Here she is again. Waiting for her order as she mindlessly scrolls through her phone, wondering if she should go visit that place or buy that new bag everyone has.
Her name is called. She grabs the cup and gets back in her car. She has a meeting in 7 minutes. In the rear view mirror she catches a glimpse of herself, a little proud but highly critical — making mental notes on what she could do to fix the bags under her eyes or maybe a new hair routine.
Just as she reaches to reverse out of her spot, she looks up just in time to see her. She’s grinning but looks exhausted. Instead of put together she seems to be pulled together with all the strength she could muster, surrounded by little heads bobbing at her hip, while another friend with little ones waits inside the coffee shop.
And our girl? For a moment she feels it. Jealousy. Just a whisper trying to scream. And then she reminds herself two things: (1) that’s not the dream and (2) it’ll come one day. A contradiction she can’t explain why it has been solidified in her mind.
So let’s talk about it. Because the feeling in that parking lot has a name. It has data behind it. And it has an answer that’s much older than any of us.
The name of the problem? Vocation. The pesky word many cradle Catholics are taught in grade school. Simply, it comes down to a couple choices as a woman — motherhood, consecrated life, laity. By the time you’re eighteen, those vocations become side options to what you could actually achieve on the stage of social equity — become a CEO, politician, teacher, doctor, and more.
Each of those come with certain benefits in society. They become the basis of how you view yourself, what people you’re friends with, where you can live and how you enjoy all life has to offer. That’s your mission, that’s how you change the world.
Or is it?
In some parts of the world, if you ask someone “what do you do for a living?” it would be offputting because it’s not part of their culture to care. But I bet you answered that question before you finished the sentence — I’m an analyst, I work at the courthouse, I’m a stay at home mom.
Is that really all you’re called to be? On one hand we are called to participate in the society of our choosing, and on the other that same society can’t support some of the things we truly want — on our time, at a certain place and when we choose to have them.
This is a very nuanced problem for women — and our girl has been living somewhere in the middle of it all. Choose to slow down or choose a family — then lose promotions, income, advancement. Choose to participate in the Church — then lose friendships and social circles. Choose acts of services over activities — miss out on the moments, the instagram post, the cute guy in your run club. Life is linear — says the world, stay on the road, I will reward you for your hard work.
Our girl in the parking lot is not the first woman to wonder why she has a filled social planner but something feels off. And the world’s answer — work harder, earn more, optimize better. For a moment, let’s take the Church out of the problem. Here is what the data actually shows.
Full-time working mothers earn 35% less than fathers — a gap that has been widening since 2022 — and nearly 9 in 10 report missing promotions or career opportunities after having children. By far the largest annual survey of mothers showed a dramatic rise in women leaving the workforce altogether. Young women have been told for almost fifty years that a life fulfilled includes a successful career. A 2024 multi-country study drawing on decades of data found men now report higher life satisfaction and happiness than women — a reversal that has been building for years. Most tellingly, the most cited happiness research of recent years finds that married mothers consistently report higher wellbeing than single, childless women — suggesting the life many women are quietly longing for in parking lots and in front of holiday movies may not be the consolation prize the world told them it was.
A Fair Hearing
Now, now, you have to be fair. The feminist would argue these statistics: a survey of 38,000 people across 44 countries found women report higher life satisfaction than men and a 35-year tracking study found the gap in workplace satisfaction between men and women to be relatively small.
While there is data on both sides, the overwhelming majority agrees there is a problem. And what it is telling us is this — the promotion was never going to fix it. Not because ambition is wrong, but because a woman was built for more than a title can hold. The system was designed to consume her output. It was never designed to complete her. Thereby, it was never going to support the parts of life that truly make women whole, spiritual or physical.
Which is exactly where the Church steps in. Not with a list of rules. Not with a command to go home and be quiet. But with something the world stopped offering her a long time ago — a true account of who she actually is.
The Catechism tells us that man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. Not from their title, or the car they drive. Not from the latest posts or trips. Not from what they built or proved or survived alone.
In 1988, Pope John Paul II wrote an entire apostolic letter — Mulieris Dignitatem, On the Dignity and Vocation of Woman. He didn’t croak and cast women into the home. He said something the secular world stopped saying — that the feminine genius is not a liability to be managed or a softness to be hardened. It is first and foremost, a gift. Receptivity. Generosity. Sensitivity. Maternity. These are not consolation prizes, but the architecture of what a woman is meant to be.
In Scripture we find the woman of valor is industrious, economically active, dignified — her worth far greater than rubies. Because she has ambition, does that mean she must suppress the feminine genius? In fact the opposite. The Proverbs 31 woman is not diminished by what she does.
“She picks out a field and acquires it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.”
She maintains the household, cares for the community and supports those she loves in the way she can. She creates, participates in the economy, speaks what needs to be said. She is the backbone of the family, the crux of community, the foundation God gave man to pass on tradition and teaching through generations.
Even the order of creation carries meaning. Eve was not created second as an afterthought. She was created last — the final, crowning act that made creation complete.
The world told women that domestic life, motherhood, and receptivity were second-class. In today society, the things that make a woman inherently a woman, are lesser than or a burden. So then, is the data wrong? Or is it the entirely predictable result of asking a woman to build her life on a foundation that was never designed to hold the full weight of who she is? The world gave her a career and called it a vocation.
Before you close this tab and go back to your day — let’s be honest about something. The life you have right now is not nothing. The friendships are real. The Friday nights were fun. The trips actually happened and they were good and you don’t have to pretend otherwise.
However, the data showed us that the women reporting the highest wellbeing are not the ones with the best careers or the most independence. They are the ones who belong to something. Who show up for something beyond themselves. Who are known. That is not a coincidence. That is the Church’s entire argument made in numbers.
Edith Stein — a philosopher, a career woman, and eventually a Carmelite saint — spent the late 1920s lecturing across Europe on exactly this tension — and her conviction was clear: the world doesn’t need what women have, it needs who they are. True fulfillment is not found in a packed social planner. It is on a Sunday morning next to a small family or elderly couple. It’s the Parish Shrimp Dinner or bakery sale. It’s in the moments with people pointed towards the same eternal goal. It is in the quiet place where God is waiting.
The ache in your heart? It’s simply God calling you home.
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