Posted on 04/14/2025 7:52:03 PM PDT by DoodleBob
There’s an entire generation of women who have been sold a specific lie. Sixty years after the second wave feminism of women like Gloria Steinem, the idea that women must have a career that looks just like a man’s in order to not squander their brains and talents still exists. The daughters of the women who grew up under Steinem’s brand of feminism understand that there are undeniable benefits of having children but have not shaken the sense that they would be giving up something at least as good, if not better, when sacrificing a career.
In such an environment, a woman suffers a bit of a whiplash when she finds that the same career standard applied to men and women is significantly harder for her to meet.
U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) is leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers in advocating for remote voting options for congresswomen who have recently given birth. Parading her newborn around the Capitol, Pettersen is giving floor speeches and TV interviews to emphasize what she sees as the absurdity of the requirement for in-person voting.
Many Republicans are helping Pettersen in her mission, but those who oppose it are generally focusing on the importance of deliberative, in-person work for Congress to run as intended. While a true critique, it is telling that no Republican seems willing to state the obvious – that it would be better for Pettersen to honor her own biology and step out of this intense role in the first place.
Obviously, there would be major career implications by such a move. Pettersen would not necessarily have to quit any political work, but she would certainly have to choose a less glamorous job, possibly moving to part-time work.
I’ve experienced those career costs myself. Choosing to be present in my own motherhood has looked like tanking engagement on X, irregular writing gigs, and dimming connections with glitzy opportunities in the D.C. orbit.
Such sacrifices look different for every mother, and some women work jobs far more compatible with raising children well. But women who are honest with themselves about the tangible costs of motherhood enjoy far greater contentment in their new life than it seems Pettersen does as she essentially has a public identity crisis about her new role and its conflict with her old one.
Republicans are rallying around Pettersen, telling themselves that her grandstanding is about supporting mothers and babies, a worthy pursuit for the “party of family values.”
But the GOP’s inability to assert anything that stinks of gender roles has gotten them into trouble before. Even the right’s opposition to women in the military usually centers on how unfair it is to lower standards for women in combat roles. Yet sending our daughters and mothers to die in wars is an unnatural and shameful indictment of our country. The lower physical capacities of women are merely a tangible manifestation of the unique roles of males and females. It’s perfectly fine that women can’t make the same fitness standards as men – they weren’t meant to do so.
In the same way, the ludicrousness on display as Pettersen holds her tiny newborn before hundreds of TV cameras is a perfect example of why young mothers often change career paths upon entering motherhood. Congress making a remote voting exception for her merely puts a Band-Aid over the problem of mothers seeking to work in the same way as males.
A woman’s biological capability to have babies is not an accident; instead, it is a pronouncement of her created role to prioritize bearing and sustaining children, even if she can’t run the country while doing so
Using a baby as a prop to promote a slogan and some New Democrat scheme for political corruption.
Shameful
It was her choice to run for that seat and it was also HER choice to have that baby. Choose one or the other; you can't have both.
Congresswoman Luna, of Florida, was working with her on the subject. Luna is a Republican.
I want to add , Congresswoman Luna has a toddler, so the subject is personal for her too.
Based on the development life cycle of a child, I am firmly convinced that women should not work if they have children, from the child’s birth until the child naturally separates from the mother at around age 7-9. Then they can work. From birth until the child separates, they can prepare to work and everything but just not work. After the child separates, the father then takes over and basically tows his children everywhere.
I think that is what is what is in the best interest of the child.
I took big steps back in my career twice.
Went from full-time to part-time once the babies arrived. Back to full-time when they were in school. From a high profile c-suite position down to a GM when my middle child was diagnosed with an incurable medical condition, back to a corner office once we got everything under control.
Kids came first.
No job will remember you when you are gone, but your children will.
I have noticed that women who sacrifice having children for their careers end up being bitter, hateful individuals in later life.
Yes, because women who do this are going against their inner selves.
They also tend to be experts on parenting, telling everyone what to do with their their children.
The question they should be asking, as all of us, is what does God want us to do?
Worked part time when my kids were born.
Eight years later my employer demanded I work full time.
Quite and volunteered full time at my kids school and homeschooled my kids after school.
Now one has a Phd in AI and the other a Pediatrician.
Your kids come first!
“ They also tend to be experts on parenting, telling everyone what to do with their their children.”
As my dad pointed out many years ago, the CPS is made up of bull dykes who never had children and want to destroy traditional families.
Mm… 😕I’ve seen the opposite to be true too. In profound ways. I mean there was a reason why 20th century feminism resonates. My findings.
1) It depends what you mean by “career.” There’s a difference between women investing themselves in doing something they don’t even enjoy for the sole purpose of making money - vs. “calling” - pursuing an actual passion or allowing a gift to space to fully blossom. Especially something time sensitive like dance (which no one exactly goes into to make bank)— but you know some psychologists, writers, journalists. scientists, historians, doctors GENUINELY find fulfillment in their field! Politics too! If it weren’t so, these conundrums above wouldn’t exist.
2) THE BIGGEST FACTOR as to whether a (married) woman will feel content outside OR inside the home is a husband’s love and support! And if unmarried, then parental moral support. If a woman gave up a calling to be married and have kids due to pressure from parents. Oooo, very very bad.
CPS is populated with bitter angry control freaks.
My wife and I took in 4 kids (family placement) for about a year. These CPS people were impossible to deal with.
Constant impossible demands and lots of attitude.
Totally agree
Dad takes a 7 year old to work with him?
I’m talking about the currants he runs after work. Women teach their children to be secure and fathers teach their children to face the world.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian, former Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and the first woman premier in Tasmania, Lara Giddings.
And Harris.
Leader Country / Gov. Body Biological Children Stepchildren
Emmanuel Macron France 0 3
Angela Merkel Germany 0 2
Theresa May United Kingdom 0 0
Giuseppe Conte* Italy (*as of 2018) 1 0
Mark Rutte Holland 0 0
Stefan Lofven Sweden 0 2
Xavier Bettel Luxembourg 0 0
Nicola Sturgeon Scotland 0 0
Raimonds Vējonis Latvia 2 0
Dalia Grybauskaite Lithuania 0 0
Klaus Werner lohannis Romania 0 0
Jean-Claude Juncker European Commission 0 0
My wife went back to work when our daughter was 12. I was self-employed and health insurance was bankrupting us. She had to get a job where we could get employer provided group health insurance. I was at home working much of the time so I took the kid to school and picked her up and made her after school snacks. The kid had a pretty good deal, lots of time with both parents and she turned out pretty well.
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