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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 2011)
J * U l voices* SEPTEMBER 2, 2011 W hile pregnant with my first child, a gen tleman asked what I planned to do after my <baby was born. At the time, I was certain I’d return to work as a restaurant manager fol lowing the perfunctory three-month mater nity leave allowed by my employer. “W ho will take care of your baby?” the man asked. I had yet to discern the question. As it turned out, I didn’t return to my lull- time job, instead negotiating a three-filths po sition. W hen the second hahy came along, my husband and I decided it was more cost-effec tive for me to stay home— and it was best for our children and family. Although it wasn’t a capricious decision, I couldn’t understand its impact on my future. I was choosing a path that would ultimately limit my lifetime earning ability and would devalue me as a woman, a partner and a contributing member of society. It is estimated that a college-educated wom an will lose more than a million dollars in in come over her lifetime, simply by having a child. Women who choose to “opt out” of their careers will, in most cases, not fully opt back in and won’t recoup the loss of benefits, pension and career status they’d have enjoyed had they not focused on motherhood. Women still make •^ 5 percent less than men at the same education level, and a recent study by The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Work force shows that women need a Ph.D. to earn the same as men who hold a bachelor’s. We are already behind, even before making the deci sion to give up our careers, even temporarily. WWW.JUSTOUT.COM A P re gn an t P a u se The ye a rs I spent taking care of our at this point I should be earning an income comparable to his— but without an education, fam ily were of no financial value, and and a resume marked by what amounts to some I have been forced over and over part-time work and a whole bunch o f volunteer again to not only justify those sa c ri experience, that hasn’t been possible. It still isn’t. My ex has since remarried, to a childless fice s but also w hy I’m not in a better woman with a career. He once told me how financial position today. nice it was to be with someone who actually During an employment review a few months contributes. His comment was more than just after returning to work, my supervisor said, caustic; the years I spent taking care of our “If you didn’t have that baby attached to your family were o f no financial value, and I have apron strings, you would go very far in your been forced over and over again to not only career.” I’ll never know. I gave up the oppor justify those sacrifices but also why I’m not in a tunities that would have come along to stay better financial position today. I t’s humiliating, home with babies and round-the-clock cry it sucks and it isn’t fair. ing, diapers, feedings, laundry, errands and Kristine Seguin agrees. She is a twice-di housework. It seemed a noble, rewarding and vorced mother o f three who gave up her ca fulfilling choice. My husband built his career reer for years to be an at-home wife and and took care of us financially, while I took mother. She’s now reentered the workforce care o f us in every other way. but is filled with constant turmoil, sharing, W hen we divorced, the division of assets “W h at’s frustrating is the guilt that I carry awarded me spousal and state-ordered child and the m onth-to-m onth fear. It is heart support based on our respective incomes. Now, stopping, breath-robbing fear that this will be seven years later, I’m forced back into court for a the month I can’t do it.” third time because my former husband feels the Wendy Malone was pre-med when she de child support amount is unfair. He believes that cided to stay home with her kids. She can’t imagine that time better spent, but following a divorce, she’s back to square one. “I completely fucked myself by spending those 10 years rely ing on someone else’s income,” she says. “W hen we separated I was left with, and given, nothing and [have] no skills to properly support us.” It’s a common theme among divorced women with children. Now when I hear o f a friend having a baby, I cringe inside a bit. My hope is that she will do everything possible to ensure her finan cial independence. The system in place doesn’t protect women and children— it still benefits men, and a woman’s even fastidious contributions in the home don’t count for much o f anything. W hen my own daughters decide to have children, I will caution them against staying at home. This saddens me because I know that raising them myself was the right thing to do, it just came at a very high price: my own worth, self-esteem, and an uncertain future. Malone isn’t quite as cynical, and she wants her daughters to follow their hearts. She knows she will get herself back on track even tually. “I can always go back to school and make more money,” she says, “but I can’t get back the years that I ’d have lost when my kids were babies.” ! • ] is a freelance writer, blogger and columnist. 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