You won’t be shocked to hear that this recent Forbes article on young women burning out at work before the age of 30 caught my eye. I am a woman. I am burning out at work, and I am before the age of 30.
The piece is a good read on a very interesting topic, but I think it missed one big area of “why” that’s worth discussing whenever discussing women under the age of 30.
Here are the very valid reasons the article does attribute to this burn-out trend:
- Women have been working their tails off since high school to compete for the best colleges and best jobs
- Many Millennial women have Type-A personalities (which is tied to the first reason).
- Women are more inclined to view life as a “sprint” versus a “marathon.” (note: the article doesn’t delve into why, but I assume this is some a-woman’s-brain-just-works-that-way situation, or perhaps the reason this article left out, which I discuss below)
- Women have unrealistic expectations about the early years of employment, namely that they won’t be so brutal.
Some of these reasons focuses on the fact that women are frustrated that they have to do so much. They’re not burning out because they’re overworked and putting excessive pressure on themselves, they’re burned out because they didn’t expect the work to be so hard. That’s fine and valid, but it’s not the area of this issue that interests me. I want to talk about why women put such excessive pressure on themselves to succeed from 2-0 to 3-0 in the first place. It’s here that I think the article misses a giant point. Don’t kill me for saying this, but what about:
- Women are rushing to achieve success before they transition into being mothers
If someone had interviewed me for this article that’s exactly the rationale I would have given.
I am extremely driven to succeed and have been since I first joined the work force for two reasons 1. because my career is wildly important to me, and I want to succeed for my own, personal fulfillment and 2. because at a certain point I intend to transition out of being so career-focused and into being more family-focused. I’ve know this for many years, and I think about it constantly as I plan my next career moves.
Maybe that makes me oddly traditional for a Millennial woman? Maybe it makes me too cynical about the fact that today’s women can “have it all”? I don’t know what it makes me, I just know that it’s how I feel and therefore very much a part of how I engage with the work place.
As I type this, I wonder if my confession will get a lot of backlash from people who find my position archaic and anti-feminist. Is the idea that I’m compelled to ascend to a certain level of success before I start a family too narrow? too vintage? too much? I honestly don’t know, nor do I know if it’s the right way to approach my career and my life. I just know it’s a source of motivation and a very real truth.
So all I’m saying is that if you’re going to write an article about how women under thirty view their role in the work place, especially one that discusses why they’re overwhelmed, you can’t ignore the idea that around the age of 30 women think very seriously about adding a second career to their lives. If I’m thinking about it, others are too.
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I would agree with all those reasons, and add another – women are conditioned to feel like their life ends at 30. Youth is so valued for women in our society, that it feels like you are supposed to accomplish everything before you turn 30, or you’ve failed. At 30, you’re too old to marry, too old to have kids (at least will be in a couple years), too old to be the rising star at work, and therefore too old to set the basis for a top notch career. Meanwhile, men at 30 are just considered to be coming into their prime. This sense that women have that life ends at 30 drives us to cram an entire lifetime’s worth of achievements into the maybe 7-8 years after college.
Jessie! Don’t sell yourself short! Did you see this article from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yashar-hedayat/a-message-to-women-from-a_1_b_958859.html
You spend most of this post apologizing to people who MAY find your position “archaic and anti-feminist.”
Don’t apologize for your (insightful, well-thought) opinion. And why is it “anti-feminist” to know some day you will want to have children? I think the only thing these days that is “anti-feminist” is taking away a woman’s right to decide her own future.
Love your blog – read it regularly. As a 20-nothing female myself, I find I agree with a lot of what you write. And thanks for your thought provoking topics!
I couldn’t agree more. I feel exactly the same way- I am driven to succeed in my current career because I know it has an expiration date. I feel like I’m running against my biological clock to achieve success. I want my main career to be my children when I make the choice to have them. I’ve always enjoyed working and probably always will, but I don’t think it’s ‘anti-feminist’ to want to be a mother. To me, the main part of feminism is to allow women to make choices and to be able to succeed with whatever path the choice leads them down, whether or not that choice is to lead a boardroom or a playroom.
I also think it has to do with the ‘woman who has it all’ and the pressure to be able to keep a house, raise a child, have a successful career while staying in shape, dressing fashionably and not having a nervous breakdown in the meantime. Society, Hollywood, our own brains, whoever puts these ideas into our heads is not helping young women like us not feel burnt-out and pushes us to achieve that level we think we deserve to hit.
I have similar thoughts on this but with a bit of a twist. I am currently 28, almost 29, and rising quickly in my career (currently up for an international position in the next few weeks). I am feeling a little burned out but honestly I LOVE it.
I have always planned on keeping my pace even after I have kids but since I got married 2 years ago things have stared to shift. However, it has not shifted in MY thinking but in the assumptions of my male boss and co-workers. When lobbying for this international position (which I actually created) one of the first questions I was asked was “what will your husband think, and what about having kids?” Had I been a man, this would not have even been a question because it would be assumed the wife and kids would be fine and tag along. I know this for a fact because I was a kid that was dragged overseas when I was 13 with a dad in the business and have seen MANY of my male friends sent over the same way and the company could care less what the wife thinks or if the man plans on having more kids.
I feel like I have to work extra hard to succeed by thirty not because I personally plan on shifting focus from career to family when I have children but because my male dominated industry (oil and gas) assumes I will shift and therefore judges me accordingly. I don’t write this to be condescending (sp?) of my industry or bitter in any way, it is just a simple reality I deal with on a daily basis and I will bust my butt to reach certain levels early.
I LOVE your blog and thanks for listening to my two cents.
@Liz, @Lisbeth and @both Anonymous’s AMAZING comments, AMAZING points. Thanks for taking so much time to respond.
I couldn’t agree more. I look at successful women in my vertical (Technology) and they all say the same thing “I do not have any regrets, but if I could do things differently, I would”. I am 27, the youngest on my team by 11 yrs. and have no intention of slowing down. I have told my boss that I have the next 3-5yrs to throw at my career. The 70-90 hour work weeks are fine, b/c I want to be comfortable to be on cruise control when I am ready to shift my energy to family. I don’t do anything half-heartedly. Whether its my career, or my family, I am going to kick butt no matter what.
I agree with all the comments, mainly we do feel like we “expire” at 30. And we want to be able to have kids and do it right. We know that you can’t work 60 hrs a week and have a successful family life. So we take one thing at a time, and conquer.
Totally agree and don’t see it as anti-feminist at all. Why should we apologize for wanting something for ourselves before we give all of ourselves to our offspring? It will make us better mothers and better people to have achieved so highly!
No mention of a loving husband, or even marriage.. Hate me, I’m just a man.
Her sex drive kicks into overdrive near 30, the clock starts ticking faster, then she wants kids, goes out and picks the first bad boy she sees, rumble, tumble, and pretty soon she’s single and living on the government dole, child support, or alimony as some women can’t or won’t, or don’t have to juggle both job and kids. Let alone a marriage which is more important than her or the kids if she wants a decent future for them. Today’s women are often just simply lost in themselves, living the “me” life that feminist entitlement has given them.
I tell this to every person I recommend your blog to, so I feel like I should tell you: I really feel that you are the voice of our generation. I feel the exact same way about future pregnancies and possibly wanting to stay home with my kids weighing at the back of my mind with each life decision I make. My boyfriend and I have discussed it, and he is just as likely to stay home with them as I am, but that doesn’t sway the ticking career clock in my head that tells me I need to be successful enough by the time that I have kids that I won’t have to start from the bottom whenever I decide to go back.
And Anonymous, I have no words for you, but I felt like I should pass along the glare that I just gave the computer.
I am wondering who sold people on the “make your career in your 20s through hard work and sacrifice” and then focus on a family and coast professionally. It doesn’t really work that way. There are always younger, quicker competition due to the nature of the market place. The real challenge past 30 is keeping a job in the corporate ranks.
Dude. Can I call you dude? I’m a new reader, and think you’re pretty damn excellent, therefore I want to call you dude. So, before I even read the article or got through 1/2 of the first bullet points I caught myself thinking “Um obviously, its because women know they want kids and want to ‘have something to show’ for what they did in their 20’s” Then I gasped, still in my head, and said “SH!! That’s wrong…you don’t feel that way.” Then after reading the article and the rest of the post, I was relieved that you said that. I’m 23, and take great pride in the fact that I’m a Millenial woman trying to make moves (big moves even) in the career realm. Thanks for putting it out there. I don’t think that we, as a culture, can cut the ties from the past and even though our mother’s may have raised us to work hard and be independent at least for awhile, doesn’t mean that we can just switch our brains off from the prior generation’s influence and infiltration in the media etc….very interesting to think of how our girl’s will think in 20+ years from now. Keep up the good thoughts.
DING DING DING! We have a winner! Young women are being drained. For all its triumphs Womens’ Liberation doubled the power of our patriarchy. 100 years ago women didn’t have to work, they didn’t pay taxes, and the economy was approaching a golden-age. Yet today Women, Men, hell even Teenagers work but the economy is bad? Women don’t get their own treasury to spend their tax-dollars on the interests, health, and infrastructure they need. NOPE their labor, resources, debt-interest, and tax-dollars get funneled into business as usual giving all their hard work to the patriarchy… How easily us citizens are duped…