Will it effect family dynamics in the long run?

[cronewitch]

I think when women earn a living wage they make men worry because we don't need them. I have earned more some years and him more others but have never depended on him financially. The marriages I have seen seem to be much better when the women earns a decent amount of money or could if she wanted to.

Mom is a traditional women quit her job on the way to buy the marriage license, raised three kids only working a tiny bit like cleaning houses a day or two a week when we we older. Dad was a pipe fitter and made all financial decisions and was often selfish. Mom says he refused to buy life insurance and told her if they divorced he wouldn't support the children. He believed in supporting the family but not if divorced so mom had to put up with some bad behavior to avoid divorce.

When the youngest kid finished high school she took a job at the post office. She changed suddenly, told dad if he didn't like it he could divorce her. When she was a housewife dad picked all vacations, usually fishing and camping, suddenly she picked her own vacations he could come or not but she was going. She liked to go to Reno on airplanes and not go camping. She told dad she was going to Spain for a month and he didn't want to go so she bought herself a ticket, she was going. He decided later to go too but she wasn't asking if she was allowed to go. A couple of years later she decided to spend a month in Germany and dad didn't go.

Dad always did cooking and dishes but not much other cleaning even when he was retired while mom worked full time. I never once saw him iron or scrub a floor or toilet but he did manly chores like fixing things.

I don't think it is as much a very high to high income that causes problems as dependent to independent. Once they don't need to stay married to be supported nobody puts up with much.

I want to be taken care of in non financial ways. I have a log splitter I wanted to take to my brother's campsite for the weekend. My boyfriend hooked it to my truck for me. My brother took it off my truck and we split two cords of wood Friday then Saturday his wife, our mom, his son and my boyfriend came. My boyfriend brought his camper even if he didn't really want to come camping because I told him I needed to have it for sleeping. We came home today and he took my truck to my nieces campsite to hook up my long splitter and backed it in to a parking spot so I didn't need to back it up. When we got home I pulled into the drive way and he opened the garage doors, backed it in and pushed it into it's spot. I would have had a hard time taking it without his help and my brother helped with backing up at the campsites. Not only that but my brother told me on the second cord of wood that he wanted to be the one to lift all the wood and me just run the machine so I didn't have a stroke or something. He probably did 75% of the work and was up half the night with leg cramps and his back hurt when I was fine. The next day we stacked all the wood so he didn't have to and I was fine to pick up wood. We left the cord at my niece's site piled up since they want to build a woodshed before stacking the wood. Taking care of people is more than just money.

[zibazinski]

I think you are right but if men aren't needed to help financially while women stay home and raise the kids, if women are expected to "do it all" anyway, then I see no point in marrying someone and end up with another person to care for on top of the kids and the chance of having to share custody of said kids anyway. If you're going to raise and support them alone, then why mix anyone else into the equation?

[shelly527in]

Jul 1, 2011 18:31:20 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

I think the family dynamic will change. It's inevitable with women going to school more and earning more and higher degrees. Most younger people are more open to the idea as it is, and it will only increase as generations come.

I guess I have a hard time seeing how any of those women could complain, if they married these guys, they had to know this going in. I don't see how a doctor can marry an auto mechanic and then turn around and be upset about not being supported.

My parents are pretty open minded, I think they'd support the idea if I wanted to be a SAHS. I think they'd take time to come around, but not because of old fashinoed ideas. They would more likely be concerned about me giving up a steady career and taking the risk.

It could still happen, just not to the standard they are used to. You don't have to make $100,000 to live comfortably.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Jul 1, 2011 17:56:59 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

Talking about our goals, plans, profession, we got to the conversation how 85% of the couples we know (family/friends) the woman is earning or have the potential to earn more than her boyfriend/fiancee/husband.

And with more woman going to college, earning higher degrees and as driven (if not more) than their male counterparts, I guess it will not stop anytime soon.

In our close group we have:
- My cousin an RN married to a taxi driver
- My other cousin an RN married to a unemployed man with only high school degree
- My wife cousin earning over 200K as a lawyer married to man earning about 1/4 of that (bachelors in psychology)
- her other cousin with a masters from Columbia with a unemployed husband for the past 3 years.
- Her best friend (our maid of honor) just graduated from medical school and about to get married to her high school sweet heart who is an auto mechanic.

I don't see it as being a problem, as long as the husband keep on bringing something to the table (income or staying home) it is all good.

My wife feels it might create some issues in the case of her best friend since she is somewhat old school and feels her husband should be able to support her and take care of her.

But do you think as time pass by the idea of the man having to be the breadwinner will go away?
Or will girls still have dreams of their prince charming coming to take them away and take care of them?

I mean the other day just to joke around I told my mother and mother in law I planned to be a SAHD. They both looked at me like I was insane/crazy. yet they were both perfectly ok with the idea with my wife staying home to take care of the kids, even if she might be making more at the time we have kids. In my culture such a thing is unacceptable and you are considered less of a man for it.

Like my wife cousin: it made more sense for her as a lawyer to keep on working while her husband stayed home wiht the their 3 boys. By their calculations, they would be losing money if he went to work. My wife and his family were appaled by the idea and even now that he went back to work since all 3 are in school still hasn't forgotten or stop talking about it.

My wife out-earned me for 10 years-- 14 really. However, my business is an asset-accumulation business. I started out not only with next to $0 earnings, but with a mountain of debt.

Then, in what still seems to us to have been a bewilderingly fast, overnight shift, my income exploded and all of the sudden we had well over a million dollar net worth.

It's really an ideal situation to be in. If the situation were reversed- women tend to nest. They can be frugal, and save- but very few are big-picture, visionary. They don't recognize and exploit the opportunity. In general- and I'm not going to play flame out over this; I'm just stating the facts as I see them.

I played a dual role-- I spent time in the planning stages for my business while I worked, but didn't try very hard for promotions and all that career jazz. I mostly encouraged and supported her in her career aspirations while helping her to see the opportunity to do what she was doing for her employer for herself.

Now, we BOTH have our own businesses. We both run consulting firms-- hers is 'e-learning' and mind is real estate; and we jointly own-- but I mostly look after a rental and flipping business.

So, if the men are responsible, entrepreneurial, and visionary about this-- and young-- then the opportunity can really be a good one. If they spend their time drinking, and playing PS3 online-- not so much.

[Deleted]

Jul 4, 2011 8:30:39 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I think you are right but if men aren't needed to help financially while women stay home and raise the kids, if women are expected to "do it all" anyway, then I see no point in marrying someone and end up with another person to care for on top of the kids and the chance of having to share custody of said kids anyway. If you're going to raise and support them alone, then why mix anyone else into the equation?

divorce is not a guarantee. Wow. I saw my mom go through TWO divorces and she is not even this sour on the institution of marriage.

[formerexpat]

they aren't needed to be in the home because half the marriages end up in divorce anyway so why hassle with shared custody?

So both my female and male offspring are leery. BOTH seem to feel divorce is the issue and since their sperm donor and I are divorced, I can see where it colored their thinking. Both are concerned that a spouse will just use them and then leave them holding the bag.

Looks like mommy's jaded and incorrect view [half of marriages don't end in divorce] on life has damaged her children. That's a shame.

[Deleted]

Jul 4, 2011 8:30:39 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I think you are right but if men aren't needed to help financially while women stay home and raise the kids, if women are expected to "do it all" anyway, then I see no point in marrying someone and end up with another person to care for on top of the kids and the chance of having to share custody of said kids anyway. If you're going to raise and support them alone, then why mix anyone else into the equation?

Women need to pick better. Stop marrying assholes. Problem solved.

[illinicheme]

Personally, I'm glad I live in the times I do, because it allows me to pursue a job that I enjoy (most days). I LIKE earning a bunch of money. It gives me options (like hiring out stuff I hate doing - like cleaning toilets!) I've seen the jadedness in my grandmother, who has said at times that she was born 50 years too early. I've caught glimpses of it in my mother, though more rarely.

I married my husband because I love him. My life is better with him around, even if we argue about chores from time to time.

Our life will no doubt be turned upside down if/when I ever successfully get pregnant, but it's been a great 10 years (5 married) so far, and I have no reason to believe it won't continue to be a great many years to follow.

[Deleted]

Women need to pick better. Stop marrying assholes. Problem solved.

YES!!!!


DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!

[zibazinski]

Most women do not marry a-holes but sometimes the a-hole that was lurking (and well hidden) comes out later. I agree that someone marrying someone with no education or any aspirations should come to no surprise that they "book" when the going gets rougher.

[zibazinski]

But you are right, my kids saw firsthand how our lives changed dramatically overnight. Florida is the WRONG state to get divorced in if you are a woman with children.

[phil5185]

With the loss of much of our industry, i think men are not able to find jobs anymore that allow them be the sole breadwinners. It used to be that a hard working healthy male could find a good paying job

Yes. But I think you have the cause & effect reversed. Ie, with the loss of much of our workforce our industry was pushed offshore to find workers for our technical jobs. The young men failed Industry, not Industry failed young men.
If you want an eye-opener, run a 'help wanted' for HS Grads to work in a semiconductor factory - using math, science, simple measuring/data taking tasks - you'll see HS Grads who can't fill out the application. Wait until a 20-yr old asks you how to read a tape measure.

[zibazinski]

THAT is sad. Even though my kids weren't raised with the more practical knowledge that a father usually imparts, they can read a tape measurer.

[formerexpat]

But you are right, my kids saw firsthand how our lives changed dramatically overnight. Florida is the WRONG state to get divorced in if you are a woman with children.

It's ridiculous to call it their first hand experience. It's clear that you've not gotten past what happened and in all likelihood polluted your children's view of marriage.

Most people make the best out of a bad situation and realize that each relationship is independent from the one prior. It appears you've effectively ended your family tree due to your jaded view on the life you were handed.

My biological father fractured my mother's jaw when I was under a year. My mother then married a man when I was 5 and stayed with him for 18 years until he emotionally abused her to the point of an attempted suicide. She's now on her 3rd marriage.

I'm the first person to know that a relationship may not be forever. I'm also well aware that people may change years into the relationship.

But at the end of the day, no one can control how you handle the cards you've been dealt.

Some people are just more pessimistic about life. The worst thing that you can do is ruin your children's life because of your own, continued misery caused by a bad relationship.

[zibazinski]

I didn't have to say a thing to them. They saw it all. I totally admit that I was at fault for forgiving him/staying with him the first time he cheated but I was afraid to be a 2 time loser ( hey Doxie) but I should have been squirreling away money and getting my house in better order because once a cheater gets away with it, they continue to do it, just like a hitter. Anyway, I have DF now and all is well, just too bad the kids are grown and can't see a decent man.

[Deleted]

Jul 4, 2011 10:32:24 GMT -5 formerexpat said:

But you are right, my kids saw firsthand how our lives changed dramatically overnight. Florida is the WRONG state to get divorced in if you are a woman with children.

It's ridiculous to call it their first hand experience. It's clear that you've not gotten past what happened and in all likelihood polluted your children's view of marriage.

That struck me, too. zibazinski, you said your lives changed overnight after the divorce, So did DS's and mine. We moved into a nice little house in the same town. It felt like home immediately even though we lived without couches for a few months. We had a land line again. (The Ex had run up thousands of dollars of bills which I'd refused to pay; the phone company got paid after the divorce out of his share and in the meantime I was making do with a 1996-vintage brick-type cell phone which was $100/month if I was very careful.) The wonderful man I started dating (now my DH) gradually became a part of DS's life, gently and lovingly holding him to higher standards and showing him there were men who can be counted on to keep their promises. It also freed him of the need to prop up Mom (which can happen with a 12-year old only son of a divorced Mom) because clearly I had that support from another adult.

There was no child support. I expected and planned for that. The Ex took all the TVs and some other stuff he wasn't supposed to take. Eventually we replaced what we needed. It was just Stuff. We had peace and a roof over our heads and food on the table.

DS told me last month that when the Ex died and he went to NJ to be with the family and scatter his Dad's ashes into the Atlantic, he was the only one who wasn't angry at his father for all the crap he'd pulled. That warms my heart. Our history with him gives us every reason to be angry and embittered. Instead we've said goodbye to what could have been and moved on.

And, to get back to the OT, my education and my career made a HUGE difference in how this turned out. If I'd been dependent on getting anything from my Ex we would have been on food stamps.

[stats45]

I don't think that changing gender roles is a bad thing. I think the feminist ideal of both sexes being able to choose the home and work roles that are best for them in agreement with the other partner is ideal.

That said though, it isn't exactly so simple in practice. For a long time, male participation in the workforce and responsibility has been based on a cultural role of men as providers of the household unit. When you take away that cultural role, you take away some motivation for being responsible. New relationship expectations can take the place of old expectations, but cultural change can take a long time. Moving one gender away to the 'option' of having a stable, responsible career provides a lot of justification for laziness (for at least some men).

I've seen many highly educated women who say that their husband is a SAHD as if they chose that through careful deliberation, but I later find that the husband had been marginally employed for a long time and this was just how things worked out because he was at home.

[Deleted]

50% of marriages end in divorce and 100% of the time it is the guys fault - right zibazinski?

[zibazinski]

Same here, thank GOD my parents insisted I get a teaching degree instead of pursuing my dream career. That would never have provided the stability or life that a teacher's hours can. I had decent health insurance as well. The pay was poor but out of my divorce share I bought a townhouse so each kid had their own bedroom in the same school district but it sure was a shock to live like that after living nicely. Each school year was a nightmare with 70-80 dollars out for school supplies for each kid, that was a weeks groceries. I always wondered how the welfare kids managed? Probably got theirs for free. I remember when the kids have to have those spendy calculators for math. I drew the line for that and got the teacher to let each kid borrow one of their classroom ones. Because I was a teacher, they got to take it home which they weren't supposed to be able to do. But you are right about one thing, we no longer lived in fear and that was priceless. I'm just sorry the kids never lived with DF to see how a decent man acts.

[zibazinski]

Nope, first time it was my fault. I didn't love him. I was expected to marry him because my parents liked him and he was "suitable." So when he turned out to be an alcoholic, I wasn't interested in sticking around as in the 'for better or for worse" business. The second time I was in love and wasn't thinking clearly. I was warned but did not listen. They were right and I was wrong. He hid his behavior/true colors for quite a few years.

[Deleted]

On the OP, when I read on here about families where the husband doesn't work, it seems that it was a decision made with a lot of consideration for what would work best for the family, or the husband is going to school. IRL, the people I know where the man doesn't work, it seems to be just because he doesn't really want to. The women pay the bills and do most of the cooking, cleaning and kid stuff.

I doubt that I would personally choose either scenario, but at least the first one makes sense to me. As far as the second, if I won't tolerate my young adult children goofing off all day everyday while I go off to work, I definitely wouldn't let a grown ass man do it.

I've tried to teach my daughter to depend only on herself, to be able to support herself. If she ends up as a SAHP, fine, but she needs to capable of earning her own money. I teach my son that he needs to be able to support not only himself, but a family too if he chooses to have one.

If either of them end up being a SAH spouse, that's their and their partner's business. But I wouldn't think too highly of it if my son laid around, doing nothing constructive and let a woman take care of him.

[zibazinski]

DD said when she took some classes at the local CC that there were a lot of bummy men coming around looking for their girlfriends who were going to support them when they got jobs. Good grief.

[ontrack]

Geez, there are a lot of depressing posts on this thread. For me, I am extremely excited to be marrying my fiance in a couple of months--I'm so looking forward to spending our lives together. A lot of you are quoting the 50% divorce statistic, but that is highly misleading. Some people with a lot of marriages/divorces tend to skew the statistic. Also, in my demographic (late 20's/early 30's, highly educated) the divorce rate is much lower. People need to take more time and really get to know potential mates before they jump in and get married.

As for the idea that education is leaving men behind, I say they should suck it up and deal with it. Just because they are not being exclusively catered to anymore, they feel left out. However, I do put some stock in the idea that traditional classroom methods might be more suitable for girls' learning style (now that they are not being ignored in the classroom).

[olderburgher]

There seems to be a just below the surface thread in here about how physical labor isn't as worthy as desk work. Is it because it doesn't take brains? That can't be. Try to run a successful plumbing business with brains. Ditto as to being a farmer or car salesman. That also wasn't taught in my family when I was growing up. Honest work of any kind was respected for being that. Plumber? okay. Job foreman? Okay. Lawyer, Okay too. Heck some of my best friends are lawyers, plumbers, retired guys, teachers, etc.

[phil5185]

There seems to be a just below the surface thread in here about how physical labor isn't as worthy as desk work.

That is definitely the longterm trend.

100 yrs ago, the worth of a man was largely measured by muscle/endurance. When digging a ditch, how many feet of ditch could you dig per day? Pitching wheat bundles onto a horse-drawn wagon, hauling to the thresher, pitching them into the machine - keep up with the crew, 12 hours, 14 hours? How many cows can you hand-milk in 2 hours? How much ore could you shovel in a copper mine?

And now the ditches are dug via back-hoe, it takes brains to operate the machine efficiently & safely.Wheat bundles? A group of Combines with 30 foot cutting heads move thru a wheat field with skilled operators at the controls. Cows? That's what milking machines are for.

So yes, of course, intellectual skills are worth way more than muscle/endurance - that's been true for decades. (Happily - I sure don't want to go back to milking cows by hand, it makes my forearms hurt, I tire after about 15 minutes)

[8 Bit WWBG]

...:::"My wife feels it might create some issues in the case of her best friend since she is somewhat old school and feels her husband should be able to support her and take care of her.":::...

So why bother going to med school, or becoming a high earning attorney if a man is supposed to take care of you?

[shanendoah]

Introduction
Most of you already know that I am the main/sole bread winner in our family. DH has been unemployed for over 2 years and is now back in school full time. His current career aspiration is to add to the discourse on sacred geometry by finding its counterparts in modern math (linear algebra) and answering questions along the lines of "Is the inverse of the magic square an anti-magic square?". In other words, he wants to be a slef-published crackpot.
And I am good with that. We have had the discussion that we can afford undergrad courses on my salary, but if he wants to get graduate degrees, he has to get work as a TA or something, because we can't afford the more expensive tuition.
We have no kids. That may or may not change. If it does, DH will be the primary care giver. We do have my 19y/o cousin for the summer, and considering she has not had many caring male figures in her life, DH is able to be an amazing influence in her life.

Section I: Marraige
We didn't get married for financial or societal reasons. We got married because I wanted to. (He wanted to Incorporate, but I made the argument that certain rights we would have to spell out and do specific paperwork for in an incorporation agreement automatically came with marriage, making it the more financially prudent option.) We'd already been living together and had combined finances.

What always amuses me is this assumption that once women don't need men to financially support them or their children, marriage will disappear. (Pregnancies have always been able to happen regardless of marital status, so I refuse to count that.) Is this because all men supposedly wish they were still single? That society believes men wouldn't get married if women didn't pressure them in to it?
Marriage (or something like it) will always continue to exist for the same reason it came in to existence in the first place- humans naturally form bonded pairs and bonded family units. Yes, some environmental and societal factors have influences on us, but it is the general natural human biological state to be part of a bonded family unit.
Marriage isn't going anywhere.

Section II:Opportunity and Societal Messaging
Yes, I do believe in the ideal of everyone getting to make the choice that is right for them. However, if we don't make sure that everyone gets a chance to see all the choices (or at least a good number of them) available, we can't give them that opportunity.
And that's where the concern about how many women are in STEM careers come in. Research has shown that when you see people you can identify with in a career, you are more likely to believe that you are capable of doing that career, regardless of your actual ability.
ie Girls who are good at math (as in top 10% of all kids) still think that boys are better at math if they only ever see men doing math. At the same time, girls who are only ok at math think that girls are just as good as boys at math when they see women doing math.
So yes, its important that we increase the number of women in STEM oriented careers so that our daughters realize that this is a viable career option for them. (This same research applies to racial minorities as well.)

I am blessed to have a family that has always supported me, that has never told me I couldn't do something because I'm a girl. And yet, I still got some of those messages as a child. My parents didn't do it out of intent, it simply was the way things were. My brother got those same stereotypical messages.
For example - we both loved to help our mom bake cookies and cakes; we both went shooting with our father and were good shots. Guess which one of us was given an Easy Bake Oven and which one was given a gun. Again, these weren't intentional messages on the parts of our parents, but they were societal messages that filtered down.
Its these societal messages that feminists (and I am proud to call myself a feminist) are fighting against now.

Section III: Education
Education is one of the battle grounds. I'd say boys and girls learn differently, and for the most part that would be true. But its also true that all sorts of people learn differently from others. I am able to learn a little by lecture, but for the most part, let me at it. I learn best by doing, by experimentation and by trial and error. Leave me alone to figure it out. I'll ask for help when I need it. DH actually learns the same way.
Unless we can test children for "learning style" and assign them teachers/schools based on that, some kids (boys and girls) are always going to have to learn in environments that aren't ideal for the way they learn.
And since as adults in the workforce, we all need to be able to deal with people who learn and work differently than we do, its a very important social skill that schools teach to be able to deal with others. (And yes, I'm one of those people that believes the purpose of school is 50% social.)

Section IV: SAHPs
As for the person who commented that the SAHDs they knew probably weren't there by choice but there because they had the easier jobs to leave, how do you know that wasn't by plan?
From the moment we began dating (DH and I had been friends for years, so it started at the serious phase), we knew that I would be the primary earner. In fact, the one time in our lives that he made more money than me, I went and found a better paying job.
I am more ambitious than he is. I want the titles, the recognition, and the paycheck more than he does. So from the beginning, he worked more marginalized jobs than I did. He worked the job that could be quit or dropped to part time if we had kids.
So yeah, if we had kids and told you we chose for him to be a SAHD, you could ask questions and find out he had a low end sales job and then was unemployed and a student, so it would seem not so much like a choice as a financial requirement. You're discounting the fact that we made conscious decisions about each of our career trajectories years ago to accomodate the possibility of kids.

I very seriously doubt that you question any female friends who chose to be SAHMs, go back and look at their job history and decide it hadn't really been a choice, it was finances.
That's one of the societal assumptions we're still fighting- that women choose to be SAHMs, men are forced into the position of being SAHDs.

Section V: Changing Attitudes (societal, cultural, and personal)
As for the idea posed bythe OP, yes, societal norms are still changing. And yes, as the years go on, people will stop writing articles about breadwinner wives. But we're not there yet. The process is slow. Its slow in people, even slower in society at large, and some cultures, such as the OP's family culture, will be even slower to change.
The driving force behind all of it, though, is personal change.

When I started college, my freshman english class was a forum on gender issues. (It was the only honors freshman english class that fit into my schedule. I'd wanted to take the class on conflict.) I wrote a paper for that class about how I wanted to be a teacher, but marry a man who made enough money that when we had kids I could quit work and be at stay at home mom. I still remember some of the comments written by the teacher on that paper that had nothing to do with my ability to write a paper.
At the same age, I would have told you I was NOT a feminist.
So what happened? After all, I'm a "raging" feminist now.
Like a lot of things, life is very different at 25 than it is at 18. And different again at 35. My attitudes about certain things changed, grew and expanded.
My core values are still the same. I still think it would be good for one parent to be home at least part time with young kids. But I no longer think it has to be me. In fact, I now think it would be best if it wasn't me.
I didn't marry a man who could financially support me. I married one who could intellectually stimulate me (regardless of disparate education levels); one who made me laugh, made me feel loved and cared for. One who made me a four course home cooked meal for our first date.

So yeah, I grew up. My relationships changed, and my world view changed. That's how it works with people. We adapt, and slowly, society adapts with us.