Dooce’s reaction to Linda Hirshman:
My reaction then, I guess, is that here is my middle finger and here is me waving it at Linda Hirshman. This IS my choice. It is mine. I want to be at home with my child, not because my husband said I had to want it, or because my mom said that I had to want it, or because I am blinded by society’s bias toward women and their role in the family. I had the option of going to work outside the home or staying at home with my kid and I made a choice. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything more fundamentally feminist than exercising that choice.
Then, for the first time, she opened up comments on her blog. 1357 people spoke up.
Apt. 11d 
I read a fair percentage of the Dooce deluge comments and was struck by one thing: almost everyone thinks they are right how they balanced work and kids.
Many, of course, complain that circumstances were far from ideal – material, promotion, and independence sacrifices for the SAHMs versus scrambling for daycare, guilt, being forced to out to earn because they was no option for the working mothers.
But I saw almost no mothers – from either side – who said “you know – I got it absolutely wrong.”
So my non-trivial point is that feminists like Hirshman should indeed take heed. The urge to self justify how we work it out will always drown out theoretical finger-wagging.
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It’s fascinating that Dooce, who works (and travels frequently for work) *and* has a developmentally disabled child thinks that Hirshman’s comments were directed to her.
Regardless, can’t she come up with anything more insightful than “I chose my choice!”?
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I think it is great to be a house wife too,
though sometimes I miss my husband who is a fulltime forklift operator and a on call fire fighter.
But I wonder about the housewives like me that are financially some what ok and re-married but have one or more children to a dead beat dad. I my self only have one but I find it frustrating sometimes that government agencies like Family Responsibilty office don’t do their job.
I mean if our husbands didn’t do their jobs they would get fired,but if the government doesn’t do their job they still collect a check and life keeps going.
Let me know what you think or anyone else that read’s this
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Hey, I tried to post before, but it went to an error page. I’ll try again. I love Dooce too. I started a fan site of sorts for discussing her writings. She is so funny. Come join the Doocecussion!
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