College women, take heed: Prioritize marriage and family!

[blackforest]

It seems to me that the article is calling for vocational discernment and recognizing cultural pressures which can make such discernment difficult.

If you apply this issue to young men as well as young women, then yes, the issue is a lot more complex than the surface that this article is scratching. Guys, too, should preoccupy themselves with debt. Guys, too, should question whether – in an age of negligent tuition over-inflation-- they belong in college as a means to fulfill their vocation.

Now I’ll move off-topic from your post and share some general musings. There are messages that I’d love to broadcast to young, college-age men.

First, go on a date. Ask someone. If you’re rejected, move on. So what? You’re going to get plenty of rejections for jobs, fellowships, etc. Rejection is part of life. It’s nothing tragic and a sign of emotional maturity when you can deal with it.

Second, men, too, need to prioritize marriage and family. There ARE more important things than your job. Men are being conditioned in our culture to tie their masculinity in with how many hours they clock in and how big their paychecks are. Your employer isn’t nearly that loyal to you and can dump you on a dime. Life is short, your wife and children are more important, and the latter will be out of the house before you can look twice.

 

[JimG]

This reminds me of a snippet of a Taylor Marshall talk I saw on a video. He was talking about jobs and careers. He said that most people will have jobs, not careers, and that’s fine. But even if you have a career that you love, that’s not the most important thing in life. The most important thing is family. He said that he is happy with his own career, but it would not be enough to make him happy without his wife and family. He urged men especially to marry and start a family before age 40; otherwise they will lead an unhappy life.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I knew people even back in the 80s who wouldn’t date people from their work because they were afraid of negative situations arising. But the reality is that when a lot of young and single people are thrown together in a workplace for 8 or more hours a day, day after day, some of them will end up dating. I’ve seen this pretty consistently at many different workplaces. Some places have rules about supervisors not dating their direct reports, which makes sense to me.

But unless you have some really toxic corporate environment, in which case a lot of folks would probably leave anyway, most workplace dates aren’t going to end up in a lot of drama or a Me Too lawsuit.

 

[OKComputer]

I hope you are right, and I certainly wish you the best of luck. But it’s not a winnable battle.

 

[QContinuum]

There are signs that Gen Z is a more conservative generation

I’ve seen this claim from other sources but I don’t know what it’s based on. I have a son squarely in this generation. He attends a moderate private Christian school, where he and his peers seem to be at least as liberal as any Millennial I’ve ever worked with.

A Pew report published in 2019 confirms that the two generations are nearly identical on some issues with Z being more liberal on others. I would hazard too that given what I’ve observed in the protests a very large number are Gen Z.

Here’s the Pew report in case anyone’s interested.

Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues | Pew Research Center

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Margaret_Ann]

They should also “prioritize” religious life. I wanted to become a religious when I was 18. My parents were happy and I had their blessing. Another person (who shall remain nameless) said to me: “Live a little. When you’re 30, then you can decide to become a nun.” Well, that was 20+ years ago and I’m still not a religious. TBH, most orders probably wouldn’t even consider me today because 1) I’m too old - most orders won’t take 40+ women, 2) I’m too traditional - most orders have “updated” habits and I’d definitely opt for a traditional habit and 3) some personal problems of my own which would disqualify me as a prospective postulant.

As the old saying goes: “God writes straight with crooked lines.” I’d be a rich woman if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me: “Are you a Sister/nun?” because I dress modestly and wear a veil in church (at least during spring/summer; fall/winter it’s a hat).

And every time I’m afraid of being poor, I try to remember the inspired words of a SSPX priest (whose counsel saved me from getting into a bad marriage): “Our Lord Jesus Christ is the best Spouse of all, and He always provides.” Immediately I decided that I had to break off the relationship and did so after retreat. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be posting here today.

My one strong recommendation: Before considering religious life or marriage, go on retreat - if possible, an Ignatian retreat. That’s where I received the God-inspired counsel from a SSPX priest.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for your spiritual sons and us sinners!

 

[27lw]

Have you considered living a consecrated life in the world - or maybe that’s what you are doing already?

 

[Margaret_Ann]

As I posted earlier, I’ve made the total consecration to Our Lady but afaik that’s not the same as a consecrated (i.e. with vows) life in the world. Maybe one of the CAF priests would know.

 

[27lw]

Something like this:
https://consecratedvirgins.org/

 

[LilyM]

Lifeisbeautiful3:

What human wouldn’t want that? To enjoy family time instead of working their fingers to the bone? I would wager that most people (man or woman) would prefer that scenario and would accept an opportunity that afforded them more money and flexibility for time with family while spending less time in the office. As my grandfather once said, “they call it work for a reason.”

No, this isn’t about more leisure to enjoy spending time with family. This is about focusing the work they do on managing the home, raising the children, volunteering in the community, etc. These women aren’t saying they want more leisure time. They are saying the work of a career is not fulfilling and they want to work at their vocation.

I have a career. It has its ups.and downs, but no.more so than the vocation of parenthood.does.

And is our work.not also.maybe meant to be a vocation? Was St Gianna not probably called to be a doctor just as she was a wife and mother? Or St John.Bosco to be an educator just as he was a priest?

Is a voction from God really mainly about feeling personally fulfilled? Seems a bit of a self-centered view, and certainly a poor basis for judging the rightness or wrongness of a course of action.

 

[Elizabeth3]

And is our work.not also.maybe meant to be a vocation?

The Catholic understanding of vocation is that it is a calling. For some, they may feel called to a particular work by God in service to Him like the saints you mentioned. That’s not the norm for most people. Most people’s jobs aren’t that kind of calling. Their job may be a tool to serve their vocation of motherhood or fatherhood by offering provision for the family but the work itself is a means to that end and not a vocation.

Is a voction from God really mainly about feeling personally fulfilled?

No. Not mainly. But if one feels the pull strongly to focus their work, time and attention to their vocation in a way that they think would be most beneficial and efficacious to their family and are able to eliminate those things in their life that hinders their ability to do that, there will be a certain fulfillment and satisfaction that results.

Seems a bit of a self-centered view, and certainly a poor basis for judging the rightness or wrongness of a course of action.

It’s not a self-centered fulfillment that is seeking ease and happiness for themselves but rather a fulfillment that comes from the sacrifice of service in giving yourself over to the demands of serving your vocation. If a mother sees that her job, other than providing money to pay the bills, is a hindrance to her in serving her particular family’s needs that’s not being self-centered. It’s being other-centered.

 

[Pattylt]

Old Jewish lullaby…
Rock a bye baby
Go to sleep honey
You’ll marry a doctor
Make lots of money

New Jewish lullaby…

Rock a bye baby
Go to sleep honey
You’ll be a doctor
Make lots of money

It’s a silly Jewish joke that’s been around for a long time. The realization today is that most women have to work at least part of their marriage. It didn’t use to be this way. Families could be raised on one income. Those days are gone. Which came first? Income not being able to provide for an entire family or women going back to work because they couldn’t raise a family on one income…or, did they march together?

I know many women that would love to be home with their families. Some are able to compromise by being part time. I also know women that never wanted to be full time stay at homes. Their jobs are their escape from the monotony of motherhood at home.

What’s needed is an ability for each woman to chose her preference. As long as wages don’t meet the needs of one working parent, however, this choice only exists for a very few. I was a SAHM for the first nine years of my children’s lives. I don’t regret it at all but we were dirt poor doing it. My husband is an excellent man, worker and husband but he is in a field that went stagnant for years…so, I went back to school to earn my degree and become a working mom and pulling us out of poverty. If we were starting all over today, his job pays much better than it used to and I could have stayed home longer but I also don’t regret my career, either. It gave us many freedoms that otherwise were out of reach.

Each person and family has to change and adapt to meet the needs of family life as well as financial life, sometimes sacrificing one, sometimes the other. To any woman these days, if she really wants to be a stay at home…she needs to make sure she’s only looking at well paid men. It may sound bad, but the only way it will happen.

 

[Bernoulli]

Families could be raised on one income. Those days are gone. Which came first? Income not being able to provide for an entire family or women going back to work because they couldn’t raise a family on one income…or, did they march together?

If women did not work or worked only limitedly, the supply of labor would be cut and wages would be driven up. However, women working may have some positive impact on productivity, which also helps to raise wages. But the restriction of supply would probably dominate, so a single provider’s wage would be more valuable with no women working.

 

[VonDerTann]

I’m sorry, I’m late to the party.

I am blessed to have a wife who is a well-educated (advanced degree) full-time professional (out-earns me; I’m a lawyer). She also has more common sense and street smarts than literallly anyone I have ever met. We also have one healthy child in Catholic school (and my wife is a great and devoted mom). I’ve talked about this stuff with my wife for years. Her, and my, thoughts:

–As to moms who stay at home and raise kids, that’s putting an awful lot of pressure on dad. Dad could get sick…or get fired…or get offered a transfer (like an “army transfer,” i.e., “go to cleveland and run the office there or we have no use for you.”

–We know innumerable SAHMs who treat her, and I when they hear her situation, with arrogance, bordering on contempt: “My husband can provide for all our needs, what’s the matter with yours?” So, I’m not keen at all on this fiction that SAHMs are somehow these sweet, kind women who love kids as opposed to those conniving career women.

–By the same token, we know many SAHMs who - despite being college-educated (or more) literally can’t hold a conversation about finances; current events, etc., despite their education. All they seem able to talk about is their kids - who are invariably over-parented. Many have waaaaay too much time on their hands - after doing their kids homework, school projects , etc. (our DD did her own). To many SAHMs, that’s what “stay at home parenting” really is: Doing things the kids should do.

–For that matter, in all these studies where dad works and mom “parents”…do the parents really have anything in common after a few years? In studies of deca-millionaires, (net worth of a least 10 million), what is the #1 commonality of such couples? “partners in money, partners in life,” i.e. mom & dad are each married to their first spouse and are true equals, i.e., not dad married to a housefrau.

–Left unaddressed is an insidious fact: For all these SAHM types…what happens when dad gets a girlfriend? What, like no man ever did? Or he has a massive coronary (maybe from the stress of being the sole breadwinner)? Many of these women have essentially zero work skills, let alone the sort of skills that translate into supporting the same standard of living they’ve gotten used to.

–She had a small amount of student loan debt and, with both of us working, we paid it off long ago. We lead a modest life (but it includes a lot of savings and a paid-off mortgage, and Catholic school). So the issue with many women isn’t necessarily their working lifestyle but the fact that it’s financed with debt at things like private colleges and useless majors - which thus necessitates endless working, often at jobs with little potential for advancement or savings, and where most earnings are earmarked for debt service.

–She’s using her brain as God intended: Nuff said.

My $0.02.

 

[Sarcelle]

she needs to make sure she’s only looking at well paid men.

Even the most skilled workers with high paying jobs can lose their jobs, get sick or disabled and boom there goes the source of income.

My grandparents ran a mom and pop grocery store and it was successful but they ran it together with the kids helping out after school.

It was not the father goes to work for an employer, mom stays behind to see the kids off to school and took care of the house. In my case that wasn’t the model. Everyone in the extended family helped run the family business.

Families come in all shapes and sizes.

 

[Pattylt]

Even the most skilled workers with high paying jobs can lose their jobs, get sick or disabled and boom there goes the source of income.

I know. I’ve seen it happen way too often. Back when many women were stay at home wives, they were trapped there. Bad marriage, violent spouse, cheater…didn’t matter, the woman was trapped. Even with a skill…which back then most didn’t have…it’s not always possible to just re enter the workforce. Between the costs of childcare, kids home all summer and no other help at home, all a woman in those days could hope for was a large reward in a divorce…but many didn’t divorce. They just became single wives.

I refused to ever face that situation. My marriage is happy and long lasting but I don’t like the idea of being dependent on someone else…even my husband.

I agree, @VonDerTann. Many SAHMs world revolves so much around being a SAHM they lose touch with the world out there. Not all! Many are active in their community. But, I remember when I was a SAHM and my husband came home, I would run to the library for an hour just to see and talk with other adults! . My husband was too tired to talk when he first came home and I was starved for adult company. Some can avoid this and make sure they do avoid it but some become unable to carry on an adult conversation after a few years! Really, I witnessed it! Part of it may have been my surroundings as we were pretty poor but some women can barely talk to an adult after years of being a SAHM.

 

[VonDerTann]

As usual, Patty, you have excellent observations.

Along the same lines, when I worked in the family courts years ago, I observed this dynamic in divorcing couples: For the husband, the home was his refuge. For the wife the home was her prison. All he wanted to do was come home and collapse; all she wanted to do was wait till he got home to escape.

Also, I have nothing to go on empirically, but I am convinced affairs happen less when both spouses work at relatively equal jobs. Spouses cheat, or don’t cheat, for many reasons. As to the latter, I think most don’t because it’s the right thing to do - but some don’t because they fear the consequences of doing so. IMHO, when wives don’t work, some husbands cheat at least in part because, in the back of their minds, the husbands think something along the lines of, “if she catches me, where’s she gonna go?,” where they think the wives will have no option or ability to leave easily - and here’s the thing, they’re often correct.

EDITING TO ADD: And BTW, the dynamic in a marriage is harsh where the wife must ask her husband for every nickel, like $25 to get her nails done. Not easy.

 

[Pattylt]

IMHO, when wives don’t work, some husbands cheat at least in part because, in the back of their minds, the husbands think something along the lines of, “if she catches me, where’s she gonna go?,”

My best friend and neighbor was a SAHM. When she was pregnant with number 3, she caught her husband cheating on her. He still loved her, was sorry, yada yada. She told him he would immediately sever the relationship with the girlfriend and go into marriage counseling OR, she would divorce him and make sure he had custody of the kids! Kinda puts a damper on escaping family life for some thrills when you have three kids to also care for.

It worked. They worked it out and now, 20 years later are still happily married. I’m godmother to the girl they had!

 

[blackforest]

We know innumerable SAHMs who treat her, and I when they hear her situation, with arrogance, bordering on contempt: “

I’m an advanced degree-holding SAHM and can address some of your points.

As to moms who stay at home and raise kids, that’s putting an awful lot of pressure on dad.

The smartest SAHMs, as I’ve stated upthread, keep their credentials current. Or they juggle schooling/credentialing while staying at home. This addresses your concern about husbands leaving them for another woman or facing disability or death.

We know innumerable SAHMs who treat her, and I when they hear her situation, with arrogance, bordering on contempt

Those are called the Mommy Wars, and they need to end already. I get trashed for being a SAHM, too. It unfortunately works both ways.

By the same token, we know many SAHMs who - despite being college-educated (or more) literally can’t hold a conversation about finances; current events, etc., despite their education.

I’m not sure how helpful these anecdotes and stereotypes are to the conversation, but a great many of us CRAVE conversation about something other than children or our husband’s work. We take classes, join book clubs, do volunteer work, and even dip our toes into very part-time work. (Or we dink around on CAF talking politics and theology with other adults. ) We very often hold communities together through our participation in PTO, Little League, CCW, and townhall events.

For that matter, in all these studies where dad works and mom “parents”…do the parents really have anything in common after a few years?

In a stable marriage, yes. My husband and I have vastly different professional backgrounds and could, arguably, grow apart if we both spent long hours out of the house. Also, in no way to I feel “unequal” because I’m not bringing home money. That’s a rather shallow view of marriage, in fact, and no healthy marriage should have a spouse wielding money as a control mechanism.

 

[blackforest]

(Continued)

Many have waaaaay too much time on their hands -

OK, you’re waaaaaay outta touch here. But I’ll sooner scale a volcano than disabuse such an entrenched belief. Any SAHMs care to chime in here?

–She’s using her brain as God intended: Nuff said.

Yes, while we SAHMs just watch soap operas and munch on Toblerones all day.

Look, the decision for a woman to work outside the home or not isn’t black and white, and we face heavier ramifications than men. I left the workforce because breastfeeding was important to me, and my employer only gave me five minutes between appointments. I also realized that I was paying for the privilege of working and losing money to licensing, continuing ed, workplace wardrobe, gas, convenience foods, and, above all, day care. Then I realized that I had a vocation in homeschooling, and the rest wrote itself. I may still start working outside the home. Time will tell, (and God’s will).