sorry, I see it was one of the commenters to your other post that used that before…still…anyway…

As Gretchen says… why work if you don’t have to? I seriously doubt she’ll be sitting at home, twiddling her thumbs or making pies while she waits for her husband to get home.

Of course, I’m biased. I have two degrees and no intention currently of setting out to find employment. Yes, I’m planning to stay home with my kids, but my goal is staying home is first selfish- I’m working on personal goals of art and writing. Also, yes. It’s nice that while my husband constantly has work on his mind, when he IS available, so am I. I thought the poit of feminism was the right to make choices?

I’d rethink your stance though that this woman’s goal is to strengthen her marriage… So that when kids come along they’ll be able to withstand it. Admitedly, I didn’t click through to the article so maybe that’s in the original rather than just an assumption you’re making… but she may very well not want kids at all, and working on a marriage is a worthwhile goal completely independent of children.

I enjoy reader feedback so much because the comments always make me think and rethink….and laugh.

@Gretchen, You’re right, working is an individual choice, but I tend to think that someone who has completed three degrees would intend to work. Perhaps she reached a new place in her life and made different choices accordingly. She did do some part-time consulting after being home for a while.

@Meagan, That’s true, she may very well want to just work on her marriage independent of children. I couldn’t imagine that but as you point out the goal of feminism is to make your own choices.

@Larissa, I wonder the same thing.

@LogicalMama, your comment made me laugh out loud!

In reading the article, I noticed that Walkers statement was that she was going to work on her “marriage/relationship” but it was immediately translated into working on her husband. I wonder why we immediately go to the stereotypical “housewife” assumption about her decision and not a more empowered place? What about thinking about it this way: marriage is a transformative experience, for some people, letting someone be that close to them, trusting them, sharing with them, can be one of the hardest personal tasks they have taken on so far, it deserves a certain amount of attention, study, and time to grow (probably more than I, or many people, give it). Couldn’t taking time to focus on this very important relationship in her life be immensely personally rewarding and satisfying? And, if/when she feels very happy and stable at home, wouldn’t she be able to be much more courageous and satisfied in her career?

Before I was married or a mother I would have said “this woman is nuts.” Now I’m not so sure what I think. Being married and sustaining such a close relationship is hard today – I think she’s right about that (but how much time will her husband be able to devote to the marriage project). On the flip side, the bottom line is women ARE more financially vulnerable. That’s the scary truth of things. I do hope we’ll reach a point – and I hope we’ll reach it soon where we’ll learn to respect another woman’s decisions regardless of how we feel about them. Maybe by the time that actually happens we won’t be quite so vulnerable from an economic standpoint.

Does anyone report what her husband is doing? If the two of them decided, with a reasonable amount of savings in the bank, to take a year or two off to build their relationship for a lifetime together, I would say ‘Great!’ But if she has quit her job in order to wait for him to come home from his? Well, I did that twice. ‘Tain’t worth it and doesn’t work anyway.

I was a lifetime worker who ultimately gave up a hard-earned legal career to save my marriage. On the surface, I look like any other lawyer-turned-stay-at-home mom with a rich husband, but if there is anything my new status has taught me, none of us are what we seem. I am the daughter of a hardworking, single-mom who broke her back daily to support us. I watched her struggle, full of pride and admiration, while the stay-at-home moms seemed to have it so easy. I swore I would never be one of them. I applied my mother’s immigrant work ethic to the books and ultimately landed a high paying job at a prestigious firm – my lifetime goal. Then I met my husband. And everything changed. When our daughter came along, reality hit. I couldn’t be in two places at once. The thought had never occurred to me before. Still, I was determined to go back to work – it’s who I am, I thought – but my husband wasn’t having it. With two people obligated 24/7 to their careers, who was going to be there for her? He insisted we didn’t need my salary, his money was our money, and our daughter needed a parent at home. His income being about ten times mine, guess who that parent was going to be? I knew he was right, that I could always go back to work later, that my kids would only be babies for about a minute, but I couldn’t help resent him for it anyway. Five years and three kids later, I am finally at peace with it all, and my marriage is better than ever.

I’m a stay at home wife- and we aren’t rich by a long shot. My husband made a grand total of 31,000 last year- before taxes. Yet, we own our car outright, have a tidy sum in our savings, and have no debt save for a very small mortgage- which we should be able to pay off by next year. And to seal the deal, we’re both under 25. And no, we aren’t on any sort of public assistance whatsoever- we just live fairly frugally, but comfortably.