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Saturday, August 11, 2007

"On every level, I'm very resentful... Not of my husband, but of other women who don’t work, or who have a stay-at-home husband."

I can just feel the waves of sympathy rolling in for this woman. She's Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University:
She calls her marriage a good one. She also has the benefit of a once-a-week housecleaner and had live-in help while the couple’s two children were growing up. She did not pursue a tenure track because she wanted to be more available for her children while they were growing up.
Oh, don't you just know the linked-to article is a lifestyles piece in the NYT? Where do they find these people? Bitching at the next table over in the restaurant? You had a good marriage and servants, and you decided you didn't want put in the work to go for tenure. And now what you want to say to the world is that you resent other women?! You made a choice and now you have some regrets. Life could have been different, but it would have to be a hell of a lot worse than that to justify publicizing your resentment, and even then, it wouldn't make sense to blame other women.
“Men lock the door and leave. Things could be a wreck or whatever and it doesn’t affect their other world,” [said NY lawyer Dawn Santana]. “I walk out and worry about the house looking nice, because the kids have play dates, etc. Someone has to worry about that, and it’s usually not the dad.”
You know, someone doesn't have to worry about that. Maybe instead of criticizing the dad for concentrating on work when he's at work, you could learn a little something about compartmentalizing and focusing on what matters. He's right to put a low priority on whether the house looks "nice" when children are coming over to play. Why act like he's the one with the problem? Going into his "other world" -- it's not like he's daydreaming. He's working! It's called work! Try it! Take it seriously.

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