Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

In many of the contemporaries I’ve read, if the woman has a high-powered, high-stakes career, she usually sucks at it. Amanda of The Real Deal actually serves as a prototype for this sort of heroine: we’re told over and over that the woman is great at her job, but what we’re shown is that she’s incompetent, easily overruled by her twiddly bits and incapable of maintaining professional distance or even a semblance of business protocol, especially when she’s around the hero. Robin Nixon Uncapher actually wrote an amazing dissection of what a terrible executive Amanda is in Issue 192 of At The Back Fence.

From what I’ve observed, heroines who have nurturing careers (teacher, nurse) or creative careers (painter, writer) are much more likely to be allowed to retain their careers or career identities at little or no cost.

The one instance in which heroes are the ones to switch careers is when the hero is a secret agent or assassin. By the end of the book, he’s constrained by the white picket fence and domesticity too.

The idyllic rural setting is very much a fantasy for people. This happened even before cities became as big and industrialized as they have; the pastoral as a literary form was big even as far back as ancient Greece.

Hmmm, my captcha today is property69. SEX ON THE FARM!

Some of the early Krentz books had women in high powered positions who find love and keep the high powered position and thrive in it. And I know you’re not Norahollics, but some of her books also have women who are, if not in high-powered positions or careers at least doing pretty well in that area. HOMEPORT comes to mind: the heroine is an internationally renouned art historian or something like that.

I’m sorry to see that there’s a move away from that in romances, back to the women-as-natural-caretaker trope. Maybe that’s why I’m only readng older books these days.

Candy said:
The idyllic rural setting is very much a fantasy for people. This happened even before cities because as big and industrialized as they did....

How very true. And isn’t romance about escape?

I’m having trouble thinking of books where the h/h can work together in the board room, but I’m coming up with a few (lame) movie titles. Working Girl and maybe Two Weeks’ Notice. Hmm, interesting that a working relationsip it can be hinted at in movies.

Maybe that archetypal film image of the wife, wearing a flowing white cotton dress, standing next to a wicker rocking chair on the front porch of the farm house, gazing off into the fields is just too strong to shake.

I just realized I have no clue what happens to careers. I’m too wrapped up in the yippee-happily-ever secondary endorphins. (or the yippee-finally-finished-that-first-draft primary rush.)

AND now I’m going to have to keep track? damn. You guys keep making me think of stats when I’m reading my escapist happystuff.

smirking...ha...just remembered current smut has tacked on ending of HERO changing job to match HEROINE’S career goals. Ha.

But maybe romances are clinging to a fantasy that is dying out.  After all, aren’t the romance pubs trying to reach out and grab new, younger audiences and finding a difficult time doing so?  As a new mom myself, I am very cognizant of the SAHM v. WOHM choice itself, but I don’t think you even need to get to that point in a romance because you do not need the dreaded baby epilogue for a good romance. 

Finally, Holly Lisle?  Who the heck is she and why so much hate for the WOHM and the day care kids?  Resentful much?

okay, I give up, Jennifer. Where’s the Holly Lisle reference in all this?

All I know about her is that she’s a rabidly antifanfic person (got that from some Goldberg brother blog or another)

YESH!! It took me a while to figure out what these acronyms WOHM and SAHM are. Oh, wait. Maybe I’m wrong ... are these right?  ‘Stay At Home Mother’ and ‘Work Out of Home Mother’?

Um, sorry for wasting bandwidth here.

I agree with your assessment, Sarah, and it’s one of the reasons I read less contemporary Romance than historical.  I know people complain that historical Romance is too socially conservative, but I think it’s sometimes the opposite, and your comments account for one reason.  I often find the sexual politics in contemporary Romance to be profoundly conflicted, and not necessarily in an overt or self-conscious way.  Your entry here is one of the reasons I can’t read SEP.  Besides the “embrace the chaos” disaster of Breathing Room, for example, when the heroine of It Had to Be You “reclaimed” her “womanhood” by having sex with the hero, I totally lost it. 

My two favorite Romances of 2005 both feature women who have and keep their careers at the end—Blair in Howard’s To Die For, and Daphne in Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible.  And in both of these books, this characteristic was a BIG reason I loved them.  Blair, in TDF, started and owns a successful fitness center, and she is adamant with Wyatt that she will not give up her business, even if he is concerned about her physical safety doing all the gymnastics she does (and the fact that someone seems to want to kill her). 

I think this is also the reason I love Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books and Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series.  Sookie definitely has a more traditionally female job, but she’s become so powerfully independent as a woman that her job becomes ungendered to me.  Stephanie, on the other hand, may be a loss as a bounty hunter, but she also refuses to give in to the domestic life that Morelli wants for her. 

Is this trend also true for paranormals, or not?  How about Romantica? 

And man, now I think I might have to bake a pie.  But it’ll have to be after I make my homemade meatballs and sauce.  See, I bake to procrastinate from my career and relieve stress (one of the benefits/detriments of telecommuting).  I don’t even want to know what that means.

Oy, Stephanie Plum. I love Evanovich, but Plum wore out her welcome for me.

Is she improving as a bounty hunter? Does Ranger or Morelli still have to rescue her every damn time she does something unprofessional or stupid? Has she rescued either of them yet? (I did like the running gag of the destruction of her cars.)

Here’s me inserting foot in mouth, but I can only speak from my own experiences.  I think the reason you see more of the “traditional” settings in romance is that romance is read by more women who embrace more “traditional values” than women who do not.  It’s a matter of audience.

Judgemental? No, it’s merely my observation.  None of the women I know who are in the corporate world, professionals etc would be caught dead reading a romance novel.  Maybe it’s difference elsewhere.  I’m sure there are women in these situations who read romance, but I’m betting my last dollar fewer of them read romance than the other side of the spectrum.

becca said:

Some of the early Krentz books had women in high powered positions who find love and keep the high powered position and thrive in it.

Emphasis on the “some”, but, yes, absolutely, and that’s why I’m still trying to get her backlist, even though a couple have been horrific. I especially remember one, Gamemaster, in which the heroine is an accountant and the hero owns a videogame company.

IIRC, at one point, she’s auditing some firm and has to work until very late at night. She gets home and the hero’s waiting for her with dinner ready, and he tells her something like that some days he’d have to have dinner waiting for her, other days she’d have dinner waiting for him, and the rest of the time they’d make dinner together

And I know you’re not Norahollics, but some of her books also have women who are, if not in high-powered positions or careers at least doing pretty well in that area. HOMEPORT comes to mind: the heroine is an internationally renouned art historian or something like that.

Well, I am a Noraholic, and this is one of the things I like best about her books.

Holly Lisle has posted several comments on the blog article including one to “shut the fuck up, sweetie” since I didn’t know what I was talking about - despite the fact that her stance was clearly laid out in her original post.  My favorite thing is to see authors publicly insult readers.  It does alot for her readership.

Sharon, I completely agree with you that it is about audience.  But aren’t publishers trying to gain a new audience.  Is one of the reasons that they are failing to do so because the romances are lacking in stories that validate the potential reader’s choice?

Jennifer,

I’ve never maintained that publishers were poster children for intelligence.  But honestly, and again this is just my two cents based on personal observation, but in the cases of the women I know, it wouldn’t matter what was between the pages.  It’s the label “romance” and the fact they don’t feel they would be taken seriously if anyone knew they, GASP!, read one.

It’s taken years for the stereotype to become what it has when it comes to the romance genre, and it ain’t going to change overnight.

I am in a quandry - do I perpetuate the cat fight or leave it alone?  I feel that Ms. Lisle is just a prod away from totally going off?

*shrugs* Dunno, Sarah.  I have a sneaking suspicion, and hoo boy am I really sticking my foot in my mouth, but I suspect that some, not all women, are threatened or feel threatened by the competent, kick ass successful woman in the corporate world.  Like she’s super woman and since I am not her, I am shit.  lol.

Women like to read about women they relate to, and I’m guessing that romance readers don’t always relate well to the corporate chick.

But heck, what do I know.  I’m just a country hick from the sticks. :)

I think its a poor example of her writing if all she can come up with is shut the fuck up sweetie.

Ms. Lisle was pretty ballistic about the fanfic subject too. She might consider employing some calming techniques like deep breathing...she ought to try one of Monica’s too.  http://monicajackson.com/blog/2005/05/13/new-author-claming-visualization-aid/

I’ve got some baby bunny pictures that might be useful as relaxation aides...Wonder if I should send them to her.

Sharon, good point--that makes a lot of sense.

(I will now shut the fuck up.)

This just proves that this is still very much a hot-button topic for women, and one that many of my generation (Gen X) are still struggling with. 

For instance, I am not married - but am in a committed relationship, and unless something happens to change my mind, I will likely never have children.  My mother asked me, “But don’t you want any Little Wendys?” My response?  “You just answered your own question Ma!”

Now I’m sure some women would find my desire to not have children as unnatural or “freakish.” Like I’m not a real woman if I don’t squeeze out a couple of kids.  Or I’m not maternal (bullshit - I love kids.  I just don’t want any of my own!)

Personally I think women should make the choice(s) that are best for them & their families.  Whether that’s working or staying at home.

And as for some of the discussion over at RtB - well it’s amazing I’ve haven’t bitten my tongue off.  Who knew I was still capable of showing restraint?

The work-out-of-the-home Mom vs the-stay-at-home Mom argument seems pretty visceral.  Wow.

Most of the women I know simply don’t have that choice, so there’s nothing to argue about.  They have to work and their kids have to go to daycare if they want to pay the bills and eat.

But if given the opportunity I think they would love to quit their funky jobs and sit the hell down, play with their kids, write their books or whatever.  So often, I give them their fantasy in my books.

If there’s an argument, there’s a choice. IMO, folks would probably be better served by remembering the different stroke rules and being happy as hell that at least they have the choice to argue about. 

I think as far as Holly, some people have buttons and that may be one of hers.  I tend to off on clueless white women myself, but would only tell someone that they don’t know what the fuck they were talking about on my own blog. And take it and let their comments stand when they fire back at me.

I’m with Sharon on the reason why the traditional ending is there.  Especially if you add in the fact that “traditional” women often have more time for reading said books than “career” women.  Hence, they account for a larger market than the interested career women who would like to see the woman choose her high stakes career.  Furthermore, many of those women did make the choice to forgo their career for the motherhood/wife angel.  Thus, the romance speaks to them and validates their lifestyle.

Publishers are smart cookies.  They know this.  They know the fastest way to piss off that contingent would be to showcase a heroine who stays at her high stakes job and perhaps lets the marriage or children suffer as a (perceived) result.  My mother is an avid reader of romances.  She doesn’t have a college degree and firmly believes she made the right choice in being a stay at home mom.  Having benefitted from this, I’m inclinded to agree and note that my mother is smart.  However, she felt constantly condensended to by “career” women.  Who didn’t read romance.  Therefore, having heroines that she can identify with is a good thing.

Dawn brings up an excellent point:

My mother is an avid reader of romances.  She doesn’t have a college degree and firmly believes she made the right choice in being a stay at home mom.  Having benefitted from this, I’m inclinded to agree and note that my mother is smart.  However, she felt constantly condensended to by “career” women.  Who didn’t read romance.

And that’s the problem I have with this argument - the condescending.  Isn’t feminism all about women having the power to make their own choices?  Whether that be to stay at home or work outside the home?  If the woman makes the best choice for herself and her family, what’s the big yank?

Conversely, I might add I tend to get my hackles up with back-to-Earth-mother types sneer at career women and call them unnatural.  Drives me batty.

Oh and someone mentioned Krentz’s early books.  In case anyone doesn’t know - Krentz was an academic librarian at one time.  That can be a ruthless world to navigate - as many academic librarians publish and work towards tenure just like professors.

Okay, I’m not normally the stick your foot in your mouth type - I try to avoid such moments like the plague.  The plague.  But my gut level response to the question of why don’t more novels feature real careers is a trifle different:  they’re harder to write. 

In order to have your heroine be the CEO of a garment business, you have to know a heck of a lot about the garment business.  What does she do?  What kinds of papers does she sign?  What kinds of decisions does she reach?  Does she manage people or personalities?  Take a look at the background of writers, and I think you’ll see the answer.  Lots of authors haven’t BEEN in the business world. 

Anyway, that’s only my opinion.

On a side note, has anyone here read Ann Crittenden’s The Price of Motherhood? I don’t normally grab people by their lapels and shout “Thou Must Read This!”, but I make an exception this once.

Basically, women who choose to have children take a huge hit in terms of money lost over their entire lifetime- and not because of maternity leave. Employers systematically discriminate against parents because of the prevailing idea that the good employee is one the company can abuse into long hours and overwork (a la White Collar Sweatshop). This “mommy tax”, for a college-educated woman, reaches a million dollars. And it doesn’t stop there; that’s only lost salary from women being passed over for promotion because they have family duties, losing their jobs because of requests for maternity leave, etc. And yet Motherhood is as American as Apple Pie, isn’t it? The rosy-cheeked picture of Motherhood only started as women with children were systematically stripped of their status as economically viable entities. (Propaganda coup of the century, that one.)

Women’s contribution to the economy- particularly the contribution of stay-at-home moms, who actually produce high-quality economic capital in the form of children to eventually join the workforce and become productive citizens- has systematically been turned invisible. This happened when census takers started classifying stay-at-home moms as “dependents”, when in fact most of them from the 1800s to today still have cottage industries and other ways to bring in money or otherwise keep the household going. Mothers, especially stay-at-home mothers, provide a pool of free labor that basically props up the rest of the economy, and all they get are crappy Hallmark cards once a year.

It is a subtle form of economic abuse, and the vision of high-powered women who want to move to rural spaces and become cute little housewifeys in starched aprons is particularly damaging. You are damned if you have a career, and if you choose to have children you are systematically economically raped. (For example: what happens to all the salary “lost” by a woman who takes time off to raise her kids “like a good mommy should”? She can’t get decent Social Security because she wasn’t “working”. So she is FAR more likely to end up indigent.)

It may please everyone (everyone who doesn’t want to chuck a book at my head for spouting off, that is) to know that countries that subsidize motherhood found out something wacky: crime goes down, social productivity goes up, and the economy gets a big boost when motherhood is not economically invisible and penalized. (Denmark in particular is a good example.) Another wacky fact: when mothers are subsidized, the money given them goes to the children; when fathers are subsidized, the money gets spent on booze and cigarettes. No, I’m not being snarky and sexist; it’s bloody well true. Read the damn book.

Sorry about the lecture, but this is the sort of stuff that drives me to absolute rage: both the physical gang-rape and the economic rape of women just piss me the hell off over and over again…

They say write what you know, so I write about a CPA who likes sex and gets way pissed off at corporate crooks and terrorist financiers.

Lots of good points made here today.  I’ve got nothing to add, except personal experience - and that’s where we all come from on this subject, isn’t it?

I eventually gave up a full time, corporate job because I was putting in 60 hour weeks, my daughters started calling the nanny (named Lisa) Lisa-Mom, and the man who was my boss spent his time with treasurer duties for the Midland Shooters Club.  He worked barely 40 hours, made three times as much and the Big Dogs despised him.  But I was getting all the tax work done for a third of the pay and minimum bennies, so why would they fire him?  I complained, loudly, and was told that the situation was noted, that I could expect a change.  There was no change.  Not until I resigned and the work didn’t get done.  Then they fired him and hired another CPA as tax manager - a man, of course.

I still remember the day I left.  Sitting in my office, with my boxes packed, waiting on my husband to help me move out, one of the VPs came in - a colleague I had a long history with - and told me, “Things wouldn’t have turned out this way if you weren’t a woman.” Swear to God, that’s what he said.  HOW I wished I’d had a tape recorder.

So I came home with my girls, got rid of the nanny, and started my own CPA practice, out of my home.  I took an 80% pay cut, but I’ve grown the business over the years and not doing too bad now.  I’d love to sell enough books for enough money to retire from accounting - but that’s a distant dream.

Yeah, I’m sometimes called a radical feminist - but the label doesn’t mean a damn thing to me.  I consider myself a hard working, smart CPA who got screwed because I gave birth and don’t have a penis.

Jennifer, I’m sorry you got told to fuck off.

Stef, within 20 pages of finishing the Manuscript From Hell....

“I’m with Sharon on the reason why the traditional ending is there.  Especially if you add in the fact that “traditional” women often have more time for reading said books than “career” women.  Hence, they account for a larger market than the interested career women who would like to see the woman choose her high stakes career.  Furthermore, many of those women did make the choice to forgo their career for the motherhood/wife angel.  Thus, the romance speaks to them and validates their lifestyle.”

This is an interesting point and goes, IMO, to the social norm question of Romance.  I do have a career and don’t want to give it up, nor do I want children.  But I read a lot of Romance that has the traditional white picket fence ending.  If I dismissed this type of Romance I’d have very little to read, wouldn’t I?  And with each book, I judge it on its own merits.  For some heroines, I don’t even blink at the idea that they give up their jobs for home and family—I respect that as the heroine’s choice.  Some books, though, I want to throw against the wall because I feel they’re trying to “naturalize” such a choice—to make it seem that a woman is fulfilling her “biological destiny” or whatever, and that makes me mad. 

So maybe it comes down to why people read Romance, also.  I don’t think I’m reading to validate my lifestyle, since most Romance presents a very different message (i.e. traditional, give up job and raise babies lifestyle).  But I do want to respect the hero and heroine and the author, and for me, that comes down to not creating a heroine who’s inadequate if she doesn’t work or creating one who’s inadequate if she doesn’t stay home to reproduce.  For me, it’s the overall image of women, through individual characters, that I’m responding to when I read Romance.  Maybe I need it to be this way since the social norm in Romance is much more traditional.  I imagine it’s very much the same for women from different cultural and racial backgrounds who are inundated by the white anglo-saxon norm in Romance.

No maatter what, though, I do think there’s an incredible conflict in our society toward women and what constitutes the “feminine” and the “natural” role of women.  There are judgments on both sides of the issue, obviously.  It’s sad, IMO, because I think the real fantasy we need filled is that of a world that doesn’t judge us or prescribe the form of our fulfillment or the parameters of our sexuality (i.e., women who sleep with more than one man in Romance are “sluts").  Now give me that in a Romance, along with a totally hot hero, and I don’t care what the heroine chooses in the end!

*(i.e., women who sleep with more than one man in Romance are “sluts").  Now give me that in a Romance, along with a totally hot hero, and I don’t care what the heroine chooses in the end!*

Valid point, Robin, but I have to step in here and comment about sex in romances.  It was suggested I take a sex scene out of my August book because the guy the heroine slept with isn’t perceived as the hero.  That’s another guy in the story, who she also had sex with in this book.  The kicker is, it had nothing to do with any kind of statement about her purity, or lack thereof.  It was all about sexual tension.  Once she did the big nasty with this ‘other guy who could be the hero, but probably won’t be’ the tension between them went south.  Or so the editor said - and I’ve decided my editor is Genius Woman of The Twenty-First Century - and I took her advice and ditched the scene.

In the book I’m working on now, there’s still this tremendous sexual tension, and I want them to do it so bad, I can’t stand it - but I know if that happens, it will kill all the frustrating fun.  Thing is, how to handle their lack of nookie?  I’ve got the heroine deciding she can’t do that because the guy who is the hero wouldn’t like it - would most likely blow her off.  Alpha male and all that.  And as much as she lusts after not-the-hero, she’s way goofy over probably-the-hero.

So, it’s my theory that a lot of romance heroines don’t have more sex because it sometimes kills the anticpatory tension in the reader, which = bad.

Stef, back to the angsty, wish they could Do It characters

I’ll confess, Sarah: I’m the one reading all the secret baby books! Okay, not all, and I checked my keepers and I have maybe 3. I read them, I always call the heroine stupid, but I keep coming back.

I think a lot of the back to the small town books appeal because readers (who maybe don’t live in small towns) have this picture of the small town as being free of the evils of the large city: drugs, crime and poverty, when in reality these things have always been in small towns but no one has really noticed.  I’m aiming for a career and definitely don’t want to have kids, but I can see myself living in quiet semi-rural area and I can also see myself living in NYC. I definitely think there is an underrpresented middle ground.

Well, one more thing.  I write for Bombshell, which isn’t traditional romance, at all.  I suspect in a traditional romance, the heroine couldn’t even be lusting after another man besides the hero, could she?  But is that a reflection of the sometimes archaic rules of romance, or is it simply because the focus of romance is always on the relationship between the heroine and hero?

Hmm.  I can’t think of a romance, come to think of it, that has two men vying for the hero role.  Yes, Stephanie Plum, but those aren’t romances.

Maybe somebody should write a romance like that…

Stef

“So, it’s my theory that a lot of romance heroines don’t have more sex because it sometimes kills the anticpatory tension in the reader, which = bad.”

I’m sure you’re right, Stef.  I wasn’t very clear, but I actually was referring more to the heroines who have had a healthy sex life before the book starts (as opposed to the near virgins and virgins that still populate Romance).  I am thinking especially of a Susan Donovan book (Public Displays of Affection), where the heroine was blasted by some readers for having had anonymous roadside sex with the HERO of the book, before she knew he was the hero (although we do) on her way to accept a marriage proposal from her extremely sexually repressed and equally repressive boyfriend (who eventually becomes her dead husband, to whom she was faithful).  Ironically, Donovan bent over backwards in almost every other way to make this woman a saint (I always think of that line from The Birdcage where Robin Williams calls Nathan Lane’s character “practically a breast”!).  And what about these heroines who’ve never had an orgasm before the hero (even though they’re like 30 years old) or who have just had crappy sex lives until the hero (Shannon McKenna’s often guilty of this one)?  I’m thinking more along those lines when I refer to the ‘heroine slut’ label. 

RE: Kate’s question about Stephanie Plum, “Is she improving as a bounty hunter? Does Ranger or Morelli still have to rescue her every damn time she does something unprofessional or stupid? Has she rescued either of them yet? (I did like the running gag of the destruction of her cars.)”

Actually, my interest in the series has been revived with the latest book.  Stephanie leaves bounty hunting and ultimately takes a job with Ranger doing search work on the computer.  It seems like Evanovich is going in a different direction.  PLUS, she’s actually, IMO, turning Stephanie’s commitment phobia into an interesting way to flesh out both Ranger and Morelli.  Ranger’s shaping up to be a guy with whom Stephanie seems to have a more respect-based friendship (with a healthy dose of lust), while Joe clearly loves her (and lusts after her), but doesn’t seem to have a real strong friendship with her.  At first I just wanted her to marry Joe and have them both do private investigator work together, but now I’m second guessing that.  Now, with her 11th book, FINALLY Stephanie is getting introspective and things are MUCH more interesting, IMO.

Oh, okay.  I’m with you now.
And as for Steph, haven’t read one in a while, mostly because I’ve got a similar voice, and I don’t want to sound like an Evanovich wannabe.  I miss reading them however, because I think they’re funny.  Interesting about the last book.  When I’m not writing Pink books, I’ll go back and catch up with Joe and Ranger and Steph.  Is Grandma Mazur still around?

Stef

“Is Grandma Mazur still around?”

Oh, yeah, as is Lula and Vinnie and Stephanie’s mom and dad.  Some of these folks have definitely veered into one-note territory for me (especially Grandma Mazur and Lula), but if Evanovich keeps Stephanie in her current introspection phase for a while, there might be a ripple effect for the character deepening. 

I used to think that one of the series’ main weaknesses was the triangle of Morelli, Ranger, and Stephanie, because as soon as she resolved it, a whole cohort of readers would be upset.  And let’s face it; neither man was an ideal mate for Stephanie. But now I’m hoping that Evanovich has grown more comfortable with the set up and is allowing the relationships to actually evolve, even if that might alter some expectations and challenge comfort zones.  I had totally written Ranger off until this latest book, for example, and now I’ve put him back into the equation, largely because of the way Evanovich seems to be developing a more authentic respect and partnership between him and Stephanie.  I hope she keeps going in this direction and lets the fictional chips fall where they may in terms of which man (if either) comes out on top, so to speak.

Thanks Robin.  My curiosity is now thoroughly piqued.  Maybe I’ll skip the three (or is it four?) I’ve missed before the last one, and just pick this one up.

Since I’ve got a similar situation in my books, thanks for your insight about the triangle angle.  *snort* I have to say, it’s a lot harder than it looks.

Stef

I rarely read series contemporaries.  I think one of the reasons is the tendency of the heroine to give it all up to be with the hero in some small town.

But reading this discussion, I realized what really bothered me about this.  The heroine doesn’t start out aching for hubby, baby and white picket fence.  She is often a successful (and to be THAT successful at that early of an age is had to be extremely DRIVEN) woman who suddenly drops everything to change her life style.  I don’t buy it.

And it isn’t just romances, and it isn’t just females.  Remember that dreadful Harrison Ford movie, Regarding Henry?  He was a driven, asshole of a sucessful attorney who after being shot in the head (can we say prefrontal lobotomy?) he became this loving, caring guy.  I hated that fucking movie.

I can only really speak for myself.

I work full time, then I come home and work as a publisher. My daughter is in daycare eight to nine hours a day. I do my publishing work after she goes to bed, so she gets her Mommy time.

My goal is to make the pub so huge and profitable I can stay home full time. But these days, it’s damned hard if not impossible to be a stay-at-home Mom just for financial reasons.

You can love your kids and have a career. You just need to stop sleeping.  :cheese:

Wow, Other Stef.  You rock.

I’m not woooorthy....

Stef, who really hopes your pub is huge and profitable

From your lips to God’s ears, dahlink.

I guess I just thought it was that escapist thing.  It may not be “natural” to be overachiever, career gal, mommy and wife, but since don’t we defy nature? 

I find myself drawn to books where the characters have very small lives. I don’t think I would be happy that way, but when life gets so big and stressful, it’s kind of nice to imagine it’s possible for it to slow down and be insulated from all the hustle and bustle of the real world.

For some people it may be natural. I’m a mutlitasker, always have been. I don’t just watch TV, I watch TV, talk on the phone, read a book, etc. I feel weird if I’m not busy.

I work in day care/preschool, and have for twenty-some years. I see children who are very loved, happy, well behaved, socialized, all the time, and they are in daycare nine hrs a day, five days a week.

I see kids whose parents don’t have a clue--and I suspect that those parents wouldn’t have a clue if they stayed home all day, either. One aspect of my job is to kindly and discreetly try to help parents who have kids with an issue--and guess what--those parents love their kids, too, and usually the situations improve.

It is incredibly hard to raise a family on one income, especially in some parts of the country (like where I live.) There just aren’t that many great jobs with great benefits! So why not have an interesting career? How many women can really count on having the income to stay home for a decade? Why not make use of your talents and have a good job?

I did stay home with my kids--but I did a home daycare for seven years because we had to have the income. Trust me, that was work.

Perhaps many romance readers enjoy the small town, lighter responsibility roles of the heroines because their own lives are so fast paced as they juggled jobs, family and financial needs. It’s a fantasy.

Take heart, other Jennifer- I just posted something that will probably really piss Holly off. Along the lines of The Price of Motherhood post here, which will probably get lots of vicious “You don’t like SAHM’s!” commentary. Whee!

But it drives me crazy when nobody points out that you’re setting yourself up for a possible major financial hit to stay at home with the baby. And yet it doesn’t seem to be PC to ever mention that a SAHM might be left by her husband and have to start over, or her husband dies and she’d have to start over. So sue me if I don’t find someone offering to “take care of me” romantic. Maybe I’m just too practical.

My hubby played that...just sit back dear, I’ll take care of the bills…

That lasted about twelve seconds. I have access to all accounts, and I have a degree in computers. He wants to take care of me, fine. But I let him. I can take care of myself--and my daughter.