Keep a Foot in the Door: Why Women Need to Work—Even If They Don’t Have To
Financial independence isn’t just about money. It’s about freedom, identity, and the power to choose your life, especially when things fall apart.
This is a controversial one! I really went back and forth about posting this…
There’s been a resurgence lately—the “tradwife” trend, making waves on social media. Perfectly curated images of women baking sourdough, arranging fresh-cut flowers, tending gardens with sun-kissed hair and vintage aprons. It’s dreamy. Soft. Idyllic.
I get the appeal.
The simplicity, the nostalgia, the promise of stepping away from the relentless hustle. In a world of growing economic insecurity, that glorifies productivity, that squeezes women from both ends—caregiver and contributor—opting out can look like freedom.
But here’s what those posts don’t show: what happens when life throws a curveball. The tradwife ideal romanticizes dependence while ignoring how fragile it can be.
Because freedom isn’t just about choosing to stay home,it’s about being able to leave if you need to.
That’s why, the older I get, the more certain I am: women need to work.
Not just for the paycheck. Not just for the title or status. Not because your job should define you. Not because ambition is the only path to fulfillment.
Women need to work to protect themselves.
More Than a Role, More Than a Title
Work helps you retain a sense of self, an identity untethered to anyone else. To be more than someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s caregivers. Those roles are beautiful and meaningful. For some women, they are enough.
But even if caregiving is your greatest calling, security still matters. Because fulfillment and financial independence are not the same thing.
You can love your life as a stay-at-home mom and recognize that relying entirely on someone else’s income carries risks.
Love is wonderful, but love is not a financial plan.
Work, at its best, can be a place where you belong to yourself. Where you’re valued not for the emotional labor you provide at home, not for what you do for others, but for who you are and what you bring.
What Money Really Means
And then there’s financial independence.
Because yes—there’s the paycheck. The retirement fund. The benefits. But what money really gives you is something deeper.
Money gives you freedom.
To walk away from a bad relationship.
To leave a toxic job.
To make choices on your own terms.
Because there is a particular indignity in having to ask someone else, especially a man, for money.
I’ve seen women—smart, capable women—hesitate before buying a new pair of shoes, booking a haircut, scheduling tennis class for their kids, knowing they’ll have to justify the spend. I’ve heard stories of women second-guessing a fancy birthday dinner with friends because “it’s not my money.”
Not because they couldn’t afford it. But because it “wasn’t their money.” Because they didn’t want to explain the spend. Because dependence teaches you to ask for permission.
This isn’t always about controlling partners. Often, it’s subtler. A low-grade erosion of agency. A quiet second-guessing of your own desires. About losing the ability to say, I earned this. I don’t need permission.
And with the wrong partner? It can be soul-crushing.
How It Happens
It rarely starts as a grand decision. It starts small.
Your partner gets a promotion abroad. Of course you support him—how could you not? You move. You plan to find something new. But the local job market is tough. The gap on your résumé grows. Slowly, staying home becomes the new normal.
Or you’re laid off when the kids are little. Childcare costs a fortune. Your partner’s salary covers the essentials. Why not stay home for now? It feels like a privilege.
And in many ways, it is.
But the older I get, the more I see the risks beneath that privilege. how these seemingly innocuous, reversible decisions calcify and change the trajectory of your life. How what was meant to be temporary becomes quietly, irrevocably permanent.
Your world contracts.
Days fill with school runs, meal planning, the emotional labor of caring for everyone. You become the keeper of appointments, the manager of moods, the silent architect of everyone else’s comfort.
Conversations with your partner shift—from curiosity to coordination. Dentist appointments. Grocery lists. Who’s home for the plumber. If you’re lucky, the next vacation or renovation.
Meanwhile, his world stays open. Expansive. Full of adult conversation, new challenges, new stories from a life you no longer share.
And one day, you look up and realize your world has quietly shrunk. The days are full, but your life feels smaller. Conversations thin out. You still talk, of course—but about logistics. But the threads that once tethered you to each other—the jokes, the ambitions, the shared sense of becoming—feel frayed.
And you wonder: When did we stop having things to say to each other?
The Risks We Don’t Want to Name
And then there are the harder possibilities—the ones no one wants to think about: What if he gets sick? Loses his job? Leaves? What if you need to start over—at 45, or 50, or 60?
I’ve seen so many stories of the “unthinkable” happening. He gets a stroke at 50. Suddenly you find yourself with mounting medical bills. Not enough savings to retire, to pay for the kids’ college tuition, because you’d counted on another 10 years to build your buffer. And just like that, you have to work again. After years away. After decades.
I’ve seen women blindsided by divorce. By illness. By financial collapse. They thought they had time. They thought they were safe.
And it is so hard.
Hard to find a job. Harder to find one that pays decently. Hardest of all to rebuild the confidence that quietly eroded while you weren’t looking.
Even the best relationships can shift, falter, or end. No one walks down the aisle expecting divorce papers, but it happens. People get sick. People lose jobs. Life, as it tends to do, throws curveballs.
And unfair as it is, this matters even more for women.
We live longer. We’re more likely to take time off for caregiving—kids, aging parents, or both. From UN Women: “Women are less likely to enjoy income security and economic independence in old age.” In the US, 16% of all women 65 and over are living at or below poverty—compared to 12% of older men (source). We cannot afford to ignore this.
Working keeps doors open. And I’ve seen what happens when those doors close—quietly, gradually, over time.
This Isn’t About Judgment
Let me be clear: raising children, managing a household, and providing emotional labor is work. Real work. And it is far too often invisible, dismissed, or taken for granted.
There is joy in the every day—the after-school stories, the spontaneous hugs, the ordinary magic of a full home.
I deeply respect women who choose to stay home and pour themselves into their families.
This isn’t about judging that choice. It’s about protecting your future.
This isn’t about fear-based decisions. It’s about preparedness.
Because the happiness you’ve built today should not come at the expense of your security tomorrow.
The Long Game
And I get it. I really get it.
Working while raising young kids can feel impossible. There were times I questioned it constantly—the exhaustion, the cost of childcare that seemed to swallow most of my paycheck. (And then they fall sick, and end up at home with you anyway!) I flirted with taking an easier job. (I even tried it for a year! I was bored out of my mind.)
What saved me, honestly, were the older women. Mentors who nudged me forward. Sometimes dragged me.
Women who said: You may not be ambitious right now. But we’re ambitious for you.
They told me their 30s were a blur too—sick kids, daycare drop-offs, 4 a.m. email replies. But it gets better, they said. And they were right.
Eventually, the fog lifts. The kids grow. Eventually, kids grow up. They start school, make their own friends, physically need you less in ways you once thought were permanent. (Emotionally, they always need you!) Suddenly, you have time again. Time to reinvest in your career, to rediscover what work can mean when you’re not stretching yourself thin at both ends.
If you need to slow down, ramp down. Take a less demanding role, reduce hours if you can (though this article by The Mother Lode is a good overview of why even ramping down to part-time comes with costs). but be cautious about walking away completely.
It’s far easier to dial work back than to restart after years away. Parenthood, like careers, moves through phases. What feels impossible now won’t always be. Keep the embers burning. It’s far easier to stoke a low flame than to relight a cold fire.
And Let’s Talk About Partners
I’ll say it plainly: Your partner makes all the difference.
It can make everything easier—or harder. In some ways, I think it was easier for me because I was divorced. I didn’t have a choice—I had to work to feed my daughter and myself. But I also didn’t have someone dragging me down, which, if I’m being brutally honest, too many women contend with.
So many of my girls’ nights start the same way: the women venting about their husbands. Not just the usual annoyances, but deep, simmering resentment. The kind that comes from carrying the weight of a household while their husbands float through fatherhood like it’s an occasional hobby.
Some men are partners in name only. They need detailed grocery lists with brand names and photos. They “babysit” their own kids but need you to prep meals, lay out pajamas, leave a full itinerary. They don’t know the pediatrician’s name but can recite every stat from their work or their favorite sports team.
We joke, half-serious: I’d rather have a wife than a husband.
And then—without missing a beat—someone always asks when I’m going to start dating.
Why would I?! I’ve seen the average husband. I have no interest in raising a man-child.¹
Ideally, you have a partner who truly partners—someone who plans and builds a life with you, not around his needs and ambitions alone. Someone who doesn’t expect your life to orbit around his.
But even with the best partner, you still need to protect yourself. Because love is not a financial strategy. Good intentions don’t pay medical bills. And hope is not a plan.
In the End
I’m grateful every day that I kept going. Not because I chased some grand ambition—but because I preserved something for myself. A sense of independence. Options. Confidence.
This isn’t about ambition . It’s about agency.
Financial independence isn’t a luxury. It’s the foundation that lets you choose your life.
So keep a foot in the door. Keep your skills sharp. Keep something that belongs only to you.
Because one day, your kids will grow up. Your partner’s career will evolve. Your marriage may shift. And you’ll still be standing there.
I hope you’re standing there with choices, not regrets.
And honestly? Your partner situation matters.
Thank you for writing this. How accurate. I could not agree more! I know this is a polarizing conversation but one that needs to be had. There are so many reasons to work beyond just climbing the corporate ladder - it creates financial independence and security, it reinforces a sense of self, and it shows your kids that we all have to do hard things. I have a little boy and I believe that him seeing his mom work hard will be the best way I can raise a feminist since he sees a woman crush it at work, and have an equal partnership at home.
You are absolutely correct with this post. As a 58 year old woman, this is what I tell younger women I know. You simply have to look after yourself and worry about your own future as things can happen and the alternative is very scary to consider.