Coffee Break: Butterglow Hydrating Lip Balm
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I've recently rediscovered this incredibly hydrating lipstick from Lancôme in my travel bag, and I'm loving it. It goes on like a thick gloss, but isn't sticky at all — but the color payoff is all lipstick. I find that I don't need a mirror to apply it, but it helps!
The lipstick is $32 at Sephora and other stores. Lip Idôle Squalane-12 Butterglow™ Hydrating Lip Balm
Sales of note for 7/19:
- Nordstrom – The Anniversary Sale has started! Here's our big roundup of the best workwear, as well as everything we've selected thus far.
- Ann Taylor – Semi-annual sale, 60% off sale and 40% off everything — readers love this blouse and I always love the variety of colors/textures for this jacket (it's a great separate)
- Banana Republic – Summer sale up to 60% off sale styles + extra 20% off
- The Fold – Up to 50% off, further markdowns
- J.Crew – 50% off select cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – 60% off clearance
- Lo & Sons – Summer sale, up to 50% off
- Lululemon – Summer sale!
- Me & Em – Sale! Up to 60% off (new lines just added)
- M.M.LaFleur – 25% off jardigans (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clear the rack, extra 25% off clearance! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work dresses from Calvin Klein, Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Talbots – Red Door Sale! Prices start at $15
- Theory – End of season sale is on!
Anyone up for a little vent/get off my chest thread? I’m getting kind of tired of a friend who is taking on a bit of a martyr role with her job, which is in a tough field (similar to social work). I feel like I’ve been sympathetic and understanding for literally a decade now, but it’s getting old to mention any problem in my life and have her come back with “sorry I’m busy handling [graphic situation that clearly trumps any problem I’m having].” She does this allllllll the time and basically acts like anyone else’s life challenges (even if it’s like, cancer and severe pregnancy complications) are child’s play compared to what she does. I know it’s not just me because two other friends shared a similar complaint with me. Wanted to get it off my chest.
Oof, that’s a hard one, OP.
I’m a little frustrated with my lovely husband. He’s on the board of an organization and has been trying to drag it into the 21st century for several years and I feel like at this point he’s just banging his head against the wall because paid staff just doesn’t share his vision and replacing them isn’t in the cards. I’m staying out of it, but it’s tough to watch
I have a couple career martyr friends, too, and it is very annoying. The worst is someone who is capable of making good money complaining about the things that come with choosing not to make good money (or capable of having better working conditions but staying somewhere toxic). You have the option to do something different! Go do something different!
I also have a career martyr friend – she is constantly saying that she can’t attend things because of how important her work is and how “it must be nice,” that I can do things like occasionally go on vacation or get lunch with a friend during the week. The thing that drives me nuts is that her job is… pretty low stakes. She could definitely take vacations, etc. or at least stop insulting my job/implying that it isn’t important in the process.
I just want to say how much I hate the ‘must be nice’ slights. I have a family member that uses that type of language and it drives me up the wall!
OP here and it really bugs me too – clearly, lol.
Ugh my mom is like this and it drives me insane. She was a teacher and whenever I say anything about my job (as a lawyer) she compares it to how much harder being a teacher was for her and how it must be nice I make more money and can use the bathroom mostly whenever I want (though I don’t get the summer off!). I agree being a teacher is hard and they are underpaid–that is why I didn’t want to be one!
It’s gross.
I’m the opposite, people don’t understand that I just can’t take off or leave without prior planning. And that drives me insane. Yes it matters that I am physically in my office during the timeframe you want to get lunch or run errands. My job is not flexible.
But you can have a job like this without snide comments like “must be nice.” Your job isn’t more important than someone else’s more flexible job.
Right. You picked this job. You could’ve picked a different one.
My rant is that I hate the beach, my husband and teens love the beach, and they are genuinely appalled that I proposed working next year when we go. I’ll have breakfast with them, work 9-5 and then meet up for dinner/mini golf/ice cream/whatever at night. I am happy to spend the $$ on a rental house so they can enjoy it, but there is genuinely no way to make me LIKE the beach, only ways to make it more tolerable (trust me when I say we have optimized for it to be as enjoyable as possible, and I still don’t enjoy it).
I like your plan and think it will go well and they’ll get over it!
I love floating in the water and my spouse is bored to tears by it. My spouse prefers grueling dune hikes that make my legs cramp up just to think about. Every year I propose we do our own thing during the day and meet back up for dinner. Every year, he is horrified that I don’t want to spend every waking minute of our vacation in each other’s company doing something the other person dreads.
I literally raised this as a concern in therapy together. My husband is an active and outdoorsy person. I am an indoor cat who is awful at ball sports/hates running and swimming. He cannot accept that I do not want to do a mini-triathalon on vacation and he would hate a day of aerial yoga/pilates, coffee shops, art museums, and shopping. Why can’t we both just separate and do our own things?!?
Spoiler – we do, and he pouts and gets over it once he makes other sporty friends. Basically it’s the Jersey Shore episode of Tina Fey’s Four Season’s show. I need to find another couple with this dynamic so the sportsball driven folks can go wear each other out.
I volunteer my husband to join yours and wear each other out. Your choice whether we meet up for coffee mid-morning or just enjoy the peace and quiet all to ourselves.
I’d be appalled too – like, the point of vacation is everyone having fun together. Can DH and teens do a long weekend at the beach by themselves, and then your big family trip be somewhere YOU enjoy??
I know you mean this kindly, but ‘everyone having fun together’ on a family vacation is just not in the cards for many of us for many reasons. I have difficult inlaws (not MAGA, not awful, but we’re very different people). My kids adore their cousins and my SIL/BIL/inlaws are loving, warm people. I am happy to do a big family trip once per year, with separate accomodations, to let my kids deepen their relationships with that side of the family, but I am never going to be ‘enjoying’ that trip per se.
Sorry if I misunderstood, but this sounded like a nuclear family trip to me based on how the OP wrote the post. (If it’s a “being a good sport for the sake of an extended family huge house rental” thing…. oh yeah. I would actually ask my coworkers to invent emergencies so I could get a break from everything!)
OP here, to clarify this beach is in my husband’s home state so even if family doesn’t stay with us the entire time they will come for at least 2-3 nights AND there are inevitably family friends that pop in. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful as it’s a gorgeous spot, but their family could stay there the entire summer while I am itching to get off island after 3 nights max.
There isn’t always an activity or destination that everyone in a family is going to enjoy, but it’s okay!
I agree with this and will add that it only becomes NOT ok if the destination/activity that one person deeply hates is the one that becomes sancrosanct every year.
My idea of a dream vacation is basically not talking to anyone – not even my spouse – for a week. Let me putter around with my hobbies, lounge on the beach, curl up with a book, and retrieve delivery food from the porch after the driver leaves. Heck, I’d consider a silent week spent churning through household chores by myself a satisfying time.
I love my spouse dearly, but I find lots of solo time much more refreshing than doing all the “fun” things together.
A few times a year, when my spouse is out of town for work, I will try to take at least 2-3 days off as a staycation. Ostensibly this is so I can be sure to be available in case of child care emergencies, but it’s really so I can do random house projects or lounge around all day with the house to myself. And I say this as someone who could 100% do this while my husband is in town but some reason it’s more fun when he isn’t!
I haven’t done this and don’t know anything about it. But I’m dropping this link anyway
https://www.instagram.com/wildreadretreat?igsh=bGp1bmdvMmtxd29v
Same! The most restorative vacation I ever had involved reading 10 books in 7 days and talking to almost no one for the entire time.
I think this is a little harsh. We’ve done versions of what the previous poster is suggesting and it’s worked out well. I think it’s worth a shot at least – if they really hate it, they don’t have to repeat it, but I’d be frustrated if my husband and kids wanted to do something I wasn’t into and wouldn’t even consider giving a set-up like this a shot. It’s a bit privileged to assume they have the budget for nice beach house for the week *and* a separate family vacation, and I say that as someone who has a really big travel budget.
Solidarity, I also hate the beach.
Ugh – I have a friend like this as well. The only thing that is she dislikes more than not currently doing a certain activity, is doing the activity.
Somewhat similar, I have a colleague on a small team who is *the most oppressed:* no one has ever been as oppressed as she is by the many and varied routine annoyances and burdens of our perfectly run-of-the-mill company, which would surely collapse immediately if she were to quit. She is the most underpaid (no), she is the most overworked (no), she is the smartest and everyone else is the stupidest (no). Every single day is a constant refrain of “I hate this place,” “no one appreciates me,” “I do everything so far above my level” but also “I’m not being given opportunities to grow and I refuse to take on such and such task above my level without more money or a promotion.” She believes that every change in our department must be evaluated based on how it affects or reflects on her, personally, and only on that basis. It’s just really draining.
Sounds like my ex. He was exhausting. He is on position number four since we divorced, and amazingly, all of his work places have the same problems. According to him.
Don’t know why I can’t shake this – I had a friend come over yesterday and she was SO upset/appalled that my kitchen was a mess. There were some dishes in the sink and on the counters, definitely a mess but it’s definitely been worse after a holiday dinner. She had to spend exactly 2.0 seconds walking through said kitchen. Why are people like this?
Oh, I already responded but I have another to add – at my toddler’s swim lesson yesterday, someone came up to me and said she was concerned that my toddler tried to jump into the pool (as part of the structured jumping portion of the lesson where they jump from the edge into the parent’s arms) from too far back on the concrete. She was worried for his safety. Apparently she was watching closely enough to be concerned but not closely enough to see or hear my repeated (10-20x) arm gestures and constant verbal instruction to him to step all the way to the edge, just like I do every week.
If you’re doing 10-20x and every week as you say and he’s still not doing things safely, maybe the stranger has a point though.
That’s a way different comment than someone sharing job woes you don’t want to hear.
Y’all are so bad at vent threads hahaha
Always without fail 😂😂😂 My favorite is still “I didn’t say I wouldn’t judge in the *no judgement zone*!
Wait, toddlers don’t listen? Film at 11.
I love my best friend. She has been through some $hit the last few years. She is also someone who is constantly giving to others before taking care of herself. She is burned out at work. She is upset because she feels like no one checks in on her while she has always checked in on everyone else.
WELP, I have been making sure to check in on her regularly! She does not respond half the time. Like okay, sure, I get you’re tired but you can’t have it both ways! Just a thanks for checking-in – I’m beat and going to go rest would be a completely sufficient answer!
I won’t stop checking-in, but LE SIGH.
Posting again for a daily driver blouse to wear under blazers and jackets. There used to be the Boden Ravello top. What is that, but for 2026?
This worked great for me for a recent conference: https://www.macys.com/shop/product/calvin-klein-womens-printed-sleeveless-pleat-neck-camisole-top?ID=25940915#BRAND/Calvin%20Klein
You might try Antonio Melani at Dillards. I like their shirts and blouses.
Ann Taylor mixed media blouse has been my go-to
I wear this almost every week and always take it on travel with me. https://tnuck.com/products/blue-and-white-stripe-teagan-popover-top-1
Look up Quince washable silk tees.
I’m going to be in Milan for a few days and I recently had a milestone I’d like to celebrate. I know Milan is known for its leather, but I like my wallet and I’m not a big bag person. Any recs on what to get myself in the <$200 range?
No clothes, as I’m between sizes.
Maybe not unique to the city: what about shopping for a pretty silk scarf?
Does anyone under 75 wear silk scarves?
yup! Tied on bags, as a belt, tucked under a sweater in lieu of a blouse…
I do! At 37.
I sure do! Mid 40s and I wear a silk scarf several times a month at least, as do a number of my even younger colleagues.
43–have and wear a few dozen in rotation. I also buy these on trips for my souvenirs.
You can buy a lot of gelato for $200.
I like your style.
same
I’d just earmark that as a ‘whatever calls to me’ budget – like you’re passing a vintage jewelry shop and something catches your eye? You want to splurge on a special meal, wine pairing, whatever? Do it!
Shoes! One of my favorite pairs of heels ever is from one of the smaller leather shops over there.
this
I have a friend who purchases art (usually landscapes from that country) whenever he travels because he loves art and having a visual reminder of the trip. He normally gets smaller pieces that can fit in his luggage. I like the idea and may pick up some art on my next major trip.
I have questions for the anti-vegetable/anti-fiber contingent. Have you always held these beliefs? Where did these beliefs come from? What’s the life expectancy in your family like? What are your political leanings?
1. No, I used to be vegetarian. I like vegetables!
2. Multiple university research hospital specialists managing the medical condition for which the medically restricted diet was prescribed.
3. Life expectancy is pretty good, but with a lot of chronic health conditions, and the relatives who see doctors and follow their recommendations have definitely done better overall.
4. Lower left of the political compass.
I doubt this person was talking about people who are following medical reasons guidance. Like, if this was a question about the anti-bread posters, I don’t think they’d be primarily looking to hear from people with celiac. It’s less of a question for the “good for you, but definitely not good for me” crowd and more for the “bad for everyone!!!!” crowd.
And I am also curious about the anti-veg crowd that’s been loud and proud here!
Ding ding ding.
Well maybe some of the anti-veg people should talk to a doctor! Sometimes there are reasons why vegetables don’t agree with someone.
Maybe? I think some people just think that individualized medical advice that goes against public health advice is just made up or somehow not real.
I don’t think the OP was referring to you.
sorry, I sense you have had a rough road.
I read here just about daily and I’ve never seen a “loud and proud” “anti-vegetable” contingent. I don’t think a comment saying “you don’t need an extra vegetable on chili night” really qualifies as a political position.
You missed a thread last week where someone was basically calling anyone who eats vegetables daily crazy. The cyclosporia threads brought out some very interesting takes.
They were probably pushing back on the militant “must have vegetables with every meal” crowd. Like why? Bagged salad isn’t better for me than yogurt or just skipping a meal.
but it literally is
Says you?
Yes? A bagged spinach, apple, cheese, and pecan salad, for example, is a more complete micronutrient delivery mechanism than a bowl of yogurt or skipping a meal. Yogurt is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but it does not have the diversity of micronutrients that a salad — yes, even a bagged salad — does.
I have opinions about bread and Celiac. So much Celiac goes undiagnosed, and then people get preached at that it’s actively harmful not to eat wheat and gluten unless someone has test confirmed Celiac. But I know for sure that it’s better to be gluten free with undiagnosed Celiac than it is to eat gluten every day with undiagnosed Celiac. I also know it’s bad to eat gluten if you have gluten ataxia or genuine NCGS even if you don’t seem to have Celiac. And it’s completely fine not to eat any gluten grains; they don’t have any unique contributions to the diet that other foods can’t provide.
The “bad for everyone” crowd for gluten is, I guess, the people who worry about zonulin overproduction. It seems obvious to me though that some people eat wheat into a healthy old age and are completely fine. But my experience is that there’s by far more pressure to eat wheat than to avoid it, and I think some people get overzealous when they’re swimming upstream.
That thread last week wasn’t calling everybody who eats vegetables daily crazy. In fact, the comment early on had someone worried because they were advised not to eat high fiber. If anything I think the high fiber is important for everyone contingent seemed to be the more emotionally charged. I don’t think anyone was attacking vegetables nutritional value but merely pointing out that high fiber needs aren’t universal.
oh please. the medical minutia is not helpful
It’s not just about medical minutia. If entire civilizations did just fine without any gluten grains at all, what is with the weird pressure that we have to eat them now or something bad will happen to us… all because Europeans like bread? To me the insistence that there must be an official medical reason to not eat something is part of the pressure.
Entire civilizations did fine without doctors washing their hands before sticking them into people, too, but I’m sure glad that’s a thing we do now.
What are you even babbling about?
When I started learning more about illness, the health of our soil and water, and how little information there is on that, and as always, our cultural love of pesticides.
I do like vegetables, and with limited success, grow my own, and am part of a CSA I trust. But I’m not on the “baby carrots are better than nothing” train.
Liberal, care a lot about food and read a lot about health, family lives to 80s and 90s, and for the most part, we’re a meat, potatoes, beans, and full fat dairy family.
My mom has been telling me that sugar, fake sugar, margarine, and vegetable sprays are bad for me since I was a child, and as an adult I believe that to be very true. Though I’ll eat sugar if the thing is well-made.
I am genuinely interested in food and bodies. I read the Atkins book when I was 19, have read a number of Jason Fong books. I wanted to know whether my grandmothers type 2 diabetes could be reversed, and she did reverse it in her 80s! Food is important and I’m deeply interested in how we can manage our own intake in a way that suits our own bodies. I also believe in the medical benefits of fasting.
I skimmed through the morning thread about chili needing a side, is that what you’re referring to?
If so, I take a more holistic approach to my nutrition throughout the day and the week, so not every meal needs every element. I’m most picky about my protein intake and prioritize protein with every meal, but otherwise, all the micronutrients can happen throughout the day.
For example, I have a smoothie every morning with a bunch of spinach, so if I’m eating chili for lunch, I’m not concerned that there’s no leafy greens. I tend to add mushrooms to basically everything I cook, so that’s my standard baseline of “vegetable” consumption for my main meals.
I generally have some kind of vegetables with at least 1 meal each day, and many of my go-to meals are packed with a bunch of vegetables. I make curry probably every other week, and it’s got a bunch of vegetables. If that’s one of the meals in rotation for the day, plus my smoothie, then I’m not concerned about eating a meal without vegetables or even going a day without additional vegetables, since I know I consumed multiple helpings the day before and will have multiple helpings the day after.
I’m very fit, all my labs are excellent, no vitamin or iron deficiencies.
Despite terrible diet habits for elders on both sides of my family, the women usually live into their late 80s/mid-90s. If they can survive multiple heart attacks caused by poor diet, I’ll likely live to 100+ with my healthy lifestyle if the pattern holds!
Not to be pedantic, but mushrooms aren’t vegetables. They aren’t even plants.
Yeah, I giggled at that too. But they are still pretty good for you.
I have IBS-D and there’s a ceiling on how much fiber my body can handle. Yes I understand the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber, yes I’ve tried slowly ramping up my intake, yes I’m aware of the FODMAP diet and my food intolerances. I do eat fiber but I have to limit it (maybe one quarter of my plate is vegetables, the rest is lean meat and starch). I don’t deny the nutritional and medical benefits of a high fiber diet, I just can’t adhere to it myself.
I do wonder if some of the people who have to limit weren’t really getting the benefits anyway. One of the biggest obstacles to diet research is how varied people’s microbiomes can be. Most probiotics (for example) aren’t evidence based since they can help out one person and actively harm another. So if some food is causing inflammation for me, it doesn’t do me any good that it lowers inflammation for somebody else.
It’s funny you mention probiotics because they were horrible for my digestive system! People love to tout them as a miracle cure but they can cause more harm than good depending on your circumstances.
If I ate the daily recommended servings of fiber it would be like giving myself dysentery. It definitely wouldn’t have any health benefits for me, even if a normal person would be better off. Fiber for thee but not for me.
my take was that it’s more the anti-optimizing crowd – not every meal has to have 10g of fiber and 30g of protein and pushing yourself to make every meal super nutritious is going to be difficult in the long run. i certainly don’t eat vegetables every day, but i try to. i always think of michael pollan – eat food. not too much. mostly plants.
Right—I always side eye the commenters who pretend to make a “big green salad” with every meal. I don’t really believe them, and also? I don’t want to eat that every day. I’m not a rabbit.
I don’t consider myself “anti-vegetable” but I don’t eat them that often. I would definitely eat them if served at someone’s house to be polite and I do order them in restaurants and cook them occasionally, but not with every meal or even every day. Probably 1-3 times per week. My digestion is normal and I’m not interested in squeezing every second out of my lifespan, since women in my family often live into their 90s and few people have an awesome quality of life after 80. I’m not really sure what this has to do with politics but I’m a moderate Dem.
Same. I don’t make them that often because I don’t enjoy washing and chopping. I don’t buy pre-cut because I don’t see the value of it. But once or twice a week I’ll make something vegetable heavy and that’s sufficient. I’m not going to choke down baby carrots or celery to get “daily vegetable points” or whatever.
Same here, exactly this. I also don’t understand the optimize everything and care about every CDC recommendation people at all either. Life is much more enjoyable when you just live a little.
ok this is a little silly but in the spirit of ‘just do the thing’ and some of the making time for fun conversations we have on here…
DH got it in his head on Sunday he wanted to go to the beach (lake). I was coming home from the gym, I’m usually someone that takes my time to get all the things together – like going to the beach feels like a full day thing, I need to get a chair and a book and xyz… I just said yes, we changed, put on spf, grabbed our towels, and headed out! and it was such a fun way to spend a late afternoon early evening.
I am still and will be a person that prefers to have plans in advance, and look forward to things, and pack my bag of everything I might want or need, but it was such a good reminder that I *can* be spontaneous and actually enjoy it too.
I’m trying to be more like that too (some of the time). I’ve fully embraced that the most fun I’ve ever had in my life didn’t happen spontaneously – it took planning and decision-making and sacrifices. I’m OK putting that work in because the payoff is so huge. But for those summer nights where it doesn’t have to be the MOST FUN EVER but you just want something different than the couch and Netflix grind, that kind of freedom and spontaneity can be so perfect. My family struggled with “get out the door syndrome” growing up and I’ve had to work hard to fight against that.
This is so nice to hear! I have older kids and had genuinely forgotten that mom and dad can just….go see an 8pm movie! Or run errands together on a Wednesday night! Or go to a rock climbing class at 7pm and not have to rush home to do bedtime! Weeknight activities are such a treat and are genuinely making my life feel richer and less rushed.
I heard that some reality TV dating person said on screen that all women should be conservative. I am so intrigued by this position. I always thought conservative women were proudly not like other girls, it never occurred to me they might think their side had much to offer to women. Can I get a good faith interpretation of this statement?
Fwiw I don’t know which show it was and I don’t have the energy to figure it out. Ever since I had a baby, I can’t watch TV. Idk what it is, TV had always been like a best friend to me, but now it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Probably a combination of PPA and being off my ADHD meds for so long. BUT ANYWAY I’d love to hear a devils advocate argument for the position – all women should be conservative.
The steelman answer is that the theory goes that women do better when they are actually married to their (male) partners and when the men they are married to have a religious and moral obligation to protect, support, respect, and love them, and that conservative men are more likely to be bought into belief systems that compel them to do all of those things. The classic line is that your husband should love you like Christ loved the church, and Christ died out of love. There are other arguments (like around regret rates associated with abortion), of course, but that’s the core. Oh, also they think women should carry guns for self defense, and they’re suspicious of any law that doesn’t allow women to do so.
The issue, of course, is that “being bought into a belief system that says you should do a thing” and “actually doing a thing” are wildly different concepts. And laws that protect women from men who fail to fulfill their duties (like fair divorce laws, birth control access, domestic violence protections, etc.) are all very valuable things, and conservatives have historically not supported those things. So it kind of falls apart once you’re past the “we actually have values!” stage of thought.
Tbf, I’ve been seriously involved with a conservative man and a liberal man, and as far as I can tell, political party has not played into how either of them treated me. Like, no correlation at all.
Your penultimate paragraph is why, even as a deeply conservative person, I appreciate the counterweight of liberalism.
My mom definitely thinks all women should be conservative. While she always worked and sent her daughters to fancy, elite (and pretty darn liberal) women’s colleges then law schools, she definitely latched on to some of the Phyllis Schafly 1970s propaganda. For instance, she is convinced that feminists hate housewives and are ugly spinsters with too many cats. But it’s mostly about taxes. She’d like me to be more conservative because I could live in a bigger house if I paid less in taxes.
Lol whereas I could live in a bigger house if single payer healthcare was a thing.
Whereas I could live in a house, if house prices had not skyrocketed like no one’s business; and my “liberal” fellow citizens with “We’re glad your our neighbor” signs in 6 languages stuck in the lawns of their doubled-in-value-in-the-last 5 years SFHs, weren’t doing everything they could to keep supply down & values up.
I think a lot of “liberals”, especially the generally older, very well educated, high income ones on this board, don’t understand how absolutely they’ve cratered middle income (actual middle income; not “300k is middle income in NYC!”) voters’ trust in them.
Steelman?
On matters of substance and policy, she’s probably gesturing at things like:
-Law and order. Women are far more often victims of crimes than perpetrators of crimes; it benefits us to have violent criminals incarcerated and not released without bail.
-School choice: poor women and middle class women should have more options to send their kids to schools that work for their kids.
-Forcing universities to stop gobbling up taxpayer money and skyrocketing tuition. Women outnumber men at college, go into lower paying careers, and generally, carry loan balances for a longer time than men do.
-Social norms around dating. If you look at SEC schools, it’s still very normal for kids to marry their college sweethearts. (IMHO, there is a vast difference between that and marrying your high school sweetheart when you’re 19.) Go to college, meet, fall in love, date, spend a year or two of adult life to make sure that the other person can cope with the training wheels off, get engaged, get married by your mid-20s. Spend some time as a couple; have kids; be done having kids by 35 or so. (I did the “meet at 36, married at 37, baby by 38” routine and it was not great.) IVF is expensive, onerous, hard on women, and not as successful as doctors make it out to be.
-Church. If you believe that faith has positive effects for people, you would support conservative-coded things like going to church every Sunday.
While any one element can cross partisan lines, in totality, it reads as conservative.
Steelman = opposite of strawman. It’s often used to refer to someone’s best + good faith attempt at making an argument they understand but don’t necessarily agree with, rather than distorting the argument to make it easier to pick apart.
Read Right Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin.
Another element of the steelman version of this I hear often (in religious circles that would count as conservative) is kind of based on straw manning liberal feminism but it goes like:
Liberal feminism (imagine a 1980s “have it all” stereotype) is fundamentally about saying women can be equal to men *if they act like men*. So it forces women into adopting more masculine traits (eg. a great female leader is one who leads with male assertiveness) but doesn’t truly value feminine qualities, and doesn’t have space for real needs (eg. a culture that glorifies women going back to work right away, not “being slowed down” by a newborn or needing to recover. Or the idea that you “get to” freeze your eggs, so you can prioritize your career, and then just do IVF when you’re 42 – a decision women end up suffering for a lot more than men.
Some women I know personally say things that make me feel kinda squicky, like “my husband has authority over me, and it’s the best thing for me and our marriage”, and then
when they are actually describing how things work, it’s things that seem totally part of a normal marriage to me, like their example is: ‘We normally talk things over and come to a consensus agreement; but by authority, I mean he can make the final decision if he needs to for the good of our family. Like for example, I had really really bad postpartum depression and I was so deep in it, I couldn’t recognize it, but after asking if I was okay 100 times, my husband just told me “look, I’m really worried about you, I made a doctor’s appointment for you next Tuesday, and please, I really need you to go even though you think you’re fine”‘. And that is what they mean by “John is the head of the household and protects me”. IME it’s the unmarried guys who harbor weird 1950’s delusions.
Yeah, a lot of conservative rhetoric is good at making women feel special instead of inconvenient. Because periods/pregnancy/postpartum/menopause are all very inconvenient in modern society, and honestly I have yet to hear a liberal acknowledge it in a way that doesn’t make it feel like a disability. (And I am generally pretty liberal, acknowledging problems as problems just doesn’t feel as good as constructing an alternate reality where those aren’t actually problems.)
Honestly it’s a pretty sweet gig if you find a unicorn. If I could stay home and only cook/clean/house admin (aka all the stuff I do already) I would love it and do it in a heartbeat. But often that comes with DV, financial abuse, and ultimately being left destitute when the younger model replaces you. But if I found the unicorn who wouldn’t cheat or hurt me I’d be so down.
Oh I feel completely the opposite. I do agree the risk of divorce is a reason not to do this, but even if I knew with 100% certainty my husband would never mistreat me or leave me, I’d still never want to be a SAHM. I work part time and am happy to have extra time with the kids, but neither my husband nor I has much interest in housework so we outsource a lot of it, and all that outsourcing wouldn’t be possible without my income. And even if we could somehow afford it, I think I’d feel too guilty outsourcing housework if my job was keeping house.
I am probably one of the only conservatives who comments here, and I agree with the massive risks that women take by becoming SAHMs.
It works out well for many of them; however, when things go wrong, they go catastrophically wrong.
The way to attenuate the problems? Educated women who have marketable degrees, strong prenups, and a family court system that understands the dynamics of DV.
“Conservative” covers a lot of ground, and who knows what the specific commentator meant by it.
But the big things I can think of are –
Economically, I really do think a lot of people believe MAGA messaging that they really will improve life for the middle class. I happen to think they’re wrong about that (not that democrats are doing a great job of putting forth a compelling alternative); but if you believe that women care more about “kitchen table” issues – cost of groceries, cost of raising kids, cost of safe, comfortable housing, whether they can pay for the dentist, whether their kids will get good jobs and have good opportunities, and you believe conservatives are more likely to deliver that, it would make sense for women to be conservative.
Half-economic-half-social: Plenty of women want a relationship where they equally split money-earning and house/kids/life admin work with a partner. And I want them to have that, and to be able to make the split in whatever way makes sense to them (ie. based on personal aptitude and preferences, not just which tasks are “traditionally masculine” or “traditionally feminine”. But practically all women want a partnership where both spouses are equal contributors to the good of the marriage as a unit – even if that looks like the women taking care of kids and cooking and the man earning the money and taking care of the cars, trash and yard (ie. whatever a super traditional split is in your mind). By emphasizing personal responsibility, the adult ability to buckle down and do an unpleasant task, hard work, etc. conservatism is more likely to form men who are at least contributing value to the marriage. Whereas liberalism, with its willingness to make excuses for people, excessive navel gazing, etc, has created a lot of 32-year-olds living in their parents basement, unable to hold down a job because *all* of their bosses are *mean*, and basically not bringing anything – not financial support, not life admin/housekeeping skills, not good at childcare – to a potential partnership (and you can see women’s response to this unappealing offer by the sharp rise in single parenthood). One could argue that more women would be better off if all men were bringing *something* to the partnership, even if it were only traditionally male things.
Half-cultural-half-religious: The extreme levels of p*rn usage among young men sometimes get blamed on liberals/a general s*x positive culture; and it’s been pretty terrible for the dating experience for young women.
Socially, there is still a lot of gas in the “only conservatives are willing to defend women’s only spaces (women’s colleges, women’s sports teams, etc)” tank.
Pure curiosity: I recently spent a weekend with some college friends as a joint “about to turn 40” party. Due to a recent divorce, the conversation turned to money, relationship and fidelity. Someone made a (slightly bitter and she apologized later) comment about how easy it would be for the husband of the SAHM with four kids to leave her high and dry for someone younger and how he could be wining and dining other women when he travels for work – which he does a lot.
That wife is not at all worried. They have been married 17 years and together since high school (and everything they own is community property with no pre-nup, which I suppose is the benefit of marrying young). But the part that surprised me is that she said he has only the vaguest idea of their finances. All of the bills come to her. He hands her a stack of receipts when he gets back from a trip, and she cross-references those with the credit cards bills and pays them. His paycheck is direct deposited into their account, and she handles it from there. She sees every dime he spends and sets his budget. She has tried to get him to attend quarterly meetings with their financial advisor and he just says he has faith in her. She keeps detailed records with lists of accounts and password because (she says) if she dropped dead tomorrow, he would be clueless.
Now part of the reason this works is that they are objectively rich. But it would make me crazy to be that ignorant of my finances. For the married/partnered among us, how common is that? I am perpetually single so wondered how other people handle this.
I’m the Keeper of Finances in my marriage. My husband trusts me with it; I’ve always been the primary earner. He’s happy to let me focus on it all. I used to try to tell him where we were on anniversaries, but now we mostly just celebrate when our net jumps to a new high number.
Same.
Most (all?) happy SAHMs I know handle the finances. The husband works and coaches baseball or something and that’s pretty much it. She handles all their money, investments, budgets, etc. it’s the only way to do it imho.
+1
I was never a SAHM (no judgment!) but I have handled our finances throughout most of our 30 plus year marriage. My husband just had limited interest in it. I also compiled all the documentation for our taxes and worked with our accountant. He has access to all the accounts, and I also compiled a “When I Die” book that has statements (not passwords, but I want him to know where everything is with an account number so he could follow through if I die first). He does join me (sometimes) for meetings with our financial advisors but I would say it’s an 80/20 split (or maybe 90/10) in terms of effort. I would never want to be the spouse without the information but that’s because I grew up in a household where money was tight. I will say, there are some downsides to being the one in charge of money. He’s not a spendthrift but he NEVER thinks about buying something if he thinks he needs it, whereas I am more of the person who says, I won’t buy this blouse or earrings because I just spent $300 on a plane ticket for a kid! I’m trying to break myself of that bad habit, because objectively, we can afford both. I just don’t like to see the credit card bill get so high, even though we always pay it off every month.
Very similar situation for me, except I was a SAHM. Left a “big” job, spent 5 years at home when my kids were young, and I did 90-95% of all bills and financial work despite DH being a math genius with an MBA and work experience in financial planning for a fortune 500 company. Went back to work and still do about 80% of the finances because the system works really well for us.
DH and I married young and have been married for 16 years. I work full-time, and DH has been a SAHD for about 10 years. Up until last year, DH was pretty clueless about finances, and I handled everything. Except then I was going through some stuff and was not handling everything well at all–as in, we were 2 years behind on tax filings, I was shuffling money around to pay off credit cards every month, and we each had a 5-figure amount sitting in a retirement account that wasn’t invested. I basically had to tell him that I needed a partner on the financial side of things, and we read a book together, had some big conversations, met with our financial advisor, and started cleaning stuff up. We still have some work to do, but our finances and our relationship are in a much better place.
As someone who met my eventual husband in college and married young, I do think it’s easy to fall into a pattern where one person handles all of a specific type of task. It’s a combination of playing to your strengths, which can be a good thing, and just being lazy/ never needing to figure out a particular aspect of grown-up life. DH probably should have been involved in our finances sooner, but there have been plenty of times he’s asked, “And what would you do if I wasn’t here?” It’s good but also takes conscious effort to swim against that current.
My husband and I married young when we were both in school and had no money. He has mostly handled the day-to-day finances and I weigh in on bigger picture things, big purchases, investment strategy, etc. My parents were bad at managing money despite being otherwise well-educated and had good jobs and it made me very stressed out to be involved in the day-to-day spending, especially when me and my husband were on a strict budget. We would talk about how much we had left to spend that week and what the priorities were. Now that we have good jobs and made a decent amount of money I can mostly spend what I want within reason (I also hate to spend money so I would never just go blow a bunch) but I trust him to make sure everything gets paid on time (most things are on auto-pay anyway), to invest some, and to save some for our various goals. A few times a year we meet with our financial advisor and go over things.
Married young and was a SAHM for the first decade, now the sole breadwinner for the decade since then. I have always, always handled the finances. When we were young and broke, I managed it. Now that we are old and less broke, I still manage it. My husband involuntarily hears very high level updates every so often when I’m doing our taxes or checking on our retirement amount balances, but otherwise just hands me receipts.
He does the bulk of our grocery and general needs shopping, though, and will stay (sometimes too far) within whatever budget I set him.
Another Keeper of the Finances here. I keep a notebook that he knows to consult if I am ever hit by a truck, and I update him quarterly on our overall financial picture. He consults me if he wants to spend more than a few hundred dollars at a time, and we consult on charitable giving. We have pretty good incomes now, but there were definitely times earlier in our marriage in which we were playing closer to the edge. Keeping track then stressed him too much, so I took over at his request. I made some good decisions without really knowing what I was doing. I wish I had just known to buy a book and make plans back then. My adult kids have all been strongly advised not to spend the first 10 years of their working life not paying attention.
Also a keeper of the finances in my marriage. I like it because I’m the bigger spender (though we’re objectively both pretty frugal and good savers), and this means I don’t have to hear him nitpicking about expenses he thinks aren’t justified. I think he’d figure it out if I died, but yeah, day to day while I’m alive I manage everything. We both work outside the home.
I do most of the financial tracking/planning/management in my relationship because I have a lot more anxiety about money. My husband would likely be comfortable with such an arrangement, but as you said it only works if you’re rich. We’ve got the casual spender/anxious saver dynamic, and what works for us is that we have a software that does most of the spending tracking, and we each have a no-questions-asked discretionary spending bucket that money gets added to every month. So I get the peace of mind knowing where the money is going, he doesn’t have to run all his “expensive” purchases by me. Every couple months or so we touch base about larger goals like “where should we live” and “when do we need a new car” where money is a major factor but really not the only one.