My daughter was quoted in the New York Times when still in high school. She graduated college with a Political Science major and a double minor in Philosophy and Gender Studies with fantastic grades after receiving multiple awards. She could have gotten a highly competitive job or gone to a top grad school. She didn’t. Instead, she, like some of her equally accomplished friends, is doing what many are calling a “Lazy Girl Job.”
You’d think I’d find this to be a wholly unreasonable choice, especially given I paid for some of her college education. I don’t.
A Lazy Girl Job is one that pays well, but not too well. It’s usually remote, and you can get your work done with nominal effort. There are often little to no on-camera meetings required, so you can do it in your pajamas with a cozy quilt wrapped around you and a cup of steaming hot tea. You can be, as they say, a lazy girl.
The women of my generation, Gen X, were told we could do anything. We could have a hugely successful career, maintain a robust social life, and stay in phenomenal shape, all the while being an attentive mom raising perfectly well-adjusted kids in a blissful marriage. We could, as they said to us in the famous Enjoli commercial, “Bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget your man.” And we believed it.
Many of us, however, ended up feeling like my C-Suite friend recently said to me upon learning of the Lazy Girl trend, “I get it. I mean, I feel like we were lied to. I’m doing it all, but it’s literally killing me. It’s not fun.” Her sentiments encapsulate exactly what our daughters are trying to avoid. They have seen what goes into having it all and decided they want none of it.
My daughter’s generation lives under the threat of climate change, an unwelcoming economy, vitriolic politics, and corporations that don’t seem to care about them. They have looked at their mothers working themselves to the ground and still making markedly less than their male counterparts. None of this makes them feel they have a shot at the American dream. So if they don’t have a shot, why are they opting in at all? Why not relax and enjoy their lives? And that’s exactly what they’re doing. They are doing jobs they don’t care much about, but living lives they care a great deal about.
My daughter’s social life is robust. When she’s not hanging out with friends, she’s busy building an activist organization to fight climate change. When I asked her why she’s working to save the climate when she thinks there’s little hope and feels so cynical about society, her answer was this, “Well, if even one person still has hope, I need to try.” My daughter might be in a Lazy Girl Job, but she has far from a Lazy Girl approach to life. Quite the opposite.
Do I worry about her generation? Of course, I do. My Grandma Charlotte used to say, “You don’t want to be old and poor in America.“ I don’t see this generation thinking much about retirement, and that scares me a little.
But it shouldn’t scare me, because here’s the secret about Lazy Girl Jobs. Most of them require a college education and the salaries really aren’t bad. Entry-level Lazy Girl Jobs pay 40 to 50K a year. These young women have simply decided it’s not worth it to make an extra 30K to grind themselves into the ground. My daughter, despite her best efforts, recently got a promotion and a raise. These young women are capable, and they are savvy. They are prioritizing themselves, their mental health, and their happiness. They are going to be just fine.
It’s also worth noting that these young women could be seen as the canary in the coal mine. If the system isn’t serving people who had the privilege of a college education, imagine how disenfranchised those in lower-wage jobs must feel? Let’s hope employers get the message if they want employees to work hard, they will have to earn it.
So maybe the only thing I really object to is the title “Lazy Girl Jobs.” These are not children acting lazy. They are grown women defiantly thumbing their noses at a system that wasn’t built for them, doesn’t take care of them, and has done little to earn their loyalty. They are strong adults who have put up healthy boundaries, fiercely guarding their happiness.
And that’s not lazy. That’s smart.