"A lawyer, which firm do you work for?" I asked the woman seated next to me at a Valentine's Day dinner last evening at the beautiful old Palliser Hotel last evening. "Oh, I have never worked, I am a stay-at-home mum," this 40-ish woman replied. "So, you're not really a lawyer," I added. She didn't have a reply, just looked embarrassed.
What a waste.....of a lot of things. The seat she took up in law school for nothing, the money someone else forked out for her degree.........you name it, she wasted it.
Why do women do this? Why do they get degrees and do nothing with them? We worked so hard in the sixties for our right to be whatever we wanted in the workplace, only to have some women in the next generation reject it all and become "their mothers". Don't get me wrong, I adored my mother, but she wasn't given the advantages she insisted I have. She and her ilk had to quit their jobs and stay at home when they married. That was their lot, period, the end. It was akin to saying all men must be truck drivers........or whatever. All women had to have the same job: stay-at-home wives and mothers.
I would not stand for it and yet a whole generation of privileged younger women have decided to toss their degrees into the trash and hang around the kitchen and school yard. I just don't get it. The woman I talked to last evening was full of regret. Her kids were off to university and she was in the process of.......doing......nothing. Her husband treated her like an appendage in service, while he jetted around the world doing "oil stuff", not to mention other women. Sadly, society accords her no respect because -- unlike my mother's generation -- she had choices and chose to drop out. Is it laziness? Is it because her husband made a ton of money? Don't tell me you're "a lawyer" when you have chosen to sit on the sofa and hit the gym for the past 20 years.
Listen girls, don't betray us. We are the women who worked so, so hard so you could have careers. But if you do opt to be a stay-at-home whatever, don't bother getting a degree. For those of you who do get a degree, I urge you to stay in the workplace, make your own money, have the benefit of making your own choices. Never depend upon a man to keep you. It's degrading.
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When my mother was 46 yrs young in 1946 her husband was suddenly killed in a car accident - following 4 surgeries. In 1949 Drummond Birk came to St. Catharines and took Mom out for dinner and asked her if she would be interested in studying gemology !!!
ReplyDeleteTo make a long story short - he sent her to Tiffany's in New York for 6 months - she flew home every two weeks. He built Birks and she was the manager and gemologist. Besides that she rented out my fathers medical office and brought up three children. So what is this about the poor older generation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!