The Opt-Out Myth

DoubleX is starting a new partnership with The Washington Post Magazine. Each week our contributors will argue over a certain question, and we invite you to join in. This week: A recent Census report refutes the idea that large numbers of women are quitting successful careers to become stay-at-home moms.

Hanna Rosin: So the latest census data shows that there is no "opt-out revolution," meaning that middle-class women are not actually dropping out of the workplace in droves. We seem to have exaggerated the phenomenon based on thin anecdotal evidence, as we seem to always exaggerate the agonies of the middle class. (Barbara Ehrenreich diagnosed this problem first in her book Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class.) My guess is that what’s changed is not the habits of women but their attitudes. It’s not that fewer women work, it's that there is a self-consciousness about not working, and women who choose not to work stand out as a more noticeable subculture. The hope is that one day either decision brings a shrug, and maybe working and non-working moms can even be friends!

Emily Bazelon: Hanna, my own take is that there is a small rise, since 1994, in the percentage of families with kids under 15 with a stay-at-home mother. But the rise isn't among the highly educated, affluent women whom the fuss was all about. They are not the stay-at-home mom norm. And yet we all know them, and I suppose you're right about the subculture, though I get a little historical whiplash trying to think about how exactly this is different than the PTA moms of previous generations. In any case, I've never believed in the sharp working/not-working divide. It's much more of a spectrum, with women who can afford to moving in and out of working more or less, full-time or part-time, and talking it through with women making different choices as they go. Sure, there's some alienation and judging along the way. But in my experience there's also more common ground than we usually get credit for.

Rachael Larimore: Talk about "opting-out" and the entire "mommy wars" meme invariably implies that a woman must work 40 hours a week or stay at home. Yet I know so many moms who have made career choices that allow them to have the best of both worlds, or at least try to. Moms who work part-time, moms who own their own businesses and limit their time away from home, moms who (like me) telecommute. Far too much attention is given to the divisiveness of the "mommy wars" and not enough is given to the fact that women today are working hard and finding creative ways to get the intellectual fulfillment that a job provides while still being attentive parents.

Amanda Marcotte: The opt-out revolution is a myth no matter what definition of the word you work with. In the colloquial sense, the word "myth" is used to mean a popular fiction that a number of people believe is true, but is not. In that sense, the opt-out revolution is indeed a myth, because while a number of people believed there was a stampede of middle to upper middle class women out of the job and into the home, recently released Census data proves this isn't so. But the opt-out revolution is also a myth in the older sense of the word: a story in which veracity is less important than normative qualities. From the beginning, the opt-out revolution was a myth that was less about describing a current reality than about creating pressure on women to either create that reality by quitting their jobs, or at least feel very guilty if they'd rather be checking in at the office than putting on an apron and cooking a pot roast for a breadwinner husband. That's why I don't see it going away, even in the face of lack of evidence for any trend. Like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, the opt-out housewife is too tempting as a cudgel to bully women who reject old-fashioned femininity for independence.

KJ Dell'Antonia: Honestly? I live at the corner of Opt-out Road and Lisa Belkin Lane. Small town, Ivy college, and a totally atypical number of female graduates of that college and institutes of even higher learning staying home and raising kids. If you lived here, you'd put the whole thing on the cover of a magazine, too—but that's exactly what was wrong with the idea of the opt-out revolution. Almost nobody lives here, literally or in metaphor. It's only if you do—and I'd argue that a relatively high percentage of editors, writers, and readers are part of a community like mine in some way—that it seems significant. Plus, they called it too soon. A lot of those so-called "opt-out" women go back, one way or another.

Comments

parenting

By: happyjogger | Tue, 10/27/2009 - 13:28

It's interesting some people who have no problem with the phrase, "stay-at-home" mom, which I find insulting (as if we do nothing but stare at the walls all day), object to the phrase "full-time mom," as if any insinuation that full-time parents may actually do more parenting is unacceptable. I sure hope I'm a better parent than when I worked outside the home full-time. Parenting is one of the few pursuits that some people think you aren't basically better at in proportion to how much of it you do. In the same vein, babysitting or pre-school teaching is one of the only professions that some people expect to be high-quality and cheap,even though sitters are taking care of human beings. Babysitters and daycare providers should be paid a lot more for what they do; they have bills to pay too.

who's full time?

By: jerseygirl | Mon, 10/26/2009 - 15:48

I appreciate the lack of vitriol and rancor on this thread. Thanks!

But Happyjogger, I got to call you out on the "full-time mom" label. I assume you mean you don't have paid labor outside your home, right? Because all parents are full-time parents, whether they spend a certain number of hours in paid labor or not. Otherwise, I suppose any parent whose kids are in school is no longer a full-time parent, whether he/she works for pay or not! The distinction between us is our relationship to the workforce, not our relationship to our children.

Marcotte has it right. The

By: feministworkingmom | Mon, 10/26/2009 - 13:04

Marcotte has it right. The language of the cultural myth "Opt Out Revolution" is just another bludgeon to control women one way or another. I simply reject the messages in any sensationalized media stories that feel manipulative to me. I will do what is best for me and my family, and I simply don't care what anyone else thinks about it.

My experience has been that

By: Elisabeth | Sun, 10/25/2009 - 15:52

My experience has been that many of my neighbors and friends have opted-out. We are not priviledged upper-middle class, but rather ordinary middle class, with husbands with ordinary jobs. My husband's income was $38,000 (assistant professor) when I quit to stay home with our first child 17 years ago. I quit a $48,000 job. I truly loved being home with the kids and I never missed my stressful corporate job. Once the kids were both in school, I had loads of time to spend on all of my interests. But I was also the one who took care of everything at home, chauffering kids to activities, etc. As a family, our lives were very calm and routine. My husband could go out of town with no worries. We never had to scramble to figure out who was going to pick up the kids. We basically traded a strong second income for peace and calm. In the last few years, I went back to school to get a master's degree in order to go back to work to pay for college for the kids. I am actually one of those people with a part time job (they do exist - my cousin has been in-house counsel at a bank three days a week for the last 18 yesrs).

We seriously need to stop judging each others decisions. And stop feeling guilty about your own decisions! I have friends who had their kids in daycare at eight weeks old, are great moms, love their kids and their jobs. For me, I didn't love my old job that much. I would rather have less money and more calm. I'm not a real high-energy person. Of course the crazy costs of college have woken me up, and I have to admit I was beginning to go a little stir crazy at home in recent years. I really enjoy my new job a lot, and having lived on one modest income for so many years, we are able to put all of my new income towards college for the kids. We have found a soluntion that worked for us. But everyone must make their own choices.

opt out myth

By: happyjogger | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 18:20

As a full-time mom and homeschooling parent, I'd have to disagree with the insinuation that it can not be intellectually stimulating being in the home full-time. First, any parent whose day involves negotiating around toddler tantrums or sibling rivalries can attest to the fact that it pays to have a game plan for the day and more can be solved by a careful choice of words than impulsively saying the first thing that comes to mind. Also, the phrase, "stay-at-home mom" does not do justice to the fact that moms are not just staying still when they are full-time moms, they're busy not only doing household chores, but chasing and driving around their young charges and often going on fun "field trips" to the park, library, zoo, etc. Finally, a lot of mothers introduce their little ones to the joy of reading, and there are wonderful books for the younger set out there that both mom and child can enjoy. The homeschooling movement has also grown significantly over the last decade and continues to do so. There is obviously a great deal of intellectual stimulation involved for both mother and child when homeschooling is taking place. While opting out of high-powered careers may not be as large a trend as initially reported, women or men choosing, if they can afford to do so (often with financial sacrifices), to be with their children for more hours during the day will benefit the children emotionally and will probably provide fulfillment (even intellectually) for the parent.

@chla @septembergirl

By: teaspoon | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 10:41

I agree. This discussion seems relevant only to a narrow segment of the female readership. As a feminist, I turned to DoubleX to possibly meet a community of like-minded women. However, the more I read, the more it feels like this site wasn't designed for me, but for a white, middle class, highly educated mother in her 30s and beyond.

Can anyone suggest a site that perhaps might be more relevant to my demographic: a struggling working-class student who is buried in loans? That seems more interesting to me than reading the opinions of highly privileged women who can afford to look down their noses at women who either work too much, or not nearly enough.

Was the Opt-Out revolution ever intended to be about all women?

By: Regular Lady | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 09:39

I always understood the opt-out revolution to refer to a specific type of woman: highly educated and opting out from a high pressure/high paying job.

It's supposed to answer the question of why 50% of law school graduates are female but most firms only have 10-20% female partners. Why are more women graduating with MBAs but female COOs, CFOs and CEOs are rare?

It seems disingenuous to be told from women who are writers (a notoriously flexible job) that there is no opt-out revolution.

From my perch at a wall street law firm, I've seem women quit after they have had their first child, even more quit after the had a second child and some leave to pursue less demanding (and less prestigious) careers. At the firm I work at, of the partners in my practice group, only four of 16 are women and only one of those four has kids.

Of all the women I know in law and finance, I don't know a single one who has negotiated a part-time or flex time schedule. The job kinda is what it is and either you commit to the hours or you don't. Which is why some many opt out.

The missing voice in the conversation

By: Alphabet Soup | Fri, 10/23/2009 - 23:57

Why is there one glaring omission in this discussion? What does Linda Hirshman have to say about the fact that the opt-out revolution never actually happened? Her current status as a big-wig is due in large part to the bomb throwing she has been doing, accusing women of betraying the sisterhood by leaving the workforce in droves. Her anecdotal evidence was shoddy and her conclusions were completely wrong, yet she continues to insist that a few moms are going to destroy feminism for the rest of us. She's a misogynist in feminists' clothing. Anything from her? A word? Anything? Ah yes, nothing. I understand.

KJ Dell'Antonia hits the nail on the head

By: Chla | Fri, 10/23/2009 - 21:32

We can only have an honest discussion about this by defining our terms. We're not talking about "women," we're talking about white, upper class, educated, suburban women. And "we" is white, upper class, educated men and women, who only know these sorts of women. So the entire Mommy Wars thing is just this ridiculous navel-gazing exercise in upper class angst.

I'd also like to call out Rachel Larimore on her contribution. Now, if you want to talk about myths, let's talk about all those part time jobs available for upper class, educated women. I have to say that I know exactly two women with one of these much-touted, family friendly, part-time jobs (one is in finance, one is an accountant), and both work 40 hour weeks, according to their part time agreements. They just get to stay home one day. And, in practice, they spend most of that day working, and still log 50-60 hour weeks. They each got this opportunity because they were high level employees who had worked for their firms for over a decade. So this myth that there are all these great part time jobs that cover the cost of a sitter... please tell me where to find them, because no one I know has ever actually found any!

Wow, a third front in the

By: septembergirl | Fri, 10/23/2009 - 20:32

Wow, a third front in the mommy wars -- and the women who are "are working hard and finding creative ways to get the intellectual fulfillment that a job provides while still being attentive parents" declare victory.

Based on that statement, it seems that Rachael Larimore appears to characterize me as an INATTENTIVE parent because I didn't make a career choice to give me the best of both worlds. My family can't afford for me to work part-time right now, and as a social worker, telecommuting is not an option.

And if I were a stay-at-home mom, I think I'd feel equally insulted (though I'd possibly feel less guilty) by the suggestion that unless I worked, I couldn't possibly be fulfilled intellectually (to me, that reads as code for "vapid" and "boring").

I'm not trying to re-ignite the mommy wars here - it's hard being a mom and it's hard living life and let's please all try to respect each others choices -- remembering that some people have more choices than others.