Most people don't have a "career". With that I assume that you want to become management or CEO. Everything else is just normal work. In that sense, exchanging motherly duties with meaningless work is not worth it.
I have a good friend who is an architect, which is neither CEO or management, who wants to be able to express her trade but has very mixed feelings about the need to also mother.
Even if retail or whatnot, having an identity outside of the home to give you self worth isn’t exactly unique to C-level execs. I think it’s quite patronizing to assume that’s the only route to self-actualization.
Perhaps I worded that wrong. When I said mixed feelings about the need to mother, I mean the pull where society says she must choose between career and mothering, and that it’s selfish for her to choose more time working. Yet this is of course never done for the husband who is assumed to by default be the one that can and should choose work over fathering.
The larger point being that 2 parents working to cover child care costs seems impractical from a viewpoint that looks at that net, but that would exclude the fact that many people define identity, societal productivity, fulfillment and even enjoyment from their jobs outside the home.
It’s also means that you can continue advancing in your career so that when you don’t need full time child care you’re in a stronger position. Many women who leave work for years to parent have a very hard time getting hired.
Being a teacher is a career. Being a doctor. Being a lawyer.
Going into management and other paper pushing is pointless work sure, but many careers are very valuable and build upon skills and experience in that job with profession in that job as much as you want.
