deconstruct this

NY Times ran an(other) article about women working outside the home -- this time it was women who made, like, half-a-million dollars a year, and then opted out of the workforce in the early 2000s to be home full-time with children and now are finding it difficult (or -- mildly challenging? or -- slightly uncomfortable?) to get back in.

To the workforce.

At the money they had before, after a 10 to 12-year gap.

I donnow about allthat.
Some of these articles are kind of worthless. ...

And what they tend to leave out is --
~~ there are some people (some of them women) who are always going to be complaining about something; and
~~ the "you have to have TWO INCOMES to raise a family!!!" fallacy:  ok, let's get this straight, two incomes of $40,000 per year each, are great because it's TWO incomes, and that's somehow better than one income of $200,000 a year.  That's bad because it's only ONE income. ... +
~~ the "follow the herd" mentality -- if other women are working outside the home, I have to, too! -- if other women are opting-out of the workforce, then me too!

people should think for themselves

Steve from San Diego Comments-In:
She gave up a quarter of her income to spend three extra days with her kids?  How about she took three days with her kids and only gave up 1/4 of her income?  What exactly are Americans chasing?  A good example is the Romney Family.  He's already earned enough money for 20 lifetimes for him and his family; yet, he still cuts corners on retirement schemes and offshore tax havens.  He is still putting Americans out of work to move jobs to China to gain an extra x% marginal profit.

For what?  A higher number?  Deconstruct this and that is the essence of the American Dream:  a higher number.  More square footage, more clothes, more expensive car, more exclusive clubs, more expensive scotch (OK, some do make sense).  In exchange we give up time with our kids, we give up seeing real trees, real rocks, real air in exchange for pseudo adventure in paper maché amusement parks with vanilla-scented mechanical breezes and artfully designed human cattle queues.

Everyone is racing around in search of numbers and we ignore the biggest, most important number of all:  the number of days of life each of us has and it is a determinant number -- no matter how many health drinks, exercise crazes and vitamins we consume.  That's the number we all are really chasing, like it or not, and that's the number one should consider when deciding one's priorities.  The rest of the numbers in our lives are just so much counting about nothing.

Live!

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