of an age to retire, she doesn't because she still gets so much out of it. Now, I was recently thinking about going to social work school, and I researched social work salaries. With a master's degree, you still only earn $30,000 or so a year! And that's in today's dollars. My mother-in-law had the luxury to work at a career that she loved, because her salary wasn't needed at home.
For us Generation X women, we always knew we would work. And we have a lot less freedom because our salaries are now necessary. I think this is the crux of the generational divide, which erupts over the opt-out choices of many women. The feminists think they fought our freedom, but to us it feels like a burden they dumped on us. I and my friends strive to think of work "like a man" - it's something you have to do, so buck up and be proud of providing for your family.
If you have to work, another factor in your view of it is socioeconomic class.
My mother, who was raised middle-class, with a father in the Navy and an artist-teacher mother, believed that a career should be primarily an intellectual pursuit. She got into but didn't finish an experimental college. After doing the 60s and having children, she eventually settled into a career as a legal secretary. She admired intelligence immensely. Growing up, she wished for me to become a immunologist or a linguist. She was instrumental in my attending - and graduating from - an East Coast liberal arts college and unstintingly supportive of my professional career.
My father's family was working class, his parents a Merchant Marine and a housekeeper. After an miserable stint in the Marines, he spent several years "dropping out" then had children. He eventually attended culinary school, tried working in hotel kitchens, but quickly moved over to the management side. He was skeptical of my attending a fancy college and thought I should go to "the school of hard knocks." He seems actively opposed to the idea that work should be meaningful. You do it, you get a paycheck, and you spend your free time avoiding thinking about work.
For the first seven years of my career, I was enjoying myself so much, learning so much and advancing so quickly under the tutelage of two amazing women mentors, that I didn't have time to worry about these kind of issues. I was happy to be earning a decent, regular paycheck (when so many of my generation were "slackers").
Then I started looking around for other opportunities, still believing that my career would continue to be as fulfilling. But then things went downhill. The organizations I worked at were dysfunctional, and the work was boring. I've been flailing around ever since.
When we were in The Big City, I think life in general was so hard that it overshadowed my career issues. So I was more focused on pulling my life together. We moved, to a beautiful, large dream house with a backyard I could garden in. We learned we love small-town life. Eventually, we had a precious son.
Once I felt more settled and happy with life, the suck of my career loomed large. It doesn't help that I had a traumatic layoff, followed by what I believe is the most toxic office environment I've ever worked in.
I've tried to "man up" and accept that fulfillment doesn't have to come from my career. That I can be happy in the rest of my life and accept a ho-hum job (not that this job is ho-hum, this job SUCKS and it's only the economy keeping me in it). Basically, I'm viewing my work like a working-class man, like my dad. Who really is NOT the role model I would choose for my career.
In the last few weeks - since attending church, trying to reconnect with the Goddess, starting this blog, contemplating my navel as it were, I've really been feeling a shift. I'm back to believing that - even if I don't succeed - I have to at least TRY to find a satisfying, meaningful career path.
Working Women of Yesteryear
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