I am noticing an odd trend in my circle. It’s tiny and not indicative of all my awesome friends, but it’s enough to make me whip my head around when I hear it.
A friend I have, started pursuing an MBA so that she wouldn’t have to work in the real world any more (she worked for a year and a half.)
Before getting accepted into a college for said MBA, she took a year and a half off, and traveled on her husband’s dime around the world (with him, of course).
Then she got her MBA, and decided she really didn’t want to work.
What did she do? She got pregnant.
Yes, she seriously told me all of the above and why she has a cute little baby boy right now.
She told me she thought it would also make sense to wait a few more years as a stay-at-home mom, and either take a PhD to avoid working, or have another kid.
I had to pick my mouth up off the floor at that.
Luckily, we were talking on the phone and not Skyping, so she couldn’t see the look on my face.
BF’s friend, just recently told us that his girlfriend whom he refuses to marry (French people aren’t hot on marriage in general), is getting in vitro fertilization soon to have a baby (or two, as twins are common!).
I oohed and aaahed over having a baby (or babies), and thinking of all the wonderful things (ignoring the searing, burned-alive-pain of childbirth), a baby or two would bring for the both of them, and how great it would be for them.
I was already thinking of their future and cute moments like this one: Twin Baby Girls Rock out to their Daddy’s Guitar
He gave me a strange look and clarified that he wasn’t too chuffed at the idea of having a kid (he could do without one, he said), but she had flat out said she only wanted a baby so she could stop working.
The worst of it?
He’s actually okay with all that… although ‘resigned’ is the word I’d describe him, but for the life of me, I don’t know why he doesn’t just tell her to get out of his house where he pays for EVERYTHING, even though she works a few days a month here and there, and doesn’t spend any money except on herself.
*face palm*
To clarify, she hasn’t really worked her whole life, so she’s not used to it. Lame excuse, I know.
She grew up spoiled, her parents cut her off from the fortune, and she now lives on her boyfriend’s dime, and I’m fairly sure it’s to “secure” him so he doesn’t leave her, and to use the grandchild as a bargaining chip with her parents to get back into the will, all along with not having to work any longer for the rest of her life.
Ridiculous.
Women have come so far since getting the right to vote, fairer/less sexist treatment in the workplace, and then you hear of 2 bad apples who pretty much set back huge chunks of what we’ve fought for so far.
It is one thing to be a stay-at-home mom, to really enjoy it and to WANT to be a SAHM who is the head of the household and a true supportive half in the relationship.
It’s another thing altogether to state bluntly that you want to quit working forever, and having a baby is the only solution.
It’s like an Early Retirement Card that will burp, poop and cry for the first 5 years of its life, and then possibly disappoint you because you’ve heaped too much on them in terms of expectations.
Me, I am not going to quit my plum career.
I want kids, but I want my own adult life too, and I do NOT choose being a SAHM. I think I’d tear my hair out and murder Dora the Explorer in my dreams.
You heard it here first.
