Mom Explains Why She Refuses To Take Advice From 'Successful Men' About How They Were Able To 'Make It' In Life
She pointed out that more times than not, a successful man's advice doesn't apply to women and mothers.
NDAB Creativity / Shutterstock A mother named Paige Turner opened up an interesting conversation about the dynamics of mothers and fathers being able to chase their dreams and how more often than not, a lot of "successful men" have the help of women.
In a TikTok video, Turner shared that she takes advice from men with a "grain of salt" because of how unlikely it is for her to be able to follow that advice.
Turner refuses to take advice from successful men about how they were able to 'make it' in life.
"I do not tend to take a lot of advice from men, even the most successful men, and I mean advice in the form of self-help books, podcasts with successful men, or men in general," Turner bluntly admitted in her video. "I do not think it is applicable to women and mothers in particular."
Turner explained that she was reminded of this point after listening to the business podcast called "The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett," where YouTuber and content creator Casey Neistat was being interviewed.
She claimed that while the podcast episode was interesting, she was stuck on the fact that Neistat talked a lot about becoming a father at the age of 15 and after breaking up with his girlfriend and the mother of his child when he was around 17 or 18, he moved from Connecticut to New York.
She recalled Neistat talking about how the move required him to be "fearless" and willing to take that scary risk to pursue his dreams of being in media. Neistat talked about sleeping on people's couches and living in halfway houses with 10 other people, but the whole time Turner was listening to this, she kept asking herself, where was Neistat's child?
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"None of these things are possible with a 2-year-old baby. You can't sleep on somebody's couch with your 2-year-old baby, you can't stay out till 4:00 a.m. with your 2-year-old baby, you can't live in a halfway house like that with a 2-year-old baby," Turner pointed out. "He's talking about how he doesn't have money for a taxi or anything like that, and the whole time I'm thinking, 'Where's this kid?'"
Turner deduced that the child was most likely back in Connecticut with the mother, who was probably doing 90% of the childcare and work to raise the baby.
Turner added that this doesn't mean Neistat is a terrible father or that he didn't participate in raising his child, but the fact that he doesn't talk about what he did to ensure the care of his child while chasing his dreams is why Turner can't listen to his advice.
She explained that most successful men have women doing the behind-the-scenes work so they can chase their dreams.
Turner insisted that she was interested in knowing what happened with Neistat's child during his years living in New York. She claimed that if it were a mother telling this same story, she would make sure to talk about what she did for childcare, how she paid for everything with a child, where they lived, and who supported her because those things were critical to her success.
"For [Neistat], it wasn't critical because he had her. Men have women. That is the biggest lesson I've learned when they tell us any kind of advice about how they became successful, it's because they had women supporting them," Turner said.
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The issue for Turner is that if Neistat's girlfriend wanted to move to New York to pursue her dreams and become successful, it probably wouldn't have been possible. Would she have been able to leave her child with him 90 percent of the time? Probably not.
Though, if she had been able to do it, she most likely would've been shamed and ridiculed for being a terrible mother who just left her child behind. She would've been branded as selfish, while men like Neistat can do it and be hailed as successful and hardworking, who faced adversity and came out on the other side stronger than ever.
"That's the difference, he's held up on this pedestal for doing this work and for becoming successful but if she were to do the same thing, she would be called a bad mother who put her career before her kid. That is exactly why I don't take advice from men."
Women and mothers are expected to give more of themselves for their children and families, pushing aside their dreams and aspirations.
Turner remarked that a lot of men's advice can't be applied to how today's society works, and is almost impossible for women and mothers to be able to relate to it just because they are held to a much different and higher standard than men and fathers are held to.
It's no secret that mothers already do the majority of childcare in marriages with men. Among working parents, women are more than four times as likely to miss work due to child care as males, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures by the nonpartisan data hub USAFacts.
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Per the federal government’s 2021 American Time Use Survey, women who said they participated in child care and were not employed spent significantly more time on those duties — about 47% more when measured by average hours per day — compared with their female counterparts who were employed full-time. For men, the difference between those who were not employed and those employed full-time amounted to about 13% more time per day.
Motherhood is seen as the end of a woman's freedom to pursue her own dreams, while men entering fatherhood are not shackled with the same restrictions. They are as free as a bird to do whatever they please because they know their partner will be at home caring for the family.
It's a backward and misogynistic ideology that keeps forcing women and mothers to give up parts of themselves for the sake of a family, and that's just not right at all.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.