Don't Marry Me

After reading an article published in Forbes a few days back I was left with my mouth hanging wide open. The basic point of the story was: MEN – DON’T MARRY A CAREER GIRL. The basic point to me was: You’ll never get married.

When mentioning this article (before showing it) to a few male friends they started in with the question of, “are you considered a career woman?” According to the article a ‘career woman’ isn’t the “girl who’s pushing buttons on a cash register,” no she’s the one who’s working more than 35 hours a week, has an income of over $30,000 and a college degree or higher. So I guess I make the cut.

This man who wrote the article leaves me with a few assumptions about his personal life. If he’s married, he’s either got a wife at home barefoot and pregnant or he is unhappily married to a career woman. OR he’s not married because he holds the “don’t marry a career woman belief.” I'm going with the unhappily married man to a career woman who's on the brink of divore because he can't handle sharing domestic and fiscal responsiblity.

Even though Mr. Noer backs up his article with research that hails from credible sources (i.e. major journals) I am still skeptical about such a bold statement. Maybe it’s because I grew-up with a career mom who sent me off to day-care and had to juggle between work and family time. Granted my father is a farmer and was around home but let’s face it, the man couldn’t do the laundry, dishes or anything domestic for that matter. (I was proud that he learned how do use the oven when I was in H.S.) With both parents working I think that they were more understanding of each other and felt good that both could contribute financially.

What I’m trying to get across is that a marriage is what you make it. Obviously if people want to have a career and don’t care about family or relationships, then they shouldn’t bother getting married. But if you want a career and the family thing, you set priorities. It can be done and there are millions of successful and happily married people out there to prove it.

So if you want to think like Mr. Noer out there go ahead, I’m not going to stop you. Just don’t bother calling over 50% of the single women out there….. and that includes me.