Friday, August 04, 2006

Oh. MY. Heck! The Feminists are going to be sooooo ticked!

Uh-Oh, feminists, the generation after feminism doesn't want to have it all, they don't want a career and family. They want their husband to support them. They think their mom worked too hard:

A new survey has revealed that a generation of young women are rejecting high-flying careers in favour of a life of ease and luxury. The so-called 'Easy Life Generation' have seen their mothers struggle with demanding jobs while trying to raise families and have no desire to follow in their footsteps.
[...]
I THINK it is true that my generation of women are much lazier than my mum's generation. She worked as a nurse when I was young, full-time, as well as bringing up four children. I don't know how she did it. My father worked long hours at Barclays Bank, so most of the childcare fell to my mother.

She was always trying to juggle everything - getting us ready for school before rushing out to work. She must have been permanently exhausted. Sometimes she'd take us to my aunt's before school if she had to work early, and we'd stay at friends' houses if she was working late.

I don't remember feeling deprived, but I vowed I'd never try to cram so much into my life. My mother's generation may have thought they "had it all", but it looked too much like hard work to me and they had no time for themselves.

If all feminism afforded my generation was the prospect of working ourselves to the bone and being expected to be mothers at the same time - well, Women's Lib was a waste of time.
From another woman:
The constant pressure and stress to make both sides of her life work made her look old before her time. She was skinny and short-tempered, because she never had time to eat and always felt she didn't have the time to do anything properly.
[...]
I don't want to miss a minute of my children's early years. I want to be a proper mother and to have a husband who can support me. Stuff feminism.

Here's another:
Mum is completely driven by work— - she works weekends and late into the night, and I grew up seeing how work dominated her life.

I decided I was not going to slave away like that. Already this year I have been on holiday to Thailand, New York, Canada, Amsterdam and snowboarding in Switzerland, and I haven't even had my summer holiday yet.
And another:
At times she seemed absolutely exhausted, although she always put on a brave face. Her generation may well have thought they were 'having it all', but it looked like too much to me.

My reaction to her experience is that when I have children, ideally in my early 30s, there is no way I will work full-time. I aim to be home-focused in my 30s and really enjoy the luxury of having time with my children and running a home, rather than trying to do everything.
Here's one more:
I SAW my mum determined to be part of the 'have it all' generation and I remember thinking: "There's no way I want to work that hard when I have children."
Go read the rest of the article, go read each of the girls stories you're not going to believe what they're saying!

I actually think this makes sense when you think about trends, the kids rebelling to the lifestyle of the parents. They see the mistakes that their moms made and don't want to repeat them. Plus it appears that they are pretty spoiled girls. One thing that jumps out at you is the self-centeredness of the women and their desire to have the easy life. They don't want to work as hard as their moms because they're "lazy" (that's their word for it). There seems to be a lot of self-centeredness coming out of the Daily Mirror this week (go here and here for more examples).