I believe there was a time that if a wife had to go to work to help support a family, it would be a source of embarassment or wounded pride for the husband. OBVIOUSLY times have changed, but I have to admit I do find myself falling into that mindset just a little bit sometimes when my wife talks about wanting to go back to work. She’s not a career oriented person, she just feels that we ought to be saving more for retirement and stuff. I agree, but my first reaction is to think to myself, “I agree, but you shoudn’t have to do that, I can work harder!” So I was wondering how unusual I was in thinking so. Poll to follow shortly!
Also I broke down the choices as “under 40” and “over 40”, cause that’s approximately how old I am.
I’d have done 65. I’m 59, and it never occurred to me. (Well, I know the attitude, but those in college in the early '70s were well past it.)
It would be interesting to do this as a socioeconomic thing also.
Are you kidding? The days of Ricky Ricardo are long over, pal. Although the stay-at-home mom gets more respect than she used to, there’s still a certain amount of eye-rolling that we liberated women types give other women who expect a man to “take care of them”.
Me? I figger if a woman wants to stay home with the children, it’s a good thing for the children obviously. But for myself? No freakin’ way. I could never respect myself if I didn’t have some kind of employment.
Of course, that’s a strange way for me to talk now that I’m laid off and unemployed. But that’s another circumstance.
Woman, 30. The idea of not working is utterly foreign to me. It’d be like hiring someone to brush my teeth for me, or just deciding to stop walking and use a personal scooter all the time for the hell of it. It just doesn’t make sense. Now, I could see taking a year or two off/cutting back for a bit if I have a kid (but of course I’d hope hubby would do his part, too.) But just flat out not having a career? Not even in my realm of thinking.
I find work incredibly rewarding. I’ve basically been training my whole life for it, and I’m really looking forward to where my career takes me…quite literally. as part of the appeal of my career path is an almost-certain opportunity to travel and/or live abroad. Anyway, I’m spending a billion dollars to get the kind of education I need to make change in the world. Why would I not go on to actually do that?
Added to that is just plain old independence. Why would i want to spend someone else’s money? Why would I want to have someone else have to buy me everything? Now, it’d be great if I can find a man who can afford a good standard of living…but I also want to be able to afford my man a good standard of living. I’ve got two legs and two arms, why would I need to walk around spending money someone else earned?
I was always confused by my Chinese students who would dream of all the great things their future husbands could buy them…a car, beautiful clothes, a three-bedroom apartment. Wouldn’t it be a more certain and probably much easier path just to get a job and buy them yourself? Hoping some guy is going to buy this stuff for you is leaving an awful lot up to chance…especially if your 40 and he suddenly decides he’s leaving you and now you’ve never worked a day in your life and have no way to support yourself.
Anyway, to sum it up: How would you feel if you didn’t work and your wife gave you an allowance? Yeah, well, that’s pretty much exactly how I’d feel. A vagina doesn’t change that basic “I don’t want to be completely dependent and non-contributing.”
Don’t mistake this for me knocking housewives. If it works for you, go for it. But it doesn’t work for me.
I’m 41. I chose to go back to work after my son was born. I was ready to go back to work. No regrets; no guilt.
I’m 36. My wife went back to work about 6 months after we had our first baby and I didn’t have any regrets about it. After our second baby I was getting paid more and she didn’t have to work. She’s planning on going back to work next year though.
43 and it would never occur to me. Both my mother and step-mother worked and though I don’t take it for a given that a modern household would be dual-income, I do think that it is the norm, at least in my expensive corner of the world.
I know folks locally that have single-income households by choice. But not very many. Frankly I probably know more heterosexual households where the female partner is the larger income generator, than I do households where only the man works.
I guess it would be nice if only one partner had to work outside the home, leaving more time for homeworking duties. But for it to specifically be a problem if the female partner works: nope.
That said, in my community, the opposite question would have problems: If the husband didn’t have to work, but the wife chose to, the husband would be assumed to be lazy. I wonder how that would poll here.
Sorry, most of the married women I know want to work, including some who were not able to work way back when. I had several dates and a boyfriend who would make all these plans for when they’d make it rich and I’d be able to stop working, and I’d always think (and sometimes, ask) “which part of ‘engineer’ did you not understand?” I currently am somewhere in the top 15% of earners for my country, which means if I got married I’d probably be making more than my spouse.
The “wants to work” crowd includes women who aren’t career oriented at all but at some point they were done raising the kids or had them old enough to not need Mommy around whenever they weren’t in school, and wanted to get out of the house. I know half a dozen who started looking for work shortly after the husband retired, because the alternative of throttling him was starting to look like a rational option; their husbands were used to having people to supervise, the wifes were used to being their own boss and could take a part-time boss much more easily than a full-time-husband-in-boss-mode.
Q on the poll: this “thought” would be the thought of working, the thought of regretting it, the thought of bemoaning having a husband who “wants to keep me in style”… which thought?
Why?
The thought that it’s to be regretted that the wife would be needing to work, and (I guess by implication) the preference that the wife shouldn’t have to work.
You seem to have an assumption that “women not working” is, instead of an unusual thing, a blip in history which got romanticized, the default, hence my sorry. Throughout history, women worked in the farm, as goldsmiths, as weavers, as brewers… this notion that women are something you “keep” is as new as the notion that housework isn’t work (it it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be people being paid for it).
You talk about the woman “needing” to work as if the only reason a woman could “want” to would be being career-oriented and as if you perceive the only possible “need” to be economical, while “I feel like the house is falling on me” is IME a common one; many of the women (and men) I know who work and who want to work are not career oriented; they want the money, they want the security of a regular paycheck while they pursue their vocation as a night-job/hobby, they want to get out of the house.
To be honest, my ideal situation would be where I am working but I don’t HAVE to work, meaning my hypothetical husband makes enough money so that any money I earn would be seen as a bonus but not a necessity. This would make it a lot easier when we have kids - I could just stay at home without worrying about having to work at the same time. I’d probably go back to work after they started school.
Pssssssssh, yeah, not bloody likely to happen. But one can dream!
Wow, I must be a powerful writer, to use my simple straightforward words to convey such deep undercurrents of unspoken, subconscious intent. I oughtta be an ambulance driver in your country.
Anyway, thanks for your contribution.
That’s kind of what I had in mind, though . . . I mean, my wife has a passion for cooking and arty type stuff, and I’ve encouraged her to look into jobs where she could do that or start her own business if it made her happy – but the idea of her saying, “well, we’re not making enough money, I’d better start looking through the classifieds and see what I can find (sigh)” might kind of hurt my pride, silly as it sounds.
One half of a couple working is unusual and in situations where it’s expected but not actively desired, it can be fairly psychologically stressful for the not-working partner. When I was out of work for three months this summer, it was pretty stultifying to just sit around the house or, if I went out, to have nothing to do or work towards except self-created goals that nobody cared about but me.
I don’t think avoiding that feeling is “to be regretted”.
It sounds like you and your wife are talking about two different things. Since you said the idea of her saying “we’re not making enough money” might hurt your pride, am I right in assuming she hasn’t actually said anything like that? If she just wants to work it’s almost certainly because she wants to work. As in, have something to do with her days, have goals to work toward, have some more money to spend on you, feel proud of accomplishments, etc.
Well, I think my boyfriend has a similar fantasy to mine - that is, a situation where he is the breadwinner and I have the option to stay home. NOT because he thinks women should stay home, but because he is a wee bit old-fashioned and thinks a man should be able to support his household on his own.
Neither of us realistically expect this to happen. And I like working, and he has no problem with the fact that I currently get paid more than he does. But I do think that one person spending more time at home would make life easier (in terms of housework and kids).
How would you feel if she earned more than you?
If I felt I was doing well enough in my own career, and she had a career that she enjoyed, I don’t think I’d mind at all. If I felt she was successful in her chosen career but I was not, that might be frustrating.
Female, 32. I love my job, and wouldn’t give it up, even if I married a rich man. My soon to be ex-husband had this fantasy of me becoming a stay-at-home mom someday… One of his many unreasonable expectations of me and of our future together. He couldn’t seem to understand that I would have made a terrible SAHM. My son would have ~hated~ me! I’d have driven him mad, and I’d have gone absolutely stir crazy to boot! Not working has never truly entered my mind.