The grind. 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Unfulfilling, dead-end job. Doesn’t challenge me or satisfy my potential. Stunts my development and hinders my creativity. Overworked. Undervalued. Severely underpaid (insert respective work gripe here).

Let’s face it, girls — work sucks. It deprives us of sleep, precludes partying, and substantially shortens our weekends. Its reward is little more than a meager paycheck that, after taxes, barely pays the rent. And all the while our employer, i.e. The Man/Whitey, capitalizes on our cheap services and gets richer and more powerful. So why do we bother?

Don’t worry, this is not a testimonial of the infommercial variety; I’m not going to tell you about how I left my low-paying job and became a millionaire by buying real estate (no money down!) or placing ads in newspapers across the country for my 1-900 number. I am not trying to sell you a "get rich quick" scheme. But there is a way out of the drudgery we call employment and it won’t cost you 3 "easy" installments of $49.99.

I’m here to tell you girls that you have a choice. You have a uterus; thus, the choice. It’s called marriage. And for the more safeguarded plan, add motherhood. These roles are convenient, leisurely and quite profitable. It’s so simple: quit your lame job and land a husband! (Of course, you need to look your best before beginning your manhunt so consult my first HA! article titled, "Beauty or Busted Girls" for the latest trends in cosmetic surgery.)

I realize that some of you girls may still be in college and that’s okay. Don’t drop out just yet! College is a veritable meatmarket of well-bred men on the cusp of successful and lucrative careers. The smart girl knows an M.R.S. degree is one of the most valuable she can earn. Plus, it can be good insurance to learn some kind of "skill" in college if you’re ever reduced to (temporary) independence.

Uppity and ambition-driven, the "modern woman" snubs this choice. She’d rather "pursue her dreams," "prosper," even leave her proverbial "mark." She wants to be self-reliant and financially secure. If she decides to get married, she wants to be a part of a "team" and be a "breadwinner."

To this girl, I say . . . give it up! Lose that personal ambition. You can assume your husband’s and children’s ambition as your own. So what if all your living is vicarious? There’s nothing wrong with your whole identity becoming Mrs. John Doe or Johnny Jr.’s mother. Anyway, men are naturally more active and creative, and make the intellectual, artistic and scientific advances. Was Einstein a girl? No. How about Edison, Mozart or Picasso? I don’t think so! I rest my case. A girl does not even possess the mental faculties to push such frontiers. It is a girl’s job to merely stand behind and encourage her male counterpart.

Besides, having a career is not all it’s cracked up to be. The esteemed Dr. Laura Schlessinger, host of a daily am talk radio program, contends that girls who prioritize work over motherhood eventually come to their senses and quit when they discover it’s not the "Pollyanna lifestyle" they thought it would be.

Something we girls need to realize is that we actually have a spiritual and moral obligation to the roles of wife and mother. The Southern Baptists recognized the alarming trend of girls abandoning their appropriate gender roles, especially in terms of full-time motherhood. During their annual meeting in Salt Lake City this past June, the Southern Baptist Convention added a statement about the family to their 35-year old Baptist Faith and Message. The statement would bring in "unequivocal terms, the clear teachings of the scripture" and outline the proper roles for husbands, wives and children. The statement reads that the husband must be the head of the family while the wife is to "submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband."

I think it’s high time we all just drop the feminist act and pick up a Bible. In the wise words of Reverend Pat Robertson, feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." With a lack of a real girl’s chief characteristic, delicate sensitivity, "[O]ne look at modern, radical, hardened feminists and you see their ugly masculinity, their unnatural, inhuman hardness and frightening anger," (Father Paul Marx, Order of Saint Benedict, Ph.D., The Differential Psychology of Men and Women: Men vs. Modern Feminism)

Father Marx enlightened us further with his exciting and rewarding brand of womanhood: "Raising a family, conducting a home is still and always will be women’s greatest challenge and vocation. Think of all the things a good Christian home is: a little bakery, laundry, school, church (ecclesiola), nursery, hospital, restaurant, hotel, counseling and cultural center, etc. Think of the talents required: every good wife/mother must be a good shopper (know something about practical economics and finance), a kind of nurse (kids get sick, don’t they?), psychologist (kids fight, don’t they?; she must settle it without showing favoritism), seamstress (clothes have to be mended), cook/dietician (everyone likes to eat), teacher, and alas, she has to know how to live with a man until death do them part! (Father Paul Marx)

Girls, we must embrace our fine, feminine qualities — namely, our ability to mother everyone in the proper sense of the word. Pope Pius XII couldn’t have said it better in his "Meditations on Womanhood," that girls have only two important missions, to be virgins or mothers.

In conclusion, my answer to this HA! issue’s theme regarding girls, work and money is: ditch that career. Punch-out that time card for the last time and start making your own hours. If you ever get revisited by that pesky ambition, temper it with more gender appropriate work like leadership roles in the PTA or a Girl Scout troop (I hope they still make the Thin Mints!) Do it for your personal gain. Do it for the good of mankind. Do it for all that is holy.