Imagine that!

When women opt out of their jobs to become full-time moms, their future prospects take a hit, not only in their derailed career paths, but in the lack of options when the economy tanks or their husbands take leave...

For the major media that romanticized opting out as the soothing solution to the stress of juggling work and family, the devastation that choice has left in its wake represents merely another story. But for the women who got sold a bill of goods and gambled their futures without understanding the risks they were taking, losing that bet turned out to be the biggest mistake of their lives.

I'd like to say that They Should Have Known Better, but in our "post-feminist era," the wealth of pressures from family and media, as well as the impression that women's woes have been fixed, mean that many young women aren't even aware of the real data, let alone prepared to apply it to their own lives. Nobody wins in that situation, not even the kids whose welfare os supposed to be at root of the decision.

(via Atrios)