Hard Work?

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A while ago, a career woman I am acquainted with told me that her 96 year old father, who lived alone, had called her during the middle of her workday and asked her if she could come over and hold his hand. She scoffed at the idea. ” Sorry, Dad, I can’t come over, I’m working.” When she relayed this story to me, she seemed to feel no guilt, no mixed feelings, no qualms whatsoever about leaving her 96 year old father on his own to run numbers for a stupid health insurance company. She seemed surprised that her father would ask her to take time off work.

The women I know seem to say “I work” or “I’m working” a great deal, especially when they are explaining why they cannot care for their elderly parents/must place their elderly parents in a nursing home. In years past, when they were explaining why they had to put their kids in daycare, they would claim that they had no choice but to work, for financial reasons, but they don’t even try to say that anymore. Most of them could easily afford to retire at this point, but apparently they cannot pull themselves away from their exciting careers in health insurance or accounting or whatever. After a lifetime of working, they could easily afford to retire and spend more time with their parents. They just don’t want to. The rest of of us are supposed to completely ignore the fact that these women are abandoning their elderly parents, and focus on the fact that these women are very hard working, as they so often point out to us.

The elderly parents in most of these scenarios are not totally innocent by any means. Among the people I know, the elderly parents who are being abandoned by their feminist daughters raised their daughters to be feminists, and would not take no for an answer. They drilled the importance of hard work over all else into their daughter’s minds, and they had no problem whatsoever with seeing their grandchildren raised by daycare centers and nannies. They demanded hard working daughters, and damn the consequences. They are now living with the consequences. I have sympathy for them, but my sympathy for them is limited.

The same woman who refused to visit her 96 year old father has a thirty year old unemployed son who still lives at home. She does not seem to be bothered by this at all, and would take offense at any suggestion that maybe going back to work full time when your newborn is 6 weeks old is not necessarily a good thing. We are supposed to turn a blind eye to her father, turn a blind eye to the way her children turned out, and lavish praise on her because she is such a hard worker. I am sorry, but I refuse.

How did we get to this point? How did we get to the point where millions of women who raised children who are clearly maladjusted tell us in all seriousness that they are superior to the women of the past because they work? Why do they work? Who asked them to work, and why should anyone care? If your kids are effed up, what else matters? How can someone with such a clearly troubled adult child just blithely prattle on about how proud she is of her career?

Can someone explain this to me?

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Published by Judy Campbell

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70 thoughts on “Hard Work?”

  1. It started in the 80’s with the message that women can have it all, a home, marraige, kids, career, and social life with no consequences. Another one of those good ideas that didn’t quite work.

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    1. I am praying for the day when Americans will realize that feminism is not working. I love President Trump, so so so much. There is only one thing I disagree with him about: working mothers. Especially, mothers of very very small children working 70 and 80 hours a week in the White House. I know why he did it, I get it, but still. In a sane world, no one would be celebrating that.

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  2. Feminism allows women who have given birth to avoid being mothers without any social stigma whatsoever while putting the burden of child rearing on her fellow taxpayers.

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    2. That’s precisely why there is a 70% illegitimacy rate in certain socio-economic demographics. Not a good idea to get me started on this one because politicians are far too afraid to remedy a problem that is relatively simple to fix.

      No Cash for Illegitimate Kids. Yo make ’em, you take ’em (full responsibility of). If anyone thinks a welfare check helps these children, they’re wrong. Not a damn dime is spent on their well-being. Taking away incentives may help deadbeats refrain from casual pregnancies knowing they’ll be responsible.

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      1. Try being a single mom in a third world country on for size. Feminists don’t care much about the plight of Thailand’s unwed moms and their bastard children.

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      2. Considering we have an overall illegitimacy rate of 45% (combined demographics) me thinks we should take care of our own problems first. Feminists are irrelevant because they don’t even care about their own country.

        FOLKS! One out of every two children are born without fathers in the most prosperous and advanced country in the world. Here’s the breakdown:

        Blacks: 75%
        Hispanics: 60%
        Caucasians: 40%

        It is truly unbelievable.

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      3. Methinks we should take care of our own problems first too as evidenced by 20+ years in the USMC infantry and recon.

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      5. Feminists are the problem. My parents, aunts, and uncles were older than usual, so I have heard stories of what it was like for some women in the old days, and in a few ways, American society has improved. But, feminists nowadays could care less about the well being of women in America or anywhere else. Feminism is hatred of men, full stop.

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      8. Feminism has ruined many American women.

        American men treat women better than women have ever been treated in the history of the world. American men deserve our eternal gratitude, but all they get from feminists is venom.

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      9. Liz says they are irrelevant. If irrelevant is sending men like me to the other side of the globe to retire, I concur without further comment.

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      10. Well, maybe Liz didn’t choose her words perfectly-Lord knows, I am guilty of that too often. 🙂

        I think the core problem we have is that for reasons I will never understand, large numbers of American women have an inferiority complex. They think that they have to act like men in order to be equal to men-that is why they are so smug and condescending to traditional women even when their own kids are failing and their parents are languishing. Self hatred. It’s a terrible thing.

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      18. We need to temporarily end women’s right to vote in America until we get unfoxtrotted. Just sayen’ out loud what we all should be thinking.

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      19. Totally agree with you 🙂 Way too many American women seriously believe that feminists went into some kind of war with men, and won. They seriously believe that. If for no other reason, women’s right to vote should be ended in order to bring these women to their senses. They are crazy.

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      21. I want to make this clear: it is not my wish to return America to the 1950’s, or any past era. In the old days, everybody was pressured to get married young. Now, everybody, or almost everybody is pressured to wait until they are 30. Why can’t we just respect the fact that men and women are different, respect the fact that each individual person is different, and then leave well enough alone? In my family and my extended family, we could get married young, get married older, not get married at all, have kids, not have kids, and it was all cool. Nobody felt pressured to do anything, except get a job, lol.

        It is a very bad idea to try to force everyone into the same mold.

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      24. So, just to underline my previous comment, I would never ever try to force or pressure all women to get married and have children. I didn’t marry until the age of 36, and I never had children, but I had an incredibly happy marriage to a wonderful man. He was worth the wait, and I have no regrets.

        I would never try to deny any woman from pursuing a career. One of the most incredible women I have ever encountered was Mildred Jefferson: she was the first woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, and she also happened to be Black. She married young, and divorced pretty quickly, and never married again. She never had children, but she literally exuded light and happiness: she was the most joyful person I have ever met. I would never suggest that she made any mistakes in her life, but this is the thing: she didn’t have everything, and she didn’t try to have everything.

        No one can have everything. We all have to make our choices in life, and live with the consequences.

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  3. The dissolution of the extended family is one of the reasons. My mother grew up in a big house with her parents, her maternal grandmother and an uncle. There was always someone around to help out a loved one.

    In my immediate family, at one point, I lived in NYC, my brother in LA and my parents in Florida! Still, I do find that woman’s response to her father rather cold. You’ve actually ruined my morning, Jax!

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    1. Sorry, Liz 😦 I am just so mad. We have been told for decades that the kids of working mothers will turn out fine, and ok, some of them did. But some of them didn’t. I don’t remember anyone ever talking about what would happen to elderly people-certainly, the parents who pushed their daughters into careers never seemed to wonder what would happen when they were in their 90’s.

      Obviously, America cannot survive without hard work, but when hard work becomes an end in itself, with no consideration for children and elderly people, the results are not good. We are killing the goose that makes the golden eggs.

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      1. I had another thought because each family has such unique experiences. I was a working woman in NYC when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and my boss literally threw me out of the office with these words, “Get your ass in Florida tomorrow! You run a tight ship and your office can live without you for a week!” (She was a working mom, btw.)

        When I returned, my boss brought me into her office and I assumed she would want to discuss the business while I was away. No! She only wanted to know how my mother was.

        I guess I repeated this story because I despise the way the media distorts, lies, and misrepresents corporate culture. We’re not a bad lot! And yes, you can attribute capitalism to this because if you don’t treat employees with respect and empathy you won’t succeed.

        Greed manages to provoke good things!

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  4. P.S. I stayed summers as a little girl with my grandmother, aunt and the rest of the crew. I cried and threw temper tantrums when I had to go home. It was so much fun getting all that attention! 🙂

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  7. “Feminists are the problem. My parents, aunts, and uncles were older than usual, so I have heard stories of what it was like for some women in the old days, and in a few ways, American society has improved. But, feminists nowadays could care less about the well being of women in America or anywhere else. Feminism is hatred of men, full stop.”

    I would have replied sooner Judy but there was no reply button after your comment as there are never any edit buttons anymore! But I digress…

    Feminists are not THE problem; they are, in fact, a reaction to THE problem and that is the women who have joined the endless train of whiners and complainers. It was only a matter of time before women who could not perform successfully in the corporate world started to point fingers and talk about “glass ceilings.”

    Notice business titans such as Carly and Andrea and Angela are too busy growing businesses to discuss this “crisis.”

    I came of age when Gloria Steinem was still a controversial figure but I guess I missed all the sexist bullshit. I did my job, made the company a lot of money and was treated like a queen. I took a money- losing dept at Saks and made $8 million dollars NET profit in six months. Had to break a lot of eggs and pissed off my boss because I ultimately made her look incompetent. Too bad! I got a $30k raise.

    Feminists only reinforce incompetents and this is why I have absolutely no use for them. They’re wasting my time and do nothing good for my image!!!!

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  8. Now you’ve got me on a roll because we need to stop talking about feminists because truly successful women ignore them and also aren’t afraid to apply their feminine wiles. This reminds me of a story at Saks:

    I had developed and designed a collection of $15 million dollars of cashmere sweaters (appx 20,000 skus for 60 stores) so I had my own personal planner who worked with me to do the distributions. My last 4th quarter, we had an 85% sell-thru which is unheard of in the industry. I literally had no markdowns and when the final P&L came out , I walked over to my 20-something male planner and planted a big one on his kisser!

    Wasn’t the least bit afraid of any backlash.

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  9. “Feminism allows women who have given birth to avoid being mothers without any social stigma whatsoever while putting the burden of child rearing on her fellow taxpayers.”

    My experience where I am from, it seems women wanted to work so that they can make money for their children, because men went to work, didn’t give them money or know their children. I struggle with the idea that women are the reason children turn out badly. Feminism gave women a choice, yes these days feminism is strange and some people are just extreme and they hate men.

    Women who don’t work are so lucky(that’s if their husbands give them support, which is usually money, a bitter person may describe this as throwing money at a woman).Women who are working are jealous of the time housewives get to spend with their children but not all women are lucky enough to have hard working men. Feminism came about and is going to extremes because women wanted to be treated with respect and dignity, which most men are still refusing to do. Working women who talk badly about housewives got a chance to act like men and they seem to be enjoying it.

    Men did a lot that caused the change in women’s thinking. I think women in society were meant to just suffer in silence while men enjoy life. It seems like life was better in the past because women were just suffering in silence and accepting whatever they could get. I found that women’s freedom is frustrating to most men.

    I would like to know why men can’t take care of the elderly and children? A man could be out of work but they can get away with avoiding taking care of their own children or elderly parents. Being a father isn’t just paying bills and that’s what most men have gotten away with for years.

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    2. Hello, BluntPathway, and welcome! 🙂

      “My experience where I am from, it seems women wanted to work so that they can make money for their children, because men went to work, didn’t give them money or know their children.”

      Ok, I am assuming that you are not from America? Because what you are describing does not sound like America to me, at all. Unfortunately, there are places where men really are so dysfunctional (and also, the economic circumstances are so bad) that women really do have to work. They really don’t have a choice. There are definitely places all around the world where men really are oppressing women, but America isn’t one of those places. American women have it good, but in too many cases, all they do is complain about how supposedly victimized they are, while ignoring women around the world who face real persecution.

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      2. I am 51 years old. My father and all of my uncles supported their families financially, and were also very very involved in raising their children. They were completely devoted to their wives and children, and they bent over backwards trying to make sure that their wives were happy. When I look around at the families of my friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, most American men-not all, of course, but most-are the same.

        American women are free. Free to become educated, free to pursue work, free to marry whom they would like, free to get divorced if they want, free to dress the way we want to. If a single woman in America is facing an unwed pregnancy, American conservatives will do everything in their power to help her and support her: it doesn’t work that way in many other places.

        American women have it good.

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      3. This shows that the good men have always been a minority and they have been failed by the majority of men who have abused women by not providing, raping, killing and not taking care of their families. Its the same minority of men who saw they benefit in allowing women to be free! Feminism wouldn’t exist without those men!. The few men like your uncles and father.

        All I am saying is people should consider that there’s a minority of men who fought for womens choices and a majority of men who refuse to believe women who stay at home and raise children are deserving of support and respect.

        Majority of women would have been okay with the past situation if the majority of men were like your father and uncles. Women have become ruthless for their children if they have any at all anymore.

        Women have become extreme because of suffering. Men take no accountability for this.

        The good men like your father are a minority. Men providing and women taking care of kids isn’t an awful idea. Women lose themselves in their kids more than money and their careers even though they don’t admit it. Men need to do better. More men should have been like your father and uncles. If men become selfless providers women can take on their roles because they are agreeable

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      4. “This shows that the good men have always been a minority and they have been failed by the majority of men who have abused women by not providing, raping, killing and not taking care of their families.”

        In America, men like my father and uncles were not a minority. They were the norm. You say that the majority of men abuse women by raping, killing, and not supporting them? I am so sorry that has been your experience. That is definitely not normal in America.

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      6. Well, but no. Men haven’t always been free. Freedom for men started in America only a few hundred years ago. Men have been fighting in wars, giving up their seats on lifeboats, working in incredibly difficult and hazardous jobs, and in general, protecting and providing for women in a million ways since the beginning of time, and most of those men were not free citizens themselves.

        Obviously, some men treat women far better than others. The reason I criticize American women is because in general, American men treat women very very very well, and in general, American women don’t appreciate it. If we were talking about men and women in Saudi Arabia, I would be singing a very different tune, but in general, American women have nothing whatsoever to complain about.

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  10. I surely do like the first half of your ‘handle.’ We’ll get along just fine! 🙂

    I also found your post quite interesting. This is my vision of the “ideal” situation and I will use former senatorial nominee and CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina as an example:

    When she was promoted, her husband agreed she would no longer have as much time to devote to their children so HE retired from an equally impressive career to be a stay at home dad. Yes, they could obviously afford to live on one income but I thought it was a unique solution to the problem as neither parent wanted their children raised by nannies. Also, I can’t help but think how much fun it would have been having my dad at home for half of my childhood!

    I’d bet more kids would benefit having exposure to both parents on a full-time basis. Radical thought?

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    1. Men have been told they can’t enjoy wonderful joy of being with their children,getting to know their dreams and desires. Men deserve a chance to play with their children, love them and have secrets with their kids the mother doesn’t know. The thought isn’t radical at all.

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      1. Most women do not want to be the primary breadwinner. They don’t even want to be an equal breadwinner. Most women want husbands who make more than they do: most men are not all that interested in being with their kids 24/7.

        Is this selfish? Maybe. Maybe women who want to stay with their kids 24/7 are selfish. Maybe men who don’t want to stay with their kids 24/7 are also selfish, but selfishness isn’t always a bad thing.

        I had no secrets with either of my parents. My mother told my father everything, and my father told my mother everything. 🙂

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      5. “They don’t even want to be an equal breadwinner.”

        Not all of us! My husband would never hold economic power over me if I didn’t work but I enjoy making my fair share to the bank acct because it makes it far easier for me to ‘throw my weight around’ when making economic decisions. The fact is that money is power and I ain’t giving up mine!

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      6. Not all of us, but most of us, Liz. Most women want to be with a man who either makes more than they do, or who makes all the money. There are always exceptions, but feminists have been trying to get women to want to be equal economic partners for over 50 years now, and in general, it isn’t working. If we want to have a healthy, functioning culture, we should be respectful of what most people want.

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      7. Indeed. I was closer to my father than my mother especially because we shared common interests and he usually let me get by with things my mom most assuredly wouldn’t! 🙂

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      9. I am so sorry that your experience with men and fathers has been so negative. As I have stated before, most American fathers are wonderful. They do not deserve the derision they receive from feminists.

        Men who pay the bills and ignore their children? Most Americans are not familiar with that. Obviously, there are a few bad man in America, but paying the bills and ignoring your children isn’t a thing here. I realize that different places are different: my ideas apply to America, the place I am most familiar with.

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  11. Also, fathers (or at least the good ones) teach valuable life lessons to their kids. With no disrespect to my mother, she was concerned with superficial things and my father was not. I could wear make-up and had no curfew when I was growing up but he made it perfectly clear about my GPA, my SATs, college admission and making a career for myself. He had me working at age 14 doing all those “entry level jobs” and stored away my paychecks where I couldn’t get to them because he provided me with all my material needs and more while I lived under his roof.

    I went to buy a house in my twenties with my husband and the accumulated interest of all my “stupid jobs” provided my half of the down payment. I couldn’t believe it! Not to mention the education I rcvd about the NYSE. He was a great dad because he didn’t think female children should be treated any differently than the sons.

    Yet another reason I have no respect for the whining feminists of today because I was raised by one!

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  12. Also, fathers (or at least the good ones) teach valuable life lessons to their kids. With no disrespect to my mother, she was concerned with superficial things and my father was not. I could wear make-up and had no
    curfew when I was growing up but he made it perfectly clear about my GPA, my SATs, college admission and making a career for myself. He had me working at age 14 doing all those “entry level jobs” and stored away my paychecks where I couldn’t get to them because he provided me with all my material needs and more while I lived under his roof.

    I went to buy a house in my twenties with my husband and the accumulated interest of all my “stupid jobs” provided my half of the down payment. I couldn’t believe it! Not to mention the education I rcvd about the NYSE because he, too, was an investor. He was a great dad because he didn’t think female children should be treated any differently than the sons.

    Yet another reason I have no respect for the whining feminists of today because I was raised by one!

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  13. “There are always exceptions, but feminists have been trying to get women to want to be equal economic partners for over 50 years now, and in general, it isn’t working.”

    Harrumph! With the exception of Steinem who made millions on her books, Ms. magazine and her personal appearances, most feminists are bitching about something (making the donuts) that they really can’t do. Notice that successful businesswomen aren’t complaining. 🙂

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    1. Even most feminists want to be married to men who make more than they do, and after choosing to marry such men, they bitch about some imaginary pay gap. As if their own choices have nothing to do with anything: it is ridiculous.

      Countless polls and studies have shown that most women with children would like to work less or not at all, and children would be better off if that were the case.

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  15. You and I are on the same side of this argument but for different reasons. This makes for interesting conversation that is not volatile/hostile!

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