Poll about marriage: Men, your wife must work / Women, you have to work--any guilt/regret for that?

[Malthus]

@even_sven

Of course you can find stuff to occupy you, but a lot of that doesn’t fulfill you. You do the laundry- it gets dirty again. You wash the dishes- they get dirty again. I adore cooking, but part of that is because I’m making something special. If I had to count on it as one of my main outlets for being constructive, it’d probably lose it’s charm. Likewise, fixing up the house is fun, but eventually it starts feeling kind of pointless.

Raising the kids is of course extremely rewarding. But once again, you are getting all excited about the wonder and promise of someone else’s life. Where is all that wonder and promise you once had about your own? And if that kid is a girl…are you just making this kid the only thing in your life, so that she can make her kid the only thing in her life…while all the boys are out actually having lives?

It might be better in a larger-extended family situation where you have lots of people around. But that’s not the reality for most American housewives- it’s just you, maybe a baby, the four walls around you and the clock ticking. When I’ve been unemployed. The absolute highlight and center of my day was when my SO came home from work. That’s just not healthy. There has to be some better way I can use this brain and body than waiting around for someone to come home.

Look at it from the other side - not all jobs are really all that “fulfilling”, either. Plenty of folks who work aren’t doing something they really love, or that they seriously think helps society, they are just earning cash to survive.

From my perspective - I’m a lawyer, and a high earner; my wife lost her job as a financial editor and now stays at home with the kid - she seems reasonably happy with this. To be honest, if the matter worked out the other way, I’d have been perfectly happy to switch places.

While my job is not boring, and is very creative in some ways, it is also very stressful and time-consuming. I’ve worked my whole life, but I don’t define myself by what I do. When we were both working, sometimes I wondered if what we were doing made any sense - my wife’s editor job was high-stress as well, and involved getting up early and comming home late; we had to hire a live-in to run the house and take care of the baby. Sure we made lots of money, but we had no time to do anything.

Perhaps the ideal would be to have each of us work half a job, but while there has been some suggestions in that respect in various opinion pieces I’ve read, practically speaking a professional-type job seems all-or-nothing; either work long hours for high pay, or not at all. Having one spouse not working makes a certain amount of sense in that environment, as she or he can then do all the stuff the other one can’t.

[lshaw]

Not married, but even if I were to marry someone who has as much money as Bill Gates, I would still keep working. It’s not that I don’t like staying at home or that I’m a workaholic (I used to be, but that’s another story); I just need to make my own money, because I can never feel comfortable being dependent on someone else financially. Yeah yeah, you can say that the husband’s money is also the wife’s (or the reverse), but that’s not what I feel inside.

And similarly, I don’t want anyone to be dependent on my finances either. It would put pressure on me to be the sole breadwinner and have in mind that someone else’s economic livelihood is in my hands. I think it’s just better if each person was financially independent, and I’m surprised that some men out there would not like to have that burden taken off of them.

I’ll admit that I’d like to be in a situation where I didn’t have to work to live, more like live to work and be in a position to pursue my bourgeoisie career fantasies - professional action figure, owner of a cheese boutique, whatever. But I would like to reach such a situation by own my means. I also like leisure time and wish I had more of it, but there is no free lunch.

[Gundy]

@overlyverbose

As a side note, reading women’s magazines has started to piss me off. If you look at the magazine as a whole, you have one article telling you how to get ahead at work. Of course, that requires long hours. But, don’t forget - you should cook all your meals from scratch! And you should get at least eight hours of sleep a night! And spend an hour of family time, with time for each kid alone and together, then there’s the time you’re supposed to spend with your spouse, time you’re supposed to spend alone, time you should be working out and all the fucking clean-up chores and tidying you should be doing around the house. And on top of that, there’s financial management, grocery shopping, gardening, home repair… The list goes on and on about what you’re “supposed” to do. The sad thing is that a lot of it is fairly accurate, but I can’t see how anyone would ever have all the time to do that. I can’t ever imagine being bored if I were to stay at home. I think that notion is silly.

The thing that really galls me is that in between of all of that, there’s always the admonition to not to forget to take time for yourself! Get a massage! Take a spa day! Because if you’re not taking care of yourself that way, it’s your own fault when you burn out.

[Ca3799]

I would prefer to be a full-time stay at home mom, but in my family my husband is the stay at home parent. I’m not secretly or openly regretful about it, that’s just the way it is for us.

When I was the primary stay at home parent, I still worked part time. That was OK, too.

[Ruby_Slippers]

I’m female and 65. When I was young, it was still commonly accepted that the ideal was for mothers to stay home with their kids. My own mother worked out of economic necessity but told me in later years that she felt guilty about not being home with me. And more recently, I’ve gotten the impression that she also felt a bit of resentment that she couldn’t. But in my own case, even a bit before the feminist movement, I began to realize that I should not expect to be supported by a husband. At first, this was more a case of feeling that I might never find a man who wanted to marry me, let alone support me. But that later became a feeling that I should take responsibility for myself and for my own support.

That being said, I totally agree that whatever works for any given couple is absolutely fine. I just don’t think that either one of them should expect or assume that one has all of the financial responsibility and the other has all of the homemaking responsibility. But that also means that they should at least consider the long-term implications if the relationship goes sour. I don’t believe in alimony but I could see some kind of settlement to provide time for the non-working spouse to readjust.

And finally – my first choice would be the one mentioned by several others: win a huge lottery. With enough money, I could find many more fulfilling ways to spend my time. I like my job, but let’s face it – if it were all that challenging and fulfilling, I wouldn’t be on this board right now!

[lindsaybluth]

Female here, under 30. The thought never occurred to me. Both my mother and my grandmother worked full time their entire lives (grandma is since retired, but not completely till she was 80). My grandfather, after proposing to my grandmother said “So you’ll stop working once we’re married, right”? Yes yes, she assured him, of course honey. He made good money and didn’t want her to have to lift a finger.

Fast forward a few years, “Honey, why don’t you quit? You said you would”. “I will I will - after our first child is born.”

Suddenly two toddlers 10 months apart are on the scene. “Honey, you swore you’d quit when the baby was born”. “Yes, but why don’t I just wait till they’re through preschool?” (She was the head preschool teacher at the time).

By the time they emigrated, my mom was 5. And the fourth child. And in first grade. And my grandmother was still working

I would never let my livelihood depend on someone else, no matter how much I loved them or believed them. To me, it’s just basic instinct. No matter how well off you are, it’s crazy not to work. Even if you don’t have a career and don’t have an education, it’s terrifically hard to get a job once you’re out of the workforce for years. I love my SO, he would take care of me for life if I were to have an accident tomorrow. He wouldn’t regret it for a minute. And vice-versa. And (should I ever decide I like babies) if he knocks me up down the road, he’ll take care of me for the few months I’m not working. Unlike some other women who say they “respect” SAHM’s, I don’t. Flat out don’t. You’re not washing clothes on a washboard anymore - modern conveniences make it so that you can work. Unless your children are under the age of 5, unless you home-school or are disabled in some way, not working is absurd. And if you are still a SAHM not under those conditions, you better bet volunteering your little heart out and making a 4 course dinner every night.

It really disturbs me that even in this economy girls my age are looking to “catch” a husband and not have to work. I’ve seen it from all social classes too.

There’s lots of family tension on my mom’s side because my oldest (female) cousin quit after having a baby. She was the first one on this side to graduate (from an American college) in our family. Her father (my uncle) passed away while she was in high school and the other siblings stepped up financially to put her through a top 20 school and through her MBA at Harvard. My mom ruefully jokes that her great-nephew has the world’s most expensive full time nanny.

[bup]

I’m 45, and actively wish my wife would get a job.

[overlyverbose]

@Cazzle

I have to defend working to my mother. She’s 57 and has not worked since before I was born and thinks of that as the default. I can’t get it through to her that that simply isn’t the way the world is any more (it was scarcely like that when I was a child!). I wouldn’t put myself in any of the categories, really, because my mother has made the working/not working thing such a huge and stupid issue in my life.

The fact that both of my children have been in daycare since three months old has been a huge issue for my mom. To give you an idea of her outlook: when I first entered my master’s program, she asked, “overly, I think you have enough education. Don’t you think it’s time you settled down and started having kids? You won’t be young forever.”

Then when I got married, it was, “When are you going to have babies?” When I started having babies, it was, “When are you going to stop working?” She still very strongly disapproves of my working full time.

But, I’ve built a reputation for myself and I can’t go to part time or take a sabbatical or I risk my career later. My husband and I need the insurance, and I’m the insurance carrier, so there’s another reason. And, of course, the extra income is necessary not really for living expenses, but if we want to retire or send our kids to college later.

She also takes issue with the fact that I’ve had jobs with more than a couple of different companies since I graduated college. She just doesn’t get that companies don’t give a crap about their employees and therefore employees need to not give a crap about their employers. Loyalty is great, but it doesn’t prevent you from getting laid off or fired anymore.

[lindsaybluth]

@llcoolbj77

This!!! I am a 32 year old female. Full time attorney. I’d say my job is 9-5+++. My husband is also an attorney, who runs his own practice. We need a third.

Food (shopping, cooking, planning) falls mostly on me. Housework (other than kitchen) falls mostly on him. We pretty much do our own laundry. I am really really nervous about when we have kids.

Daycare and a housekeeper (cooks, cleans, does errands) as needed or a FT nanny who cleans and cooks. Kids clean up after themselves as they get older.

[Voyager]

@CrazyCatLady

I wonder if you’ve ever tried it, honestly.

Yes, there’s a ton of things to be done around the house, enough to keep a person occupied all their waking moments. But an awful lot of those things are tedious, repetitive, mind-bogglingly dull tasks–dishes, laundry, picking up, dusting, floors, errands. And that tends to be the bulk of your day. Every. single. day. of. your. life. It bored the tits right off me, and scheduling things to break up the tedium has the secondary effect of giving you far less time to get all the boring, tedious, PITA work done. I suspect it’s exactly the things that keep your wife from feeling like the walls are closing in that make her complain about not having enough time to get things done.

This is the false upper middle class dichotomy of the choice being between the boring stay at home job vs being a partner in a law firm, an editor, or the VP of Marketing. (Cite - almost any NY Times article about this.) Which is more boring - being at home where you at least get to set your own schedule or working a phone bank or retail?

My wife went from SAHM to stay at home writer, and I envy her freedom.

[llcoolbj77]

I think the options in the poll for the men are funny, just thinking about how my husband would possibly respond. He pretty much demands that I work… and not only that, but in my chosen profession. We are in our early 30’s. And both lawyers.

As a public defender there are times when I fantasize about being a SAHM, but not because I want to be a SAHM, but because I am fed up with one aspect of my work or another. I also coach competetive soccer, and make a pretty penny from coaching as well. But when I casually mention coaching full time my husband just laughs.

His mother didn’t work (she passed away when he was in college), and I think he has some hang-ups about that. But I am very curious how he would respond to this poll. Too bad he is not a member of the SDMB.

[overlyverbose]

@lindsaybluth

Daycare and a housekeeper (cooks, cleans, does errands) as needed or a FT nanny who cleans and cooks. Kids clean up after themselves as they get older.

That’s way easier said than done - having a situation like that would be really, really expensive, prohibitively so for most. Sending your kid to daycare and hiring someone to take care of the house costs about the same as a pretty decent year’s salary, at least where I live.

Here’s an example. We take our kids to a high-end day care and preschool (it’s a Montessori). It costs us more than $25,000 a year for child care. We could go to a cheaper place, but most places aren’t as clean and don’t have the same programs as where we send our kids. Anyway, there’s that. Add on a housekeeper and you’re spending at least $20,000 additional, and I think that’d be bargain basement prices if you want someone to cook and clean and do your errands. That’s also assuming your housekeeper doesn’t want insurance.

[lindsaybluth]

20k for someone just to clean?? Maybe in NYC or DC, but I was moreso talking about what you could afford (eg, someone to come every 2 weeks and do the heavy scrubbing) and working up from there if you could afford it. Scrubbing for 3 hours should only be $75-125. There’s no reason to hire Merry Maids; it’s better to find someone on Craiglist and run your own background check on them.

I concur that actual childcare is pricey, but it also doesn’t make sense for someone to go to college and get a masters degree in a field where the starting salaries are 50k and then NOT work. I see a lot of people do this and it blows my mind. Typical upper-middle class women decide to “stay at home”. WTF? Aside from the childcare costs, there is the emotional benefit to your kid seeing you work. IMO, people my age who saw their mothers work have very different worldviews than those who don’t, especially boys.

Never met a housecleaner who expected insurance (I assume you meant health) and in high school I did interviews for new housecleaners since our nanny decided she didn’t want to clean and my parents were too busy.

Also overly, you mention that you also work for college education. I dunno wtf some women are thinking - that all of their kids are special snowflakes and will magically get scholarships into college, I guess. I had quite a few friends who grew up with new toys and gadgets, computers and cars and then had an extremely rude awakening when they learned as seniors they had no more than 5k to their names for college. It’s like their families lived hand to mouth, in part because the mom didn’t work.

llcoolbj77, is there a reason you’re a public defender and don’t work in a private practice or for a corporation of some sort? Seems like shitty pay for working so much (not to mention having so much education and loans).

[Sunspace]

@Nava

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?”

:: laughs out loud :: Will you marry me?

@Nava

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.

Good points.

@HazelNutCoffee

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).

Maybe it’s because I’m 47, but I come at this from a different direction.

When I was a kid, my father made enough to support a (small) house, a wife and three kids, on just a gas despatcher’s salary an a small city in central Ontario. Mom did go back to work as a dental assistant when I was around 5 or so, but that was only part time. Our neighbours across the street had a much nicer house on the salary of a salesman (textbooks, I believe).

You can’t do that as often now here. Those kinds of blue-collar/white-collar corporate jobs that pay well compared to the cost of living are rarer and rarer here in the Northeast of North America, as smaller cities deindustrialized. You have to go into the trades and become something like a plumber or electrician, try to get into the tech fields, or go through university and then fight with a hundred thousand other people for upper-level jobs like attorneys.

So more and more households need two incomes to try to attain a similar living standard as their parents did on one income. (And yes, I’m aware that new houses are larger and more expensive, plus people pay for more services like internet and television.)

I have no problem with my hypothetical spouse(s) working. If kids are present, I just would like there to be at least one adult around most of the time. Whether it be me, my hypothetical wife, the trusted roommate/cousin, the neighbours, whoever, isn’t as important.

@Tom_Scud

+1. Both of us working part-time with tons of time & money for travel would be awesome.

Yeah, that’s would be good for me too. Work… just not too much.

[overlyverbose]

@lindsaybluth

20k for someone just to clean?? Maybe in NYC or DC, but I was moreso talking about what you could afford (eg, someone to come every 2 weeks and do the heavy scrubbing) and working up from there if you could afford it. Scrubbing for 3 hours should only be $75-125. There’s no reason to hire Merry Maids; it’s better to find someone on Craiglist and run your own background check on them.

Nope - not just to clean. I think you had said earlier that the housekeeper would do the cooking, cleaning and errands, too, and I’m assuming would arrange for yard keeping and wait on repairpeople and the like. I’d imagine that a person who would do all of that would command a much higher rate than someone who just came in to clean a couple of times a week. So, I’m assuming “worst-case” scenario - where you have to have the person come in every day (unless, of course, they cook for the week or for the next few days).

[Rachellelogram]

I’m female. I’m extremely intrinsically lazy. Ideally I’d like to bag a trophy husband that doesn’t ask much of me beyond keeping the house clean and potentially raising kids. But this is not realistic, I’m not young/cute enough, for one. And two, I’m not dishonest enough to lie or trap my way into a marriage.

So as it is, I work to support myself, but I hate it. I am potentially morally despiseable because if I could find a way to be fed and play computer games all day long without working, I would (I’d be a welfare cheat in a second if I knew how to get into that route). But that opportunity has not arisen. Also I don’t have kids so my chances of my life being subsidized by the government are fairly small.

[lindsaybluth]

@overlyverbose

Nope - not just to clean. I think you had said earlier that the housekeeper would do the cooking, cleaning and errands, too, and I’m assuming would arrange for yard keeping and wait on repairpeople and the like. I’d imagine that a person who would do all of that would command a much higher rate than someone who just came in to clean a couple of times a week. So, I’m assuming “worst-case” scenario - where you have to have the person come in every day (unless, of course, they cook for the week or for the next few days).

Agreed, however she stated she was a lawyer so I assumed salary along those lines, along with her husband. My advice was based on that. When she comes out with the fact she’s a public defender - well, we all make choices, and that’s a pretty firm choice in the “I will have to make decisions about how many kids and what sort of help I have around the house” camp. I adjusted my second response based on that - that they could probably afford someone to do just the heavy scrubbing. 9-5+ isn’t that crazy. When you hit 50+ hours a week, then it starts getting crazy.

[overlyverbose]

@lindsaybluth

Agreed, however she stated she was a lawyer so I assumed salary along those lines, along with her husband. My advice was based on that. When she comes out with the fact she’s a public defender - well, we all make choices, and that’s a pretty firm choice in the “I will have to make decisions about how many kids and what sort of help I have around the house” camp. I adjusted my second response based on that - that they could probably afford someone to do just the heavy scrubbing. 9-5+ isn’t that crazy. When you hit 50+ hours a week, then it starts getting crazy.

Ah - gotcha. Didn’t see that (would probably help if I read the thread).

[llcoolbj77]

@lindsaybluth

llcoolbj77, is there a reason you’re a public defender and don’t work in a private practice or for a corporation of some sort? Seems like shitty pay for working so much (not to mention having so much education and loans).

I have done the corporate thing (patent law) and hated it. And I didn’t much envy the partner’s “golden handcuffs.” Atleast my job is relatively 9-5. Actually, because I am in NoVA, and have been a PD for over 5 years, I make a nice chunk of change and my benefits are FABU. But mostly it is because I like representing kids and have made juvenile justice my passion. (Although I have to do my fair share of adult felonies). You really can’t make a successful private practice out of representing kids. They don’t make any money. And their parents will usually only spring for a private attorney once, if that. Plus juveniles don’t vote, so juvenile justice is not really a winning platform in the public policy arena.

Anyway, we will definitely hire someone to come in twice a month to clean (I know exactly what you mean, not Merry Maids, but similar). My salary plus benefits far outweigh what we would pay for excellent day care and monthly cleaning services. So it is not like I would be working just to pay for day care. Not close.

When it comes right down to it… I love being a lawyer. I love talking in court. I love saying, “objection, your honor.” It is just fucking cool and rewarding. I am not cashing that in any time soon.

ps. I am also not in private practice because I LOATHE traffic court. That is a private practitioners bread and butter. :smack:

[Rachellelogram]

double post