Financially, we’re screwed. We all know women suffer from a wage gap, but that gap widens once women become mothers — even more if they have the audacity to be single mothers, or non-white. A Cornell University study showed that a child-free woman is twice as likely to be hired as a mother with an identical resume, and is offered about $11,000 more in starting salary. We’re the only industrialized nation without paid maternity leave, and national child care costs are through the roof. At home, it’s not much better. According to a 2008 study from the University of Michigan, when you get a husband, you also get seven extra hours of housework a week (whereas when men get married, they lose an hour of housework), and mothers do on average of 18 more hours a week of housework than fathers.
Then, of course, there’s the social pressure: Are you breastfeeding? Co-sleeping? Baby-wearing? (Though so long as you’re not Tiger Mothering, you may be safe.)
Jessica Valenti, Why Mom Is Miserable (2011)(via burningmagnolias)