Earning your MRS and Selling Your Milk

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Dr. Naomi

Recently, I chuckled as I read an article about a dating service in China advertising to women by telling them they would disappoint their Grandmothers (who could die soon!) if they didn’t stop being so picky and just settle down to get married already! Thank goodness I live in the US, I thought with smug satisfaction, where we believe there is more to a woman’s life than being a spouse.

I shouldn’t have been so smug… The Wall Street Journal has just published an op-ed from Princeton alumna Susan A. Patton telling college women to “smarten up and start husband hunting.” Oh, but how can I be a smart husband hunter, you may ask? Never fear (heterosexual) ladies! In case Patton’s advice is confusing to you, I’ve expanded on key points from her article here, so you will know exactly how to score the “cornerstone of your future happiness:”

“Casual sex is irresistible to men, but the smart move is not to give it away. If you offer intimacy without commitment, the incentive to commit is eliminated. The grandmotherly message of yesterday is still true today: Men won’t buy the cow if the milk is free.” Got it? So, the message here is sell sex, so your future husband will buy a cow. Or, something like that. Since you’re in college and all, I’m sure you will figure this one out.

“And if you start to earn more than he does? Forget about it. Very few men have egos that can endure what they will see as a form of emasculation.” When you negotiate your first salary, don’t go for the obvious tactic of trying to earn the highest amount possible. Negotiate that salary down ladies — your future husband’s masculinity depends on you! (Don’t worry about not having a husband and being underpaid, just remember the milk thing from above and you will have yourself a winner husband, for sure!)

“…avoid falling for the P.C. feminist line that has misled so many young women for years. There is nothing incongruous about educated, ambitious women wanting to be wives and mothers.” That’s right, don’t fall for those ugly feminists who hate men and motherhood! They are just trying to trick you by feeding you lines about how women should be supported in a variety of choices about how to live their lives. Why would you want options (including, but not limited to: motherhood with or without a partner, not having children,having a high-powered career, having a low-powered career, staying at home with children, loving being single, being committed to a partner, or any combination of these)?

Thank goodness we have this good advice from Patton, who is busy warning college women about avoiding the bleak future of leaving college without an engagement ring. Between Patton’s words of wisdom and the advice from Chinese dating websites, you can be assured of not disappointing any dying relatives in your lack of a husband, or being bothered with focusing on your pesky intellectual development over the true goal of higher education for women, earning your MRS!

Mommy Ambivalence: You love your kids but not your life. Now what?

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Dr. Naomi

This article addresses elements of the Mommy Myth: “Acknowledging that raising children isn’t all cuddles and cute things they say, or even exactly what you’d imagined it would be, is not the same thing as wishing those children didn’t exist. Complex feelings are normal, in parenthood and in life.”

Pop Culture’s House Husbands Lag Behind the Reality in American Homes

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Dr. Naomi

This article contains very helpful information about stay-at-home Dads, changing roles of fathers with childcare, and how little of this has caught up with their portrayals in popular culture. Great examples and links to relevant publications throughout!

Thank You, Sheryl Sandberg

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Dr. Naomi

Interesting blog from a stay-at-home Mom in response to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. She speaks powerfully of the joys of mothering, its importance in her life, and her conflicted feelings about leaving her career behind for a while. While I can’t say that I agree that, as she states, “socializaton and forced gender roles have nothing” (emphasis mine) to do with the joy she experiencing in her children, this doesn’t take away from the depth or the authenticity of the feelings. Just because we’re socialized in a particular way doesn’t make our joys and sorrows associated with that socialization less authentic.

I think this also points to the need to value choices to parent, work, or a combination of these equally, regardless of the sex of the parent. All three roles are vitally important personally and at a societal level.