In 'The Female Eunuch' I argued that motherhood should not be treated as a substitute career; now I would argue that motherhood should be regarded as a genuine career option, that is to say, as paid work and, as such, as an alternative to other paid work. What this would mean is that every woman who decides to have a child would be paid enough to raise that child in decent circumstances.

An alternate career path for a woman lay in the Church, where as a nun she escaped the dangers of childbirth. In the convent she could hold any position except that of priest, and as an abbess or prioress she had great power and responsibility.

We hear a great deal of talk about the midlife crisis of the executive. It is mostly boredom. At 45, most executives have reached the peak of their business careers, and they know it. After 20 years of doing very much the same kind of work, they are very good at their jobs. But they are not learning or contributing or deriving challenge and satisfaction from the job. And yet they are still likely to face another 20 if not 25 years of work. That is why managing oneself increasingly leads one to begin a second career.
There are three ways to develop a second career. The first is actually to start one. [...] The second way to prepare for the second half of your life is to develop a parallel career. [...] Finally, there are the social entrepreneurs.
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There is one prerequisite for managing the second half of your life: You must begin doing so long before you enter it.

When divorces meant marriage no longer provided security for a lifetime, women adjusted by focusing on careers as empowerment. But when the sacrifice of a career met the sacrifices in a career, the fantasy of a career became the reality of trade-offs. Women developed career ambivalence.

we compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet

i think the real ideal 2nd chapter of a career or work life is simply to be facilitating and enabling opportunities for others

theres no obvious on ramp to shift into this phase, you just sort of have to start doing it before it seems right

giving birth appears to be the one thing that still stands in the way of many young women’s career growth and development. That is something to fear

You can have a job or you can have a career, and if you’re lucky, you can have a calling.

Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.

It's only work if you would rather be doing something else.

Find a way to carve a career out of what you already want to do.

You know that if you had been in charge of creation you would have found some medium less heart-breaking than Time to stage it in.

Like, it’s not an easy career. I could have been an accountant. It would have sucked and I’d be bored and miserable! It would probably be easier. But here I am.

You have a choice: pursue your dreams or be hired by someone else to help them fulfill their dreams.

Being fresh out of college, I found myself in the typically feminine dilemma of carving out for myself in a male world a way of life appropriate to a young woman of taste, cultivation and sensitivity. There must be nothing crass—like work. However, a girl must survive. So, after a cool appraisal of the social scene, I finally hit upon an excellent-paying occupation, challenging to the ingenuity, dealing on one's own terms with people and affording independence, flexible hours, great stability and, most important, a large amount of leisure time, an occupation highly appropriate to female sensibilities. I contemplate my good fortune as I begin work for the day: "Pardon me, Sir, do you have fifteen cents?"