Megyn Kelly made a statement on X this workweek:” Ladies, it is possible to create your own money, have your own job, pay for your own luxurious nyc house (etc ), AND consider a man who loves you, wants to include &, raise children w/you &, wants to be w/you and only you. The only thing preventing you? Your choice to accept less.
Kelly is clearly referring to herself here, implying: I did it, so you can too. It demonstrates how remarkably out of touch women are with the media, no matter what their political views may be. As one X commenter named” Wandering Warrior” noted,” Normally, Megyn, I absolutely love everything you do. However, I will have to completely disagree with you on this. You’re a 1 %. Doug knows it as well. Tell the majority of women that the ability to do what you’ve done is incredibly RARE and acknowledge this.
More life advice from the media elite is the last thing American women need. There are far too many variables for a generalization of love and career, such as” Don’t settle.” Women have been saddled with some version of this narrative for decades, and the inflated expectations they consequently adopted landed them right where they are today: chronically unhappy, frustrated, and disappointed.
Newsflash, but most women don’t want Megyn Kelly’s life, and those who do need to know the trade-offs involved. The typical American woman who wants a career and a family needs advice that actually works and acknowledges the biological differences between men and women that determine their decisions.  ,
The details of a woman’s life matter in these discussions. For example, technically I have a career. I make my own money. Additionally, I have a man who loves me, wants kids with me, and wants to be just with me. ( We’re empty nesters now. )  ,
But I am not, and never have been, the main breadwinner in my marriage. My work has always been part-time and was scheduled almost exclusively around my children’s needs. I worked mainly when they were asleep or, later on, at school. We never used nannies or daycare.
Was my decision to settle based on my desire to support my family? Hardly. This is the message that women should be hearing but aren’t.  ,
Indeed, my life is much more representative of what the average marriage-minded woman wants: family at the center, with possible part-time employment orbiting around that. No, this choice won’t offer a woman the ability to buy a” swanky nyc apartment”, but it will provide her with something better: a life of meaning.
Most women don’t want to be their spouse’s primary breadwinner either, and it’s preferable if they aren’t, as a general rule ( whether it applies to you or not ). That’s because somewhere around age 30, women who haven’t yet found their person become walloped with a deep desire to nest, and when that happens, they look for a man who can provide.  ,
Women prefer having a man they can rely on to support their career aspirations rather than grow. Unfortunately, those men are few and far between these days. Young women who gave family precedence over career have typically chosen the ones who are the best.
Some men enjoy the “fire and excitement that comes from a working wife,” according to Kelly. That is not at all what I observed. Women and mothers who work full-time and year-round are more frequently angry and exhausted. Society groomed them for this role, and they don’t want it.  ,
Feminist Ideals Don’t Represent Most Women
For the past 25 years as an author and a life and relationship coach, I’ve witnessed the “having it all” narrative wreak havoc on women’s lives. In 2007, a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research observed:” As women have gained more freedom, more education, and more power, they have become less happy”.
The authors of the report suggested feminism raised women’s expectations faster than society could meet them but concluded:” As women’s expectations move into alignment with their experiences, this decline in happiness may reverse”.
The word “expectations” is key because as long as we live in a culture that touts feminist ideals — i. e.” You can have it all! Don’t settle”! — women’s expectations will always be out of alignment with their experiences. Feminist ideals do not fulfill the desires of the majority of women.
The lives of the women I interact with don’t compare to those of the media. The thirtysomething single women who reach out to me either have given up on finding a husband, or they are married but feel trapped because they don’t see a clear path to leaving the workforce and raising their children.
When women realize their expectations are out of step with their own experiences or their new reality, which looks different at age 35 than it did at age 25. Money and careers suddenly feel less important, and family takes center stage. The problem is that they’ve been steeped in different ideals and made professional, relational, and financial choices accordingly.  ,
For instance, they might have accrued a bunch of student debt, assuming they could pay it off later. Or they might have proposed to a man with low potential for money and assumed that because she was employed, it wasn’t important. Or they might have chosen a demanding career that leaves little room for family and marrige. Or they might have made a home purchase on two incomes rather than one, guaranteeing that they would remain a slave to the workforce forever.  ,
Women do all of these things because they are told they can have everything if they just “don’t settle.” This advice destroyed several generations of , women. Most women who can delegate motherhood and/or housework won’t be successful broadcast journalists. And most don’t want to be the primary breadwinner.
That last point is particularly contentious. In a Pew study that revealed women are the sole or primary breadwinner in 4 out of 10 households with children, Kelly criticized him for speaking out against the statement in 2013. He claimed that the male is typically more dominant in gender roles.
Since Kelly’s marriage is an exception to this rule, she took offense. She showed her considerable bias on this subject by not wanting to hear the truth about the very real problems in marriages where wives make more money. But just because the data may not apply to Kelly’s relationship, that doesn’t negate the value of the data.  ,
Bottom line: Women in the media are the last people young women should turn to for life advice. The opposite of settling for more or having high expectations is not to settle for less or have low expectations. It’s to have realistic expectations and accept inevitable trade-offs.
