Mothers Who 'Opt Out' And Now Want Back In
I thought I was the only one. I opted out of the career world when I had my son, 12 years ago, and after 25 years of supporting myself (even in marriage), I suddenly had to ask my husband for money, a humiliating and devastating thing for me. Now Judith Warner writes that many high- and mid-level executives have had the same experience when they decided to put their careers aside to raise their children. Reporting Sunday in The New York Times magazine, she writes, "The women of the opt-out revolution left the work force at a time when the prevailing ideas about motherhood idealized full-time, round-the-clock, child-centered devotion." In 2000 almost 40% of women in a survey said mothers working outside the home were harmful to children. So, many of us left the workforce in droves, and were happy, for a while. But for those of us who opted out, another survey was finding that the very mothers who had chosen to stay home with their kids were more depressed and in worse ...