Honestly, I’d argue the opposite. My wife is a stay at home wife and a stay at home mom because it is her will to do so, but she exercises her will in defiance of overwhelming societal pressure to go out and get a career even though that isn’t what she wants to do with her life. If she’s talking to people she’s never going to meet again, she just lies or changes the subject when it comes up because it’s so uncomfortable hearing the judgmental “oh… you don’t work.”
Unfortunately, postmodern culture mistakes freedom to choose to do a thing with an obligation to do a thing, and the freedom not to do a thing with an obligation not to do a thing. The point of freedom should be that we each have the autonomy to follow our own chosen path willfully, rather than an obligation to follow whatever path has been prescribed for us. To switch one prescribed path for another isn’t freedom, it’s leading you out of one cage and into another.
Given that you’re suggesting that society pushes for my wife’s choice, I don’t think so. If she felt pressure to be a stay at home mom we’d be saying the same thing, but instead she feels pressure to work.
You misunderstood ;) I said that the traditional idea of the stay at home mom in a nuclear family is being sold by society as giving more freedom to women (compared to for example a multi-generational family) and apparently this myth worked very well on your wife.
Honestly, I’d argue the opposite. My wife is a stay at home wife and a stay at home mom because it is her will to do so, but she exercises her will in defiance of overwhelming societal pressure to go out and get a career even though that isn’t what she wants to do with her life. If she’s talking to people she’s never going to meet again, she just lies or changes the subject when it comes up because it’s so uncomfortable hearing the judgmental “oh… you don’t work.”
Unfortunately, postmodern culture mistakes freedom to choose to do a thing with an obligation to do a thing, and the freedom not to do a thing with an obligation not to do a thing. The point of freedom should be that we each have the autonomy to follow our own chosen path willfully, rather than an obligation to follow whatever path has been prescribed for us. To switch one prescribed path for another isn’t freedom, it’s leading you out of one cage and into another.
I don’t think what I wrote and what your wrote is the opposite at all, in fact your first paragraph confirms exactly what I wrote in my last, no?
Given that you’re suggesting that society pushes for my wife’s choice, I don’t think so. If she felt pressure to be a stay at home mom we’d be saying the same thing, but instead she feels pressure to work.
You misunderstood ;) I said that the traditional idea of the stay at home mom in a nuclear family is being sold by society as giving more freedom to women (compared to for example a multi-generational family) and apparently this myth worked very well on your wife.
Ah, you’re dead wrong then. I guess it’s my fault for not elaborating, but that’s fine.
How so? You seem to continue trying to mix it up with (feminist) economic freedom ideas, which I never even mentioned nor implied.
It’s personal.