I can't hold on any longer.. LOL
One thing I've observed is that women pilots have a difficult time developing relationships with men who are not pilots. I kid you not, every single woman pilot I know is in a relationship, or married to, another pilot; these encompass women I know at all levels of aviation I've been exposed to: CFIs, regionals, and military.
I agree with satpak, the majority of these women define their self-worth solely on the job they perform, which is why they end up with other pilots. It's a matter of social currency really. For a guy who is not interested in flying in general, a woman pilot has really no interesting qualities, as she works in a historically male gender role, asset which only a pilot male would normally appreciate, and therefore it is of little social currency to him [the non-pilot male]. Additionally, said guy can find tons of women with more socially valuable attitudes to him, i.e. the proverbial nurse/teacher who has the inclination and job schedule to make a stable and involved mother, everything else being equal. During college, a lot of the young GOOD looking women (let's face it, women pilots are not know to be of the good looking persuasion by percentage among their work peers, as say nurses by comparison) realize there is a level of social currency to being Mrs. Mommy, and as the posters have suggested, many have taken to a more domestic role after college, perhaps part-time work in their work field of interest..these are attitudes that women pilots resent gratuitously, as shown in this thread as well. All that is not to suggest that a woman pilot is inherently uncapable of making a better mother than any Suzie nurse, but it is a pretty resounding trend that women pilots RESENT their social shortcoming (some quietly, some loudly), particularly when the reason for such shortcoming is something that is so tied to what defines them so profoundly.
Consequently, two-pilot unions is not an easy idea to pitch for raising a family. It is really closer to a rock star type of family dynamic than your normal 9-5. Families need stability, two individuals who constantly have to bust their chops (although they'd likely minimize the a$$pain it is when talking to their non-pilot peers) to make the schedules work to allow them to tend to their children, is certainly an ill-suited proposition. That's reason #2 most women pilots have a love-hate relationship with their identity. They want the cake and eat it too. They COULD make it work if hubby had the flexibility to allow for her being gone. But since we already established that women pilots almost have to end up with male pilots, the resultant work dynamic makes it difficult to make that proposition work.
We went out for dinner with a co-worker whose wife happens to also be a pilot (my g/f is employed in landscape architecture by contrast). You could sense the tension when my g/f asked his wife about children and "how does the schedule work"? (neither them nor us have children at the moment). Said wife is struggling to break into the regional game, and hubby is military, whose career and paycheck have taken precedence. You can tell she's not happy across the table, and I submit it is not a coincidence these two ended up together (see my first paragragh). Likewise, you could see the shoulder-shrugging she had for my g/f when my girl told them if I were to ever be in a position to make six figures and carry the main economic burden of rasing my future family, she wouldn't blink twice before strongly considering resorting to part-time work in her field and being with the kids. I've never told my g/f to give any part of her vocational pursuits to pop kids or whatever, but yet that shows exactly the paradigm these women pilots face. This woman sees no value in my g/f's attitude, and that is because it is resoundingly obvious that my g/f sees her job as a pursuit she enjoys, but something that in the end doesn't define her, whereas subject #2 is somebody who has a death-grip on the "I'm a WO-man PILOT" and yet wrestles at night with why she couldn't hitch an accountant or lawyer instead with another pilot, whose more of a burden to her secret white picket fence desires than somebody she'd find midly intersting to talk to every night at the dinnner table (about the same topic mind you).
Do two pilot families work? I'd say marginally sure. But as a pilot myself, wouldn't be something I was ever interested in pursuing for precisely the above reasons. Don't get me wrong, my PPL CFI was a woman, great lady, but she was in her 40s and single, and went about her trips and schedule as she pleased, and it worked for her, but that's not the paradigm a woman can use for creating a family FWIW.
