So this weekend, I read the book from which the New York Times article I blogged about on Friday was excerpted. I feel a little differently now, though not enough to take back anything I wrote.
Andrews spends a lot of time defending not feeling bad, because after all, the banks shouldn't have lent him money. This is true, they shouldn't, and anyone who did should be profusely apologizing to their shareholders. But when you read the book, what you discover is that while the book is ostensibly about our Great National Borrowing Binge, for Andrews, the debt is really a sideshow. He couldn't afford to get married. At all.
After his alimony payments, Andrews was taking home $2770 a month, or about what I took home when I was a junior web editor at The Economist. On this, he expected to support a wife and several children who came attached to a meagre $700 a month in child support. Presumably, their joint income was so low because the emotional (though not yet physical) relationship between Andrews and his now wife is what triggered their respective divorces.
Middle class people in Washington DC do not expect to support a wife, several children, and the visits of several more, on $3500 a month--which they didn't get, because her ex-husband repeatedly failed to pay up. That is not money that lets you live at any income level at all in an acceptable school district. The tiny, run down two bedroom in Silver Spring that my sister and I shared when I first moved to DC was $1500 a month. I don't think you could cram four or five people of varying ages and sexes into that living space--not and maintain what the middle class anywhere in the country thinks of as a decent minimum. Even if you'd wanted to, the building management wouldn't have allowed it.
He certainly couldn't live there and do what middle class people in DC think of as "normal", like dressing yourself and your children somewhere other than the $10 rack at Wal-Mart, eating something besides rice and beans every night, and so forth. At the very best, had they moved to an exurb, they would have had a life with absolutely no margin for error.
Of course, they didn't exactly expect to pull this off on $3500 a month. They expected his wife to get a job that paid $40,000 a year or more. But this was not certain, and it wasn't actually all that reasonable, considering that she hadn't worked for twenty years.
Andrews took on the obligation to support two adult women and, by my count, six children. Middle class people can't do that. That's something that's only ever been possible for very rich men.
The credit card lenders and mortgage brokers let Andrews make a bad decision: the decision to get married. But if they hadn't lent him the money, it's crystal clear from the expenses and income figures he lays out, and their behavior, that they never would have gotten married in the first place. They were spending $3,000 a month more than they were making. Having a cheaper rental or a lower credit card interest bill would have come nowhere near to making up the gap.
So what does he blame them for? Helping him get, and (so far) stay, married? It's like the old joke: take my wife--please! Other people may have been led down the primrose path, borrowing more than they can afford. But Andrews married more than he could afford. Unless he's willing to repudiate the marriage, he hasn't much moral stance to repudiate the debt.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
This is the point I make when I say that middle-aged men need to think very deeply before they marry again, especially to women who have children from another marriage. In a financial sense, marriage is all downside to the man: huge expenses, legal obligations, dealing with the ex and the ex-extended family, and very little protection if (when) things go south. As I said in another thread: you better be in love, chum, because your love is all that's going to keep you warm when she takes all your s**t after the divorce.
I forget which comic first made the observation, but men would often be better served by simply picking an attractive female at random and then simply giving her half his assets. It would save time and emotional wear and tear.
But the heart wants what it wants, and expenses be damned.
(Why, yes, I am divorced. How can you tell?)
"Why, yes, I am divorced"
It's hard to imagine why...
In a financial sense, marriage is all downside to the man
That's only true if he chooses to keep marrying women with no apparent means of supporting themselves (which is far from all of us, these days). The same could be said for professional women who choose to marry good-for-nothing couch potatoes who spend their days playing World of Warcraft and collecting unemployment checks. It's not unheard of.
"It's not unheard of."
Sure, but common? No.
Even a statistically significant cohort, relative to the number of married, unemployed women in expensive yoga pants at that upscale coffee in the great neighborhood shop mid-afternoon? Not really.
Men work because they must. Women don't work because they can.
Women don't work because they can.
Thanks for dismissing half the country's population (and nearly 47% of its workforce) in a sentence. Asshole.
Pardon the ad hominem. Still, the misogyny in some of these comments is astounding.
@Elisabeth Ericson:
Ad hominem pardoned, it's understandable. The thing that most irks me is the sexist stereotypes that the women around this man clung/cling to. The misogynistic views that perpetuate views of entitlement to alimony or the stay-at-home wife are the same views that proffer the self-righteous outrage of men saying such things as "Men work because they must. Women don't work because they can."
His wives tried to shunt their responsibilities onto him. This is deplorable. He let them, which is equally deplorable.
The same could be said for professional women who choose to marry good-for-nothing couch potatoes who spend their days playing World of Warcraft
I see your point, but that's not too good of an example. WoW nerds don't tend to score with any women other than Mrs. Palm and her five daughters.
She calls men with less ambition than their wives "good for nothing couch potatoes (sic)" etc. but when someone says something tart (although undeniably more supported by data) about women, then it is "oh, you mysogynist, you asshole!"
Gotta love it.
That's because I talked about specific categories of men, whereas your comments concerned women in general. I have no kind words to spare for pampered housewives either, trust me.
But I'm admittedly judgmental and, yes, somewhat of an asshole myself.
Rod Stewart once said "Next time I think about getting married I'll just give a house to a woman I hate instead."
You're exaggerating. Our legal system only works against men who are good providers. Men with neither jobs nor savings can get married with no drawbacks. They can also have as many kids as they want (marriage or not) without any downside economic risk to themselves. Same goes for women without jobs or savings.
Basically our legal system regarding marriage and procreation is custom designed to reward deadbeats of either sex.
Basically our legal system regarding marriage and procreation is custom designed to reward deadbeats of either sex.
Why should the marriage and procreation laws be different from any other part of the legal and government system?
> that middle-aged men need to think very deeply before they marry again
And I say that doesn't apply just to men nor to those of middle-age. *Anyone* needs to think very deeply before they marry, period.
In mrmanley's rant is the sexist assumption that the man is the major provider and the woman is going to be the recipient of his wealth. But nowadays, the woman is probably going to make something on the order of 0.8 times the income of the man.
If the woman has children for her first marriage, they're not the man's obligation if the second marriage fails.
BTW, "giving her half of his assets" isn't how divorce works in many (most?) states. She gets half of the *marital* assets. The assets that they accrued during the marriage.
Why, yes, I remarried. Financially and emotionally, I am enriched.
From the wife's point of view it also sucks. She also gets huge expenses, dealing with the ex and the ex-extended family. The stay-at-home wife losses out too relative to your scenario of simply giving half your assets to an attractive female at random - she quite probably lost years of work experience while raising kids.
Basically:
- having two households is a lot more expensive than having one.
- having two sets of children is even more expensive.
- the law can't make two people like each other, which means the law can't make two people co-operate over the raising of kids.
- the law is a really expensive way of forcing agreements where one party doesn't want to co-operate. Which just raises the expense of having two households.
Only winner here are the lawyers.
It was Rod Stewart who said, "I'm not getting married again. I'll just find a woman I don't like and give her a house".
Everybody here seems to be focused on marriage, divorce, SAHMs, but ignoring the main point.
This is a guy who wanted what he wanted, knew he couldn't afford it, but found somebody else to pay for it for him. Now he's trying to cash in on that, and find ways to feel righteous in the process. It looks like the family still hasn't adjusted their lifestyle, and, worse, that they haven't even used the money they've gotten for the book to pay up what they owe. Talk about stealing with a good conscience! The ultimate entitlement mentality.
Exactly. The guy's not an idiot because he marries poorly; he marries poorly because he's an idiot. He's been an idiot all of his life, and will be an idiot until the day he dies. For us to offer him anything other than contempt is a disservice to society.
And, as we are seeing in California today, the non-idiots are getting tired of bailing the idiots out. It's not a question of "being neighborly," it's a question of "stop asking me to finance the lifestyles of the lazy and stupid."
Did he actually get married? From the article, it looked like he and his first wife "separated," and that he then moved in with his girlfriend and her kids.
Megan,
My heart goes out to the the ex-husband of the new Mrs. Andrews - to think he kept that women in grand style for 20 years and she leaves him.
Perhapse the former Mrs. Andrews and the new Mrs. Andrews's ex-husband can meet and marry and live happily every after - now that would be karmic justice.
Though looking at them as a couple, it's not so much the second marriage as the divorce(s). He might have been able to get by on his remaining salary, but his second wife and her kids would presumably have been impoverished if she still couldn't get a job. (Even if more support had been awarded in that case, if her ex still wasn't paying reliably that wouldn't necessarily make a difference.) If he couldn't afford to get married, it sounds as if she couldn't afford anything else.
Which may help explain why she appears to have tried so hard to avoid seeing that anything was wrong-- the veneer of gentility over an abyss of ruin in the event of not making a good marriage sounds like something out of a Jane Austen novel.
Mike,
If he couldn't afford to get married, it sounds as if she couldn't afford anything else.
As I understand it she fell for Mr. Andrews and as a result iniatied divorce procedings against her husband.
The other book that Amazon co-recommends with "Busted" is "Surviving Auschwitz." I don't think his life is THAT bad.
Andrew covers economics and business issues for the NYT. He should have known that the two most important things to do for financial stability is to marry and remain married to the same person. People keep forgetting that the second of those two things is more important than the first. Divorce almost always destroys economic security. Once lost, economic security can be very difficult to regain.
(I'm sure someone very smart has written that before. It may have been on this very blog or Talking Points. I don't remember where.)
Alas, you can't stay married when your spouse wants to divorce you. Sometimes the being screwed over starts right there.
The only odd thing from this guy's story is the weird presumption that since he writes on money/finance/economics for a newspaper, he actually knows anything about money/finance/economics. It's not that such people don't exist, I think MM is one, but they are comparatively rare.
The other question is - the woman hasn't worked in 20 years. That must mean that for a substantial portion of that time all of her children were in school. I can totaly understand having mom home when the kids are very young, but when they are all in school fulltime - I just don't get it.
How her husband ever have tolerated that much idleness I'll never understand.
I can totaly understand having mom home when the kids are very young, but when they are all in school fulltime - I just don't get it.
There's still a lot a woman can do from home to help her husband succeed, and thereby contribute to the family's welfare. There's still lots of "mommy" stuff (school is often out at 3:00), "wifey" stuff (shopping for food, fixing meals, letting the plumber in during the day), and there's less obvious business-related stuff, like reviewing his books, keeping track of business-related social engagements, free research of various kinds, and scheming, catty advice on destroying his enemies.
I would very much like it if my wife stayed home permanently (though she shows no signs of it). Not to be idle at all, but to be busy on my behalf.
They are generally called nannies or assistants, and they get paid jack all. So if you wife is only worth that much, yeah, sure give her the nanny/assistant job without any salary. You save withholding et al. If she can make more at a job to cover the spread, though, she should keep the job and you guys should hire the nanny/assistant.
That requires entrusting my children, my home, and whatever business-related work I have to somebody getting paid "jack all." Aside from which, the experiences of friends with nannies have hardly been smooth or cheap.
There's more to life--and child-rearing--than money.
How much is "jack all"? If the price is right, who cares about quality?
When you let someone into your home for the explicit purpose of pawing through all of your things (mere feather dusting just doesn't quite cut it some weeks), and/or give them certain authorities over family members, you might care somewhat about the quality.
Meh, when me and my wife were both working insane hours at the same software startup, we came to the same conclusion: 'We need a house wife!'. House wifes are great if you can afford them, first on my list for something I would spend my money on. And that was before we had kids, throw in the huge bonus of not letting strangers raise your kids (what is the point of having kids then?) and it is a slam dunk. Of course now that Jr is starting school in the fall, my wife has that look in her eyes and keeps saying things like 'Did you read that post on Bootstraping your web 3.0 startup?' I know I should never have got her an iTouch. I am afraid this golden age is coming to an end.
That's something that's only ever been possible for very rich men.
Well, them and farmers. On a farm, children are a productive asset.
Not anymore, since 20th century mechanization and industrialization of farming. You don't find that many large farm families any more. One of the farmers (the hubby or the wife) also work off the farm for health insurance and cash flow.
On the article, I have to agree: Andrews is basically saying "they shouldn't have let me be this stupid."
Presumably, since he works at the NYT, this translates to "the government should have prevented me from being this stupid."
And with such nobly-intentioned stones is the road to a suffocating nanny-state paved...
Hearing about Andrews reminds me of something: CVS Pharmacy has a big sale this week on douche bags.
Rob,
But does all that suff really take 40 hours a week? I know any number of people who can do all that and hold down a full time job. I can't figure a woman being home, with the kids in school fulltime, not having way too much time on her hands. And a woman with too much time on her hands is bad news - as an example see the current Mrs. Andrews.
There was a divorce case of a senior executive at major firm -- I forget which -- where the wife's large award hinged on the sort of "wife stuff" she did to advance her husband's career (e.g., navigating him through the social circuit with other executives).
Or could be Gary Wendt and his wife Lorna. He headed up GE Capital. I think their 1997 divorce was the first time the wife of a high-powered exec was able get more by claiming throwing parties and other things she was expected to do were actually part of his career, so she was entitled not only to half the assets, but also part of his pension and other deferred compensation.
Or you might be thinking of Jack and Jane Welch who split in 2003. She was going down the same road as Mrs Wendt, at least in her filings. They settled on the eve of the trial - as far as I know the settlement was never made public.
I had the thought last week that this entire thing is charade designed to sell a book.
Is this shiftless knucklehead the kind of thing that passes for a middle class now? If so, there's never been a better time for a nice long depression.
I can totaly understand having mom home when the kids are very young, but when they are all in school fulltime - I just don't get it.
How her husband ever have tolerated that much idleness I'll never understand.
You are kidding right? Half the women who live around me fit that description (yeah -- it's an upper middle class neighborhood). But they're not idle--they do all kinds of things. Go to spinning and Pilates. Volunteer. Take classes. Garden. Supervise home remodeling. It's pretty much what anybody would do after retirement -- except, of course, they're also quite involved in after-school kid activities and helping with homework (which other kinds of retirees seldom have to worry about).
Once the youngest kid is in school full-time (about 10 years after the first one is born), just how do you think the husbands should go about getting their wives back into a job if they don't want to do it? No, it's better to avoid the problem in the first place, guys -- just take care to choose a wife with a career and don't earn so much yourself that she's tempted by early retirement.
Heading off my wife's hints about staying home was one of the smarter things I did. She has a real profession that she finds satisfying and makes enough that we could live on either of our incomes almost indefinitely if we had to (while some of those single-income families are sweating bullets right now).
But does all that suff really take 40 hours a week?
1) you don't get 40 hours a week, you get whatever time is between the kids leaving for/getting dropped off at school and having to pick them up/drive them to soccer practice.
2) Sure, you can do it while employed full-time, as long as you change my specifications, because you can't let the plumber in if you're at work, you can't pick up a sick kid and care for him if you're at work, and you can't take an hour and a half out of your workday with no notice to run down the ownership history of some parcel of land that I'm thinking of buying/attaching/whatever if you're at work. Working people lack flexibility.
3) You can't do it nearly as well if you have a job. I do most of the cooking at my house, and the difference between law school (infinite schedule flexibility) and job (home at 6:15, one kid to bed at 7:00, the other at 8:00, try to whip something up somewhere in between dinner for kids, baths, stories, etc.) is substantial. Even doing the chopping/measuring and other prep at 2:00 before picking the kids up makes a huge difference.
4) Working people do their errands on weekends. With my wife home with a baby, I haven't seen the inside of a grocery store but 3 or 4 times in a year. My weekends are mostly errand-free, and therefore free to go to the park or museum with my kids, thanks to her. Everyone in the family is better off.
Sure, some people are lazy, but idleness is not a requirement of non-employment.
Back in the days when women working was still a thing to argue about, my parents had the argument. My mom's position was basically jmo3's -- house, school-aged kids, and activities related to my father's work didn't take all that much time, and she wanted more to do. So she went back to school, and then back to work.
Women who stay home often do seem to get into the competitive consumption thing as a way to keep themselves amused. Decorating, fashion, absurdly expensive kitchen and bathroom upgrades... you know the drill. It all started in the 80s, when everybody tried to dress and decorate like old money types in mansions. Things were a lot more basic as recently as the 70s.
Although I don't particularly mind housework, I think it would be very dull to spend ALL my time taking care of my stuff. The plumber business does require sorting out if there is no adult home during the day, but that doesn't come up all that often.
No, it's better to avoid the problem in the first place, guys -- just take care to choose a wife with a career and don't earn so much yourself that she's tempted by early retirement.
I go the opposite way; I'd rather have someone industrious helping me out than be constantly trying to schedule around another career and fighting about who's meeting is more important when the kids are sick.
Of course, I happen to have married somebody compulsively busy who couldn't stand the boredom of the Pilates-and-manicure set, so it might be a better deal for me than for many others.
I also have a profession which, while not immune to layoffs or business failure, translates more easily into a go-it-alone business than most, and is therefore not quite as scary as being a dot-com marketing director.
A cliffhanger! Andrews's work to write this book, and the sacrifice of his family's privacy, may offer a way out. Will he and his wife use the advance and royalties to pay their debts? And have they learned anything useful? Or will another year or so find them again drowning in the sum of needs, wants, entitlements, fantasies, resentments that is contemporary American debt? I hate to be pessimistic, but . . . .
"I also have a profession which, while not immune to layoffs or business failure, translates more easily into a go-it-alone business than most, and is therefore not quite as scary as being a dot-com marketing director."
I think that's the key - it would work if you were a GS-13 at the IRS or something similar and you have 100% job security and a pension. But for your average professional - the one income model is way too risky - as the recent crisis has demonstated.
My take on the Andrewss's piece is as follows:
It's not really all that much of a commentary on the stupidity or undesirability of exotic mortgages or aggressively leveraged home buying.
After all (quoting from memory) he did buy a house in a close-in, desirable area, where prices have apparently held up reasonably well. And he could have sold the house a while after he bought the place and gotten out from under his debt load. And it sounds like the mortgage payments weren't initially, at least, particularly ludicrous (I mean, it's not as if renting a decent apartment in the area would have been cheap, either).
Indeed, even the exotic refi that the cheerful mortgage salesman got him did give him some breathing room.
No, Andrews's real failing was his astonishing unwillingness to face the fact that, even after continued rising DC property values and refinancing gave him a second chance, he and his wife continued to, um, spend three grand a month more than they were taking in.
I'm probably a tad more obsessive than most people about frequently checking my multiple bank account balances (self-employed and all that) but, still, this guy seemingly went months without bothering to check on his available funds, or inquire into his cash flow.
He basically just willfully lied to himself. Sad story. But props for his courage. Hell, I hope he does get out from under his financial difficulties by selling a heap of books about his financial difficulties. Only in America...
I was amazed that the exotic refi worked out too.
Ultimately, Andrews is complaining that the refis and the credit cards let him spend that extra $3,000 per month until it was too late to recover. I don't disagree, although I wonder whether it's a problem we can regulate away.
re defending not feeling bad because the bank shouldn't have lent him the money
Damn right! I don't feel bad for the bank either, they shouldn't have lent him the money.
And I feel no sympathy either for Andrews, not his panic attacks or any of it, since he shouldn't have borrowed the money. He's about as sympathetic a character as the Noel family (Fairfield Greenwich feeder fund to Madoff).
He reminds me of the dysfunctional teen stars who develop alcohol/drug whatever problems selling their stories to get back on the cover of People magazine. I might feel less distaste for them if they weren't all trying to scare up a dime on the basis of their degeneracy.
When you apply for credit, the banks know about your income, but not your alimony and child support payments. He looked a lot richer than he was.
@JMO
How her husband ever have tolerated that much idleness I'll never understand.
Well yes, he could have divorced her. As others here have pointed out, that works out well financially. Are you really this clueless?
We don't really have a picture of how the other husband is doing, other than Andrews' comments that (1) he was only on the hook for $700/month in child support as compared to Andrews' $4000, (2) he wasn't even paying the $700, and (3) Andrews, rather than the other husband, paid the airfare for Patty's kids to go visit their dad.
Of course, that's going to suck too, since child support is non-dischargable debt, other dad is going to end up with tens of thousands of debt on his credit report.
"As others here have pointed out, that works out well financially. Are you really this clueless?"
Um, the current Mrs. Andrews is only getting $700 a month from the ex husband. From the description of her spending habits her ex's is saving a fortune with his wife off with her new husband.
Are you really that clueless - or just not paying attention?
I can't imagine over drafting my account. Even when I was dirt poor in college I was able to avoid doing that. I admit it was easier with just me spending, but it's not that difficult to avoid. Think of all those $10 fees on top of it as well. Why weren't they just using the CC in the first place?
Andrew's essay made me think this:
Many, many people treat money with a dreamlike detachment.
Remember when he was sitting bolt upright in bed on his wife's birthday because there were too many unpayable bills?
My panic point would've been about three years before that, around the time of the first overdraft.
Seems like the most valuable service that people like Suze Orman perform is getting people to think about money at all in the first place.
Reminds me a bit of the article last month about people who leave their kids in cars. Some scenario is playing in their brains which unfortunately bears little relation to reality.
My panic point would've been about three years before that, around the time of the first overdraft.
I sometimes think the same thing about people who go in for radical weight-loss treatment because they weigh 700 lbs.
When they passed the 400lb mark, did they not stop and think, "Gee, this can't be good"?
Rob,
When they passed the 400lb mark, did they not stop and think, "Gee, this can't be good"?
I would imagine they think - "Hell, I'm already 400lbs what's another plate of pasta."
Same with Mr. Andrews - "I'm allready 100k in the hole, another dinner out isn't going to make any difference, so what the hell."
For the first time, jmo3, I find myself agreeing with you completely.
Rob,
When I get to 400 lbs I think I'll say, "Gee, this is really good. I think I'll have another helping!"
[NOTE: I'm boycotting the "REPLY" function. Please join me in abandoning this evil mis-feature.]
Oh, come on. The only problem with it is that it only goes four deep. Nested comments are a wonderful thing for any conversation of more than maybe a dozen comments.
They make it hard to track an ongoing conversation without re-reading the entire thread to check for replies to various posts. I think it's easier when people just quote what they're responding to.
Interesting comparison.
The people who get very, very fat always have to have someone around who is getting food, large quantities of food for them.
The social environment people are in has this magic, hypnotic quality of enabling them to drift away from reality.
How could bond rating agencies give MBS securities AAA ratings based on models which assumed house prices could never go down?
Probably because that's what all the other bond guys did.
It's not very appealing to think of (very) highly paid professionals drifting along in a kind of hypnotic trance, but I suspect it happens all the time.
Personal reality is woven out of consensus, and maybe that's the psychological point behind Andrews' essay.
Summary:
"The bank said it was fine and the mortgage guy said it was fine and my wife said it was fine so my brain turned off."
Addendum:
"I believed what was better, easier, and more comfortable to believe."
That last will be written on the tombstone of the human race :-/
I join Colin in the reply button rebellion.
That's nice. Thank you.
One of the traditional mommy roles was checker of homework and over-assistant to school projects. The one who got after you to study and do your homework and who wanted to see some sort of proof if you said you had. Mom also tended to spend more time cooking, as opposed to picking up something to eat on the way home from her spiffy career because she was to tired to do for the family.
Looks to me like that non-stay-at-home mom might have something to do with the 'obesity epidemic', as well as the 'declining educational standards of our kids epidemic'. 'Parental involvement' isn't just some sort of psychobabble buzz phrase; it's lack shows up rather more obviously than it's presence.
As a stay-at-home mom, I also found myself endlessly called upon by working parents to fill in their gaps of picking up sick kids, or filling in because they had a late meeting, etc.
So it's not just the family that benefits; it's other working parents, too.
How odd. You're making a financial sacrifice by not working outside the house. Do they pay you for this?
Do they pay you to sit and blog here all day?
I'm not attacking you, zic. I'm just curious. I'm not married, so this is all hypothetical for me. But I'm trying to picture living in a neighborhood where other couples with two incomes, and more money as a result, are relying on my wife's time to keep their lives running smoothly. I don't think I'd be very happy with that situation.
No. I did it because it was the right thing to do, their children were my children's friends, they were my friends.
My days of doing such are long past, however, my children are now 21 and 23.
But the important thing is that stay-at-home moms often contribute to neighborhood/community/school in ways that are very valuable and often unappreciated.
Dear Ms. Ericson,
I'm not trying to join in any misogyny, real or imagined, (because my wife would never put up with that! 8-), but I think the idea that some women don't work because "they can" is not all that outrageous. I think it's indisputable (though I don't mind if you dispute it) that there is a real stigma attached to men who don't work, while it can be socially acceptable for (even childless) women to stay out of the paid workforce.
Regards,
--Colin
It works if you add the word some. The original statement concerned women, in general, with no qualifiers.
I was raised in an environment where the dual-career household was the norm and quitting work for kids didn't happen frequently enough even to be stigmatized. It sends shivers down my spine to think that I might someday be passed over for a promotion because it's assumed I'll give up my career the day I get pregnant. I thought that didn't happen anymore, but when portions of the commentariat speak of women (again, in general, with no qualifiers) much as they'd speak of their spoiled, bratty, 14-year-old daughters, it doesn't seem so implausible.
Thank you for the clarification, and I'm sorry again for the overreaction.
Unfortunately, our legal environment has created a market for lemons.
You have information on whether you might give up your career. Your employer has no information, and can't legally ask, let alone stipulate it as part of a contract. Lemons (women who will quit for a baby) gain at the expense of oranges (women who won't).
Happens all the time...I have been told at one legal job (by a lawyer!) that he expected his female associates to give it up for babies and therefore directed his serious efforts towards the male associates. When a lawyer feels comfortable saying that, you KNOW it's pervasive.
In amongst all these arguments about what men should do and what women should do, one thing stands out to me. Anyone (male or female) who will leave an established marriage for you is probably not much worth having. Sure, if marriages fall apart for internal reasons, the newly single can start dating again. But those who will drop out of a going concern to chase something they think they've glimpsed over the horizon are probably not the steadiest partners you can get.
Anyone (male or female) who will leave an established marriage for you is probably not much worth having.
I believe it was Dear Abby who asked, "Why would you want to marry a man you know cheats on his wife?"
Now I'm trying to remember who said "When a man marries his mistress, he creates a job opening."
Unfortunately true, given that(in my experience) nine times out of ten the attitude is that you aren't doing anything anyway, and that it's not a big imposition. But the idea that Mom is laying out on the couch at home wolfing down bon-bons while watching her stories was never very true. I also notice amongst my younger married friends on the two-income professional career track that, while they like to watch home improvement shows, they're never really very big on doing the actual work. Mom painted the inside of our house several times over, and this was not considered unusual or aberrant behavior in our circle at all. And her flowerbeds looked great. Today's twenty-somethings are more likely to hire someone to repaint the living and bedrooms . . . and grumble about the high cost of 'unskilled' labor. Being able to tell the difference between a peony and a geranium? Don't make me laugh.
Well, the lily of the valley are in bloom now, the clematis has climbed beyond it's support, and the rugosa didn't seem to survive the winter as well as I'd like. But the wisteria is thriving, and it's a zone 5 plant living on the cold side of zone 4.
I'm often shocked that so few families do the calculations of the cost of mom working vs. staying home; I've run the numbers with a few younger women, and they realized that between the cost of child care, etc., they'd lose money, not supplement the family's income.
Of course, that's not the pilates, yoga, decorating crowd these idiots married.
And it takes a tremendous leap of faith in your husband to give up your income -- your security -- and stay home.
Whew, that's it right there! After watching what my own mother went through when she was chucked for a much younger woman after 25 years of stay-at-home military wifedom, supporting & advancing her husband's career, that's exactly why I couldn't stay home. Those years out of your job record are tallied against you and you can never get them back.
"Unfortunately true, given that(in my experience) nine times out of ten the attitude is that you aren't doing anything anyway, and that it's not a big imposition."
I find what you and Zic say interesting, because it's the exact opposite of my experience as a single mom (who, by the way, has no trouble at all supporting herself). I've always relied on other working moms, and they've relied on me. Stay-at-home moms are home so that they can have everything perfect and their own way (in my experience; and why shouldn't they, after all?). It's working moms that are willing to trade favors and pitch in to get done whatever needs to be done, who understand when someone truly needs help.
The stay-at-home moms I've known might help if it was scheduled three weeks in advance and fit into their general plans with no ruffles and provided a truly enriching experience for their own children, but they just don't know what it's like to have to cope with a last-minute emergency the way working moms do. And they're touchy because they don't want to be taken advantage of (i.e. they look at things the way you do), whereas a working mom knows that the shoe will be on the other foot eventually, and that things just happen, and that sometimes you help people simply because they need it.
That's my experience, anyway. Your mileage may vary.
Fortunately, my experience does. I know the sort of stay-at-home mother that you're talking about, but my wife is the other kind. She's devoted a lot of time and effort over the past few years to our own kids, but (I can assure you) she knows what a last-minute emergency is like. And I mean the kinds that involve emergency rooms and taking in other people's kids, etc., and not the ones like, say, having to run over to the Whole Foods in the next town over because the first one's out of organic pesto.
And I wish that you could ask her how "having everything perfect and her own way" has worked out - but take care, she's actually got pretty fast reflexes. If she wanted things her own way, she'd have stayed in the work force (to which she hopes to return).
I may have reacted a bit harshly to the depiction of working moms as parasites that treat stay at home moms as their own personal servants. There are, of course, many types of people who have made various choices. I shouldn't react to one caricature with another.
This debate got me to thinking, though - I guess that what I was really saying is that poor people often turn to other poor people, rather than to the rich, because other poor people understand the obstacles of poverty. In terms of time, stay at home moms are relatively wealthy in terms of time and flexibility, while working moms are more likely to be poverty-stricken. Poor people can't always afford to hang out with rich people, because the wealthy often have expensive tastes.
I don't begrudge stay at home moms their time and flexibility - we've all made our own choices and should accept the trade-offs. I don't think that stay at home moms owe me their time any more than I think that I owe them my money (although I'm always open to a mutually-beneficial trade, or for that matter to a simple helping hand when it's needed).
I wish I knew your wife. Do you live in the Chicago area? I'd have to practice ducking, though, since my reflexes aren't all that fast.
replying to Ann:
We took a financial hit because I stayed home; but in my case, it was a decision based on the needs of our first child -- he had colic (the real deal, not just fussy-baby syndrome. Bowels movements like shaving cream, etc.) and his doctor advised us that he would not thrive in a day care. The decision to stay home and give up my career came with the second child, two years later.
There were, in our neighborhood, a half-dozen women who had also opted to stay home, and we pretty much filled in for the hundreds of working mom's when they needed help. We were their support network. Mostly, it happened because our children were friends.
For many of those children, the experience of baking cookies, making turtles out of bread dough, or having a wall of paper to throw paint at, or learning the name of the spring flowers and finding out who might be waiting to pollinate that flower were things I did with them. Things their parents didn't have time for, being busy as doctors, lawyers, and professors. (Brookline, MA -- not many working class folks there.)
I didn't not try to depict working moms as parasites; but simply made the observation that I and moms like me, played an important role in their support networks; one that's not often considered or appreciated. I'd make the opposite depiction -- stay-at-home moms are looked down on, considered stupid, lazy, or self-indulgent, as you suggested. That's a stereotype from too many episodes of Desperate Housewives, I'm guessing.
Given the financial security and career opportunities both women and men sacrifice when they opt to raise their children instead of work, I'd just like to see them get a little respect for their contributions. For in my experience, their communities, their neighborhoods, their schools, and other working families benefit.
(I don't see a reply button at this level, so I'll put this here, as a reply to Ann's reply to me).
Nope, we live in the Boston area. Sounds like you could use to know some reasonable stay-at-home mothers - I can't completely make the case for my wife being normal, though, since she married me.
But I've heard your same view from some other women who work. So it seems that there are enough irritating examples on both sides to keep everyone wary (!)
But does all that suff really take 40 hours a week?
Not in general. Heck, forget about once the kids are in school: I stayed home for a year with our twins and -- but for the first three months -- was able to easily get all the household maintenance done. But as with any other task, some people are talented at it and some aren't. We manage to be a two-career family with plenty of time for homework, family time, cleaning, cooking, and mindless web time. People who have less stamina and ability or more self-pity might be less capable, though.
Unfortunately, for many families, it's the difference between being short $300 at the end of the month as opposed to over. Yes, you incur a lot of extra expenses as a two-income family: a second car and all that implies, including auto insurance, day care for the young kids, etc. And yes, this can take a huge bite out of that second income. But as long as the family can clear an extra $4,000 over the year, they're at least treading water.
Although, as you say, working anywhere from 500 to 2,000 hours a year puts the effective income gains at barely above minimum wage or lower. My point was simply that there are extra costs incurred which cannot so easily be accounted for, everything from a subpar academic performance from one's kids to shoddy nutrition and poor health, to a house that is always six months behind in upkeep and looks, to be charitable, 'lived in'. The problem is, parental involvement in their childrens' academics, nutritious, good-tasting meals, a clean, well-kept house with no slow drains or clogged gutters is now - for many people - something of an understated luxury.
In what decade are you posting from that being a two-income family requires one to get a second car? Or, more precisely, in what decade are you posting from that you think that being a one-income family didn't mean having a second car? Do you think that "stay at home moms" actually literally stay at home while hubby takes the car to the office?
Yes, there are additional expenses incurred (daycare is the biggest line item, of course) if the second parent (usually the wife) goes to work also, but a "second car" generally isn't one of them.
(Of course, there are city dwellers who rely on transit and so don't need two cars, but those people generally don't need them whether the second parent is staying at home or working.)
There is one cost to having the second parent drop out of the paid labor force for a decade that nobody has mentioned so far in these threads, if the second parent is any sort of a knowledge worker. That cost is atrophy of skills that will be difficult to regain.
In other words, to have a parent stay home for ten years from age 25 to age 35 costs saves ten years of day care, perhaps, but it costs not only the tean years income he/she could have earned over ages 25-35, but also a sizable percentage of the potential income from ages 35-65.
-dk
Scent,
I wouldn't have guessed you'd be so sexist. Guys can do a find job of staying home as well. It's not all about " her spiffy career " putting families at risk.
I'm often shocked that so few families do the calculations of the cost of mom working vs. staying home; I've run the numbers with a few younger women, and they realized that between the cost of child care, etc., they'd lose money, not supplement the family's income.
The issue comes up when the 25yo makes the choice to stay home only to find herself a 52yo divorce with no job skills and no means of support. These days judges are far less sypathetic to the SAHM who have been out of the workforce by choice for nearly 20 years - once the kids are done with school the child support gravy train comes to an end.
That's entirely state dependent. In California, where I live, the law is still quite favorable to the SAHM - if the marriage lasted more than ten years she'll collect until she remarries or dies. I suspect it's the reason many guys push their wives into the work force even when it doesn't really make economic sense. But it's possible I'm just cynical.
My understanding is that length of the marriage being a determining factor is fairly common, even if most states don't have rules as clear as California's.
There's no established rule in my state, but if you look at the case law, there is a relatively clear demarcation for marriagaes that are shorter than seven years and those that are longer. Shorter than seven years, and you're probably looking at lump sum or temporary alimony, if anything. Longer than seven years and you have a shot at permanent, especially if you stayed at home with the kids or worked while your spouse continued his education. Although my understanding is that there is a general trend against permanent alimony.
You know, for all the people who are hating on the "pilates and yoga" stay-at-home wives, you should consider that a man who has enough money to meet his families primary desires might rather have a wife in phenomenal shape than an extra income, and a woman who is in shape and/or good health might derive as much satisfaction from that fact than she would from a dull day job. You might call that shallow, but what would you call sending your wife into the work force so that your kids can go to the "right" prep school? Health and a good sex life is more important to some people than having two BMWs in the garage...
not "families"; "family's"
What's with all this "sending" wives places? Most women work for the same reason men do... because they are adults, and adults step up and do what is required. If they are the sort of adults you want to have around.
Are Megan, Kathryn, and I the only women here?
Note that "M.C." with the dots is not the same person as "MC" without 'em.
Another woman who works, and whose mother chose to work in the '60s, to help build my brother's and my college funds. Guys, do you really know so many parasitic women, and so few feckless men? Or are these your imaginary friends?
The truly "parasitic" woman is pretty rare, at least in my social circle. Not unheard of - my brother married one the first time around. But. There are a great many women out there who refuse to make sacrifices for their career that are pretty standard for guys. I'm talking about things like long hours and long commutes - things that make the difference between, say $60k and $90k. Since most couples don't have separate lifestyles, this ends up being a pretty good deal for the gal in the absence of children.
Of course not every woman leaves right at quitting time, and women seem more willing to take time off for the kids. But I think it's pretty normal for a woman to look for a mate who makes more money than she does even if she's not planning to have children with him.
You know, for all the people who are hating on the "pilates and yoga" stay-at-home wives, you should consider that a man who has enough money to meet his families primary desires might rather have a wife in phenomenal shape than an extra income, and a woman who is in shape and/or good health might derive as much satisfaction from that fact than she would from a dull day job.
Yes, but the type of guy that's really into a "hot" wife will be first in line to trade her in once she has a few miles on her. These types of guys aren't know for their loyalty and findelity to your average fat, saggy, menopausal, middle aged woman.
Lets call this what it is, a pretty much standard mid-life crisis. I know the stereotype mid-life crisis is to leave the wife for the hot twenty something and a red sports car but in the real world, there are no twenty somethings, hot or otherwise who want to run off with middle age married men. Imagining the life you would have if you had married the one who got away in high school or college, is pretty much a standard mid-life fantasy. The only thing unusual about this is he actually did it, and he somehow convinced the woman to go a long with it. He just did it even though any reasonable analysis would have shown that this was a bat-shit crazy thing to do. That the banks loaned him the money for the house is far from the craziest thing about this story.
Me, I would crawl under a rock if I did something like this but he is putting it out there for all to read. The craziest thing to me is that he wrote about it. Reality TV in a book form. I guess it is the only way to get out from under his debt load. I hope he makes it.
"...in the real world, there are no twenty somethings, hot or otherwise who want to run off with middle age married men."
That's not what I've observed. I've even seen middleaged men that were barely middleclass men bring home reasonably good looking 20 years olds. All they have to do is spend a little more than they can afford on a girl that has never had anything. For men with a little money, I'd say it qualifies as easy to do.
Not saying these things typically work out for the guy, but there's always a young girl who's willing to convince herself that she likes a middle aged man for X (personality, sense of humor, drive, or whatever else is convenient), and not for the fact that he can give her a life that would otherwise be out of reach. The more means the guy has, the bigger his pool of girls to choose from.
I would assume that middle aged women with money could pull this off too, although I can't think of any examples that I've personally seen.
And the "good" life is defined as "good" depending highly on what the background of said young woman is. For a gal who has a $20k/year job (or less), a few "nice" dinners at places like PF Chang's and a real vacation twice a year are all it takes to feel like you're living the good life.
Or it's just nice to come home to a clean house and a cooked dinner. To have the household errands taken care of so you don't have to run around on weekends doing them. It's one thing if you need the extra money, but 2-3 kids in day care would wipe out many families second income anyways.
From the XX side of things -- don't leave the new wife out. She bailed on her marriage too. It's not just men who do the midlife crisis thing. Women have been known to go a bit nuts as well.
As I said, are Megan, Kathryn, and I the only women here? I would be very interested to hear from this second wife what she thinks she is doing, because she sounds like a piece of work as well. But she doesn't seem to have the initiative to write a book.
"are Megan, Kathryn, and I the only women here?"
I'm here, too! I agree that the new wife is just as much responsible for this as the husband. They probably deserve each other.
As a cuckolded wife, I agree. Cheaters deserve each other and all the misery that comes their way.
I don't understand why so many commenters don't understand the appeal of a stay-at-home wife for a well-off guy. If you and your wife both work, then you share household chores. If your wife stays home, then she does the lion's share for you both.
In other words, if she works then you just get more money, while if she works you get more time for yourself. I'm not saying every guy would choose for the latter, but is it so hard to understand why some people find it appealing?
Its an age thing. I married in my mid-20's and never understood the stay at home wife thing either. I wanted and married a full partner who contributed equally financially to our life. And then I got older and more successful and much, much busier and my time became more valuable than the money. If I had married in my mid-30's instead of my mid-20's I would have been looking for a stay at home wife. My wife agrees, as she said at the time, 'we need a house wife!'. We both were working so hard we had no other life. No one was available to plan (and demand) the vacations, the parties, the remodels, the new cars, etc. We were successful but we were not getting anything out of it. Later when my wife got pregnant, I told her several times, I will stay home with the kid if you want to go back to work. She just laughed. When your young, the challenge is everything but once you have had success you start to realize, careers are overrated. Not unimportant, just overrated.
"once you have had success you start to realize, careers are overrated. Not unimportant, just overrated."
I agree. But be ready for the next change in perspective - once the children are in school all day, and especially once they reach middle school age and are more independent, your wife might want a career again.
Vernando - I can definitely understand the appeal, and the flexibility, of a house wife. There are trade-offs. It would be nice if there were more good part time jobs, since many people have a hard time finding a good balance by choosing between a full time career and none at all.
it's also very helpful for a man in a demanding career just starting out. The difference between my married male colleagues and myself at a law firm were that they had a wife, usually with a part-time job, who could cook healthy meals & clean & shop and pick up dry cleaning and buy new suits & ties and change the sheets and do the laundry and return dvds and arrange the social calendar and take the car in for servicing and return phone calls and mail packages and buy stamps and remember mom's birthday and do all of the administrative tasks in life, freeing up the fella to focus entirely on his work. Whereas we single gals had to do all that AND work as hard as the boys, all the while subject to the assumption that the second we got married, we'd get knocked up and drop our career to stay home with babies.
Heh. I'll second that. I was the first woman in M&A at my firm to come back full time after having a kid (actually, I think I'm still the only one to have done so, though there are some others in less erratic practice areas, and a few are making a go of part time), and I didn't know what to make of the glowing comments I got for it: she's on the ball, she's still got it, billing 250 hour months without complaint, no whining about being sent out of town for a week on 3 hours notice, etc. I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or not: nice that they recognized that I was doing it, but ... the tone of surprise was notable, given that male lawyers manage to do it all the time. Whatever the difference is, it's definitely not the genders' respective work ethics.
But, obnoxious though it might be, the general assumption that women with families have too much to do at home to play with the big boys is often correct: I've got 2 kids and a semi-stay-at-home husband, and I still do about 1/2 the cleaning and most of the cooking and social planning. (He does a lot more than I do overall, particularly in childcare, but still - it's not like having a wife.)
Anyhow, now that they've stopped thinking I'll slack off if I have kids, they only profess concern that I'll quit if my husband gets a full time job. I doubt that would happen though, for the economic reasons others have mentioned. The chances that he would even earn enough after taxes to cover the cost of replacing his childcare and housework (without any interferrence with my work schedule, mind you), much less replace my salary, is minimal. (I admit I fantasize about it, though, like I fantasize about winning the lottery or doing Sieglinde at the Met.)
Damn, this just reminded me why we should get the heck out of NYC and go someplace where a reasonable wage could acquire a luxurious lifestyle involving, say, more than 1 bathroom, a car, good public schools, maybe even a back yard or a washer/dryer.
Vermando & lighthouse,
I get the advantage for the husband - but for the wife it seems like a very dangerous proposition. The risk of infidelity, physical/verbal emotional abuse, depression, substance abuse, financial problems, the thought of being 52 year old and unemployable and with no prospects, would be a very scary thought.
And I can totally see the woman being home for 5-8 years while the kids are young. But, once they are all in school full time, I would think it wise for a woman to stay at least partly involved in the work world. If she's a nurse, maybe do a few per diem shifts a month down at the hospital. If she's an accountant maybe pick up a few book keeping clients a few afternoons a week.
That being said - if the couple wants to make that choice that's great. But, please don't write some 10,000 NYTimes article in 20 years about how your husband quit his job to run off with your 19yo daughters best friend and now you're about to be out on the street.
The risk of infidelity, physical/verbal emotional abuse, depression, substance abuse, financial problems, the thought of being 52 year old and unemployable and with no prospects, would be a very scary thought.
If you are a 52-year old unemployable divorcee with no prospects and a husband who ran off with a hot 19-year old, you can count on the courts absolutely screwing the husband with alimony payments and in the rest of the divorce settlement. Alimony was made for exactly this reason. What's the divorce rate for first-time marriages where the wife stays at home ending in divorce anyways?
The reason why the current wife who's with Andrews didn't seem to get a lot of money in this case is because she left her husband to be with Andrews. That's not something that courts typically award huge alimony payments to women for. I'd also like to see exactly what his marital status was when he had his courtship with the current wife. Did he leave his ex to be with his highschool sweetheart as well? That might explain the $4K in child support and alimony payments.
It is a very good point but on the other hand, working full time does not mean you will be able to take care of yourself when you get old. It is something off an illusion that just because you work now and want to keep working, you will always be able to keep working. Outsourcing, technical obsolesce, world-wide financial collapse, what ever it is, you can work your whole life and still find yourself unemployed and unemployable at the age of 52. It happens a lot more than you think. It hits both men and women.
Take this story for example. How easy do you think it will be for Andrews to replace his $120,000 a year salary if he was to be laid off from NYT? It is a very bad time to be a high dollar senior print reporter. A whole career spent on this one craft and then one day, every one decides they dont really need reporters so much any more, especially high priced ones.
And then there is the chance that you will work all those years just to get to spend all your hard earned cash paying off debts because your loving, gentle husband had the financial IQ that Andrews did in this story and blew the family fortune on day trading or Amway or whatever.
My point is that you can always spin scenarios out where either staying at home or staying in the job market ends badly. Its life, its risky.
You think these things are more likely if she doesn't work? I don't see it.
Byrk,
From the experience of friends the risk is more on the alcohol and prescription/non-prescription drugs. If the husband looses his job on account of drinking and/or drugs there won't be any money to pay the alimony.
Is it just me, or is anyone else married to a woman who would be completely unsuitable to staying home with kids full-time? My wife has many wonderful qualities. She's borderline genius, she's probably the toughest person I've ever met (67 hours of labor, and the first epideral didn't come until Hour 55), and when she sets her mind to doing something, it's either done or she's dead. (Plus, she's very pretty and good in the sack.)
But she has the patience of a two-year-old, a nasty temper, and violent streak to boot. I hesitate to leave her alone with our kid for the day when I can't take off my (government lawyer) job and she doesn't teach (she's a tenure-track professor). Fortunately, that's only about 10% of the time when our kid is sick or school is out. She just doesn't do well with small children who don't listen and whom she can't hit.
Ah, the Irish.
This is very funny. I'm glad I'm not the only woman who would totally lose it if I had to stay home full time. I'm not quite as bad as this picture but I have some of these issues. I really need to be out in the adult world at least some of the time.
I don't share the temper or the violent streak, but yes, I would consider myself "completely unsuitable to staying home with kids full-time." My mother is similar, though she still somehow managed to bake cookies, go on family weekend trips, and all sorts of things (my dad, with an equally demanding career, handled the grilling, laundry, and driving to horseback riding and piano lessons). It worked, somehow. I don't consider myself deprived or anything.
Make that 3. I'd totally turn into one of those neurotic, uselessly overeducated, type-A helicopter mommies of myth and legend. Or I'd just start drinking. It's a toss-up.
Of course, you can always do ... something, certainly once they are in school. Start an eBay business. Take up bad still-life painting. Political activism. I guess it depends on what one means by "work" and "stay at home." There is a continuum between "at home with the kids ALL THE TIME" and paid full-time employment, though not as much of one as we might wish.
My point is that you can always spin scenarios out where either staying at home or staying in the job market ends badly. Its life, its risky.
Yes, but one senario is far more likely to end badly than the other. In this uncertain world only a fool fails to plan for the unforeseen. Having two independent sources of income can offer a margin of increased security as one ages.
I've long thought that reporters are (generally) innumerate.
But it still surprises when the Economics writer for the NYT suddenly realizes that he has $196 in his checking acct.
"I had a bad feeling about what the A.T.M. would reveal about my balance, but I was shocked when I looked at the receipt: $196. We were broke. "
He's 48 years old, and still making rookie mistakes?
He needs to go on that great CNBC show where Suzy O. quizzes these people about what they want to buy....and then racks up all their debt and income.
I can hear it now...No GuyFriend, you can't afford another wife!!!...look at yourself!!! Great entertainment.
Sorry, I'm not being empathic. $120K doesn't qualify you for empathy, besides, we'll all probably be paying for his stupidities anyway.
PS...my general thoughts about reporters/innumeracy do Not apply to MM...she seems to have quite sound reasoning ability.
zic: I'm often shocked that so few families do the calculations of the cost of mom working vs. staying home; I've run the numbers with a few younger women, and they realized that between the cost of child care, etc., they'd lose money, not supplement the family's income.
But that's short-sighted. A mom who stays at home until all of her children have started school is a mom who is out of the workforce for a decade or so -- a decade (say 25-35) that is generally very important for career development. There are exceptions of course, but in general, such a woman is not just giving up income for those years, but giving up a big chunk of her earning potential for life.
Vermando: In other words, if she works then you just get more money, while if she works you get more time for yourself. I'm not saying every guy would choose for the latter, but is it so hard to understand why some people find it appealing?
If she works, you get more than just money -- you get a wife who's a full adult, a partner who understands the satisfactions and frustrations of a career and the responsibility of supporting a family. And you get increased security and flexibility for your family and yourself, too. What if, after 20 years, you find that your career is stagnating? Or financially it's going OK, but you're sick to death of it and would much rather do something else? But you can't. You have to stay in the harness and keep pulling (until retirement or until you drop) because your wife quit working when your kids were little and, at this point, she has no income and little earning potential. I do know some guys stuck in those situations, and it sucks.
Colin Fraizer: I think it's indisputable (though I don't mind if you dispute it) that there is a real stigma attached to men who don't work, while it can be socially acceptable for (even childless) women to stay out of the paid workforce.
I don't necessarily want it to become socially unacceptable for women to stay home. But I would like it to become de-stigmatized for men to say "No" rather than "Whatever you want, honey" when their wives propose quitting to stay home. The current operating assumption seems to be that men have obligations while women have options.
Life is not a rose garden. Or as they say in German, das leben ist kein ponyhof. (life is not a pony barn (eh)
The arguments can go round and round in circles. But for families with a stay at home mom who decided that way, they put their children/family always first and their income/security second. Making a decision to have a parent stay at home shows that you believe a mother or a father watching over and raising your kids is best. For others, they felt it was advisable to put their income/security first and family second. It doesn't mean they are bad parents. They just organized things differently and likely feel they are able to provide better this way.
None of our kids need more income, more stuff, or a Harvard experience to be honest, good people.
It comes down to a trade off of making a decision of what your priorities are and how you will decide to live life according to those priorities.
No blog post or comment (including this on) should guilt trip anyone into acting one way or another. Your decisions are strictly your own and you own and control them. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone. All I'd expect is that everyone carefully consider the situation and not just do what comes naturally or easiest or even what you might want in the short term. But consider what your goals and purpose in life is and how your decisions as a family will help bring them about.
But for families with a stay at home mom who decided that way, they put their children/family always first and their income/security second.
"To hell with security--I want what's best for my kids" seems like an odd argument to me. There are a lot of families in the auto, finance, and construction industries that are finding out right now that the economic insecurity associated with a single-income may make it rather difficult to do what's best for their children.
I'm not sure I'd entirely agree. If the earner in a single-income two-parent family loses the job, you have 2 people who can look for work, and, even if neither of them can get an equivalent job, the two of them have a number of ways between them that they could make up much or all of the loss.
If a two-earner family has fixed costs based on both incomes, and one loses a job and can't make it up, they may not have as many options. I'd wager about as many two-earner families live like they've only got 1/2 their income as one-earner families do.
Of course, if everyone lived well within their means, whatever those are, preparing against adversity with an eye towards the future, blah blah blah. The world would also be a better place if we ate rainbows for breakfast and ponies flew us about on moonbeams.
"For others, they felt it was advisable to put their income/security first and family second"
In other words, there's no room for anyone to disagree with your reading of the facts - working mothers are neglecting their children, end of story. You're willing to concede that some people have different (read: inferior, but we don't want to spell it out) priorities. But anyone who puts their children first will make the exact same choices you've made, because your choices are literally the only ones that could ever possibly be consistent with putting family first.
But for families with a stay at home mom who decided that way, they put their children/family always first and their income/security second.
Whoa. I work and that is a part of putting my child/family first - providing economic stability and little things like food and clothing. Not only that but down the road we may even be able to provide tuition.
"A mom who stays at home until all of her children have started school is a mom who is out of the workforce for a decade or so -- a decade (say 25-35) that is generally very important for career development. There are exceptions of course, but in general, such a woman is not just giving up income for those years, but giving up a big chunk of her earning potential for life."
Exactly. That is a significant part of the calculation for people with upward-trending (on an inflation-adjusted scale) wages over their life. This would argue sometimes for paying more for daycare today in after tax dollars than the spouse will make, because that salary will grow rapidly once an apprenticeship is over.
I suspect the fault line is found in returns on additional education: those with graduate degrees in professions may be juggling kids and daycare at a point where they are relatively low paid, but they have to do it to make the good money in their 40s and 50s.
Remember, not everyone is on a "professional" track. If you're working your way up through McDonald's management or at the Wal-Mart, the calculation is different than if you're a professor, a lawyer, or a banker. Lots of women who work would find, if they did the math, that their family actually would benefit more if they stayed home, financially too.
Thanks, Jennifer, for reminding us of that. And then there are those of us on the professional track whose careers didn't pan out. I hit the "class" ceiling, and my dreams of being a professor died.
Yes. This is why it's important to be ever so careful when you choose a mate for life. As I said somewhere else, it requires enormous trust.
And it's a choice I've seen a few men make, being the more suitable partner when it comes to child rearing. The feeling of not having your own income can be frightening and overwhelming. And the stay-at-home dads I know struggled with that more than the moms because of societal expectations; something that's highly unfair.
But after 32 years with my wonderful husband, with two children grown and establishing themselves in the world, I think it was worth it. I did work, from home, for many years. I started a business which I had to leave for health reasons.
But I would rather spend a day with my husband than any other person I know. And we've long made it a habit to keep romance as part of our relationship -- with regular dates, etc. That's the part of a successful marriage that people too often let slip, and the more they work, I find the more likely they are to cultivate intimacy with others outside the marriage, in particular because they're too stressed to put the time into their marriage. Marriage takes effort.
And the choice for either parent to stay home requires a life-time commitment to marriage.
That's kind of what my husband does whenever I mention it. He's growing used to the idea that if one of us worked part time it would help matters (ie cleaner house, less stress in some areas, though not in finances, etc). But thank god he expects us to be equal and keeps reminding me of the impact this would have on my career. He's also very aware that he could pull more weight in the home arena...and sometimes does.
Another thing to consider is that not every job has the career path you see in academia, corporations, law, and so on. Some fairly interesting jobs don't follow this path, but still pay tolerably well and come with benefits that could really help the family out if a partner got laid off. Teaching, nursing, and many government jobs fall into this category. It's no accident that these have been the favorites of working mothers for generations.
True, these jobs don't typically pay enough to maintain an entire family on upper-middle class terms with just a single salary. Many women from upper-middle class backgrounds have therefore abandoned them in favor of traditionally "male" jobs. It may be time to take another look at them, though. A lot of traditionally "male" jobs seem to be going away in this recession, and people will need to change fields if they don't come back.
I say "people," not just women. I seem to be running into more male ER nurses these days, for example. Even if a single earner in these professions can't support a family, two earners can. Or one in one of these jobs and one in a conventional corporate career. There are lots of options in between the big law firm and staying at home.
The nice thing about the second part-time job, even when it doesn't provide complete support for the family, is that it greatly slows the savings burn rate if the other partner does get laid off. And some jobs, nursing in particular, are both flexible and in sufficiently high demand that a part-time nurse could assume full-time hours at will if the spouse did lose his/her job, then transition back to part-time work again at a later date.
This all came from a personality defect--an outsized sense of entitlement and specialness--and the particular circumstances were just the garnish.
I think much of the issue of take home is not personal, but national. How long can the Ferengi acquire latinum through borrowing from the Chinese so that you may take some home?
It depends on the world's confidence in our Ferengi masters:
One thing that stay-at-home mom's used to do was provide community services. My mom was our Girl Scout troop leader, volunteered at the local museum, and with the other moms created a network of people supervising the kids which allowed them to run around the neighborhood gaining some independence rather than spending all their time in structured activities. It wasn't just cleaning and cooking (though, as someone else has already pointed out, the fact that we had home-cooked meals every day probably kept the childhood obesity rates down). As more women work full-time, a lot of the community infrastructure supporting families is being neglected, making child-raising that much more difficult overall. I'm not advocating a mass return of women to home-making; I'm just opposed to this idea that stay-at-home moms don't do much useful work.
But why should women work for free, where men would expect a paycheck?
And how is taking advantage of "a network of people supervising the kids" any different from sending your kids daycare, aside from the providers not being paid?
For whatever it's worth, our meals were always cooked from scratch, and both my parents had (and still have) quite demanding careers. They didn't spend much time in front of the TV, though. As always, it's a question of priorities.
Does anyone else wonder about the size of the child support payments? $4000/month (40% of his gross income) seems a little high to me.
That's alimony and child support together.
I regret that this thread has become one about stay at home Moms and the financial realities of divorce. I would have thought that it would have discussed the obvious argument for the reinstitution of debtor's prison for deadbeats like this guy. Did he not say that he intentionally chose not to make 8 mortgate payments in a rox AND that he did not feel guilty for doing so. This is the underlying problem that will result in the end of our civililzation gloriously personified in form of this one man.
What irks me most about this guy's story is the fact that he apparently expects responsible folks like me to subsidize not only his poor financial decisions but the conduct that lies at the root of them: His pursuit of another man's wife when he himself was married. Forget welfare moms - is there any better illustration of the fundamental injustice of our increasingly common bailout mentality than a man's decision to externalize the costs of satisfying his own sexual and emotional desires (without even the arguably mitigating factors of being born into grinding poverty or suffering from a debilitating addiction to justify such contemptuous behavior)?
I'm generally a live-and-let-live kind of person - until I'm expected to pick up the tab for my upper-middle-class neighbor to live in his personal Woody-Allenesque dramedy.
Wow. Excellent thought. Seriously.
Comment above is dead on. I've been reflecting on this story foir a few days, and I've conmcluded that Andrews's problmes are less financial than the fact that he is a dick, and an immature I-want-it-now-me-me-me-dick at that. Who has now thrown his 2nd wife under the bus. A real creep. The financial stuff is just further evidence.
I don't think this is as common as the TV stories would have us believe. It's true to some extent of course, otherwise, it wouldn't be a stereotype. But as I noted in an earlier post, it's all about validation; this particular individual sought a partner who 'appreciated him for who he is', for example. She didn't need to be young and hot, just attentive(being a math guy, imagine how much of this I get at home.) Again reading between the lines, it sounds like Andrews first wife wasn't terribly interested in what he did for a living, for her it was just a job to bring home the bacon(I wonder if this is a case where she supported him in grad school.) She's not interested in comparing Toynbee to Spengler, or discussing historical imperatives, and really isn't into the whole clash of ideas biz. Instead of watching a revival of 'Company' and enjoying conversation and a theater supper with a few good friends later, she prefers to watch 'Scrubs' and 'The Wizards of Waverly Place' with the kids while munching on popcorn, poptarts, and pink lemonade.
Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, that's what I prefer these days; anyone I know who is into Off-Broadway productions and the theater supper jazz is either twenty-something, and it's cool, or they're my age and they're pretentious idiots(unless, again, their kids are into that sort of thing.) But what Andrews needed was someone to tell him he was a great guy, smart, with important ideas that needed to be written down and communicated to the public. Someone who'd read his stuff and actually make substantive responses instead of 'uh-huh', and 'that's nice'.
In case you're wondering, no, I don't think too much of this guy - I've got parenting issues and I don't think much of anyone abandoning their kids, assuming they're still at home instead of college age. But I don't think much of the wife either, in fact, think she's almost as much at fault as he is. But whatever else, he at least wasn't sleeping with future wife number two while he and his wife were still together. Maybe that's just my own conceit, that abstaining counts for something; I'm more than willing to admit that other people would think otherwise.
I don't think this is as common as the TV stories would have us believe. It's true to some extent of course, otherwise, it wouldn't be a stereotype. But as I noted in an earlier post, it's all about validation; this particular individual sought a partner who 'appreciated him for who he is', for example. She didn't need to be young and hot, just attentive(being a math guy, imagine how much of this I get at home.) Again reading between the lines, it sounds like Andrews first wife wasn't terribly interested in what he did for a living, for her it was just a job to bring home the bacon(I wonder if this is a case where she supported him in grad school.) She's not interested in comparing Toynbee to Spengler, or discussing historical imperatives, and really isn't into the whole clash of ideas biz. Instead of watching a revival of 'Company' and enjoying conversation and a theater supper with a few good friends later, she prefers to watch 'Scrubs' and 'The Wizards of Waverly Place' with the kids while munching on popcorn, poptarts, and pink lemonade.
Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, that's what I prefer these days; anyone I know who is into Off-Broadway productions and the theater supper jazz is either twenty-something, and it's cool, or they're my age and they're pretentious idiots(unless, again, their kids are into that sort of thing.) But what Andrews needed was someone to tell him he was a great guy, smart, with important ideas that needed to be written down and communicated to the public. Someone who'd read his stuff and actually make substantive responses instead of 'uh-huh', and 'that's nice'.
In case you're wondering, no, I don't think too much of this guy - I've got parenting issues and I don't think much of anyone abandoning their kids, assuming they're still at home instead of college age. But I don't think much of the wife either, in fact, think she's almost as much at fault as he is. But whatever else, he at least wasn't sleeping with future wife number two while he and his wife were still together. Maybe that's just my own conceit, that abstaining counts for something; I'm more than willing to admit that other people would think otherwise. Also, I wonder how much of this large settlement was his idea; maybe rather than fight tooth and nail for the absolute minimum amount, the $4K/month is blood money and is indicative of trying to do the right thing in a messy personal situation.
Exactly so. My thought is that en masse, they have performed a great deal of extremely useful work for society as a whole. And that their departure, en masse, has led to a whole slew of social costs that we are dealing with right now, everything from obesity to poor educational outcomes to improperly socialized individuals.
Just because you can't readily put a dollar figure on the benefits of, say, organizing a Scout troop, or coaching little league, doesn't mean that they don't exist.
When I read the article, I didn't really pick up on the "the banks did it to me theme". I immediately gravitated toward the "can't afford to get married theme". More to the point, I got stuck on the $4K a month alimony. Um, just what the heck are they spending on these kids that they need $4K a month just for themselves? Surely that's alimony and child support? At least that would make a tad more sense.
And then as he delineated his budget, my next thought was, isn't his new wife getting child support? Alimony? Or did she forgo that by remarrying?
Perhaps I'm being exceptionally ignorant, but the money story budge-wise just isn't adding up. I'm sympathetic to them as I am to anyone who has chaos. It's mean to feel superior to people who suffer harm, even if by their own hand. But still, the money thing seems off.
Perhaps then there was much more discretionary spending done by this couple than admitted to in the article. I just saw them being interviewed on the Today show. They showed video footage of the house. There was Orla Kiely stem-pattern wallpaper in the dining room! That's a designer brand wallpaper for those who don't know. One time I was making curtains for my kitchen. I chose the loveliest Laura Ashley fabric. Oh how I loved it. Until I priced it. Then I bought the non-designer fabric at 1/16 or more of the cost. They were just curtains after all.
The NYT article doesn't make clear when they got divorced, if ever, but from what you can tell, (1) Andrews left his wife and kids to hook up with his high school crush, and (2) Andrews was still a party to his first wife's mortgage when he applied for a mortgage with the new girlfriend (and I think when he refi-ed, too).
My WAG is that the first wife primarily raised the kids instead of developing her career, and that she got to stay in the house as part of the settlement, with Andrews making a significant share of the mortgage payment as part of his support.
That's a rough settlement, but sometimes when you're the one who called it quits, you feel guilty to the first wife and kids.
$4k alimony and child support per month? That's $50k a year (after taxes). He probably could have taken in his own children from his wife and had his child support obligations lessened to something reasonable.
hahahahaha only serious
Earlier in this thread, I objected to the idea that stay at home moms are constantly subsidizing working moms. My support system has usually been other working moms, because we understand each other's problems and are willing to be flexible. But, in all fairness, I have to admit that when I chose the school district to live in when my children were ready to start school, I chose a district (specifically, an elementary school area) with lots of stay at home moms, because they dramatically improved the quality of the school. When looking at teacher/student ratios, one might miss the role of parent volunteers, but it made all the difference at my children's grade school.
The same district didn't have very good middle schools or high schools, where parents aren't as heavily (or at least not as directly) involved, but the right portions of the district had great elementary schools, thanks to stay at home moms.
The different perspectives on working/stay at home mothers on this thread have been very interesting. People's feelings about this issue do not seem to be controlled in any way by what I have perceived as their existing political philosophy. Zic and Rob Lyman seem to have similar philosphes about women staying home although I find them to be rather different politically. I wonder if these difference in philosophy are generational or whether they are the product of one's own upbringing or if there is another factor at work.
Perhaps it's the quality of our marriages.
Politically, Rob and I are often at opposite ends of the spectrum, but our family-life values appear to be similar.
I do not judge other families who opt for the two-working-parents model; I'd have chosen that route if I hadn't had a child with unique needs in infancy. And to be perfectly honest, if you're not very secure in your relationship, I'd recommend a woman keep her feet in the work force, because there are a lot of unreliable people out there (both men and women) who get married and then undermine their families' security.
You know, for all the people who are hating on the "pilates and yoga" stay-at-home wives, you should consider that a man who has enough money to meet his families primary desires might rather have a wife in phenomenal shape than an extra income, and a woman who is in shape and/or good health might derive as much satisfaction from that fact than she would from a dull day job.
You might even want to consider that some people might prefer more time to spend at home on family or hobbies over extra income. I know its uncommon but I have basically always been in a state of saving just because I didn’t have things I really wanted since getting a real job. My wife and I came to the conclusion that it would be silly for her to go back to work as we had no real need for the money. We’d lose much of it to child care costs, taxes, and the daily expenses that go with the lifestyle of trading time for money. The rest would just up the pace on our own personal hedonistic treadmills.
Or it's just nice to come home to a clean house and a cooked dinner. To have the household errands taken care of so you don't have to run around on weekends doing them.
Exactly.
What's the divorce rate for first-time marriages where the wife stays at home ending in divorce anyways?
That would be a really interesting fact.
You might even want to consider that some people might prefer more time to spend at home on family or hobbies over extra income.
I deal with this every day. You would be amazed at how much more you have to offer people do even the slightest bit more work. I have people working for the government working 37.5 hrs a week making 65k and I offer them 250k and they aren't interested. The 250k job may require 10 extra hours a week and a trip once a month - but upwards of three quarters aren't intersted.
And that's great, if people want to make these choices. But, if you do chose to exchange income for leisure don't be upset that you're living in your 3 bedroom cape and driving an 8yo Accord on your 2 hour commute and you kids will be up to their necks in student loan debt. You made your choice to only earn a working/middle class living so don't complain that your poor.
Bobar:
It can't be generational; Zic's children are 20 years older than mine. But doubtless my divorced-then-both-remarried parents have influenced my thinking, as has the 1 month (!) that I was a stay-at-home dad. Also, my wife is a compulsive worker, which means I don't fear having an indolent and self-indulgent "Real Housewives" problem, and also she has struggled to find career satisfaction, which means I don't think she loses much in psychological well-being by not working. And on top of that, I have myself already made very substantial and permanent life-altering compromises for the sake of our family and our marriage, so compromise and/or sacrifice does not strike me as an affront (as it apparently does people like Andrews).
Whether or not she decides to stay home permanently after all the kids are in school will be up to her. If she finds a job she loves, fine, but if not, also fine.
I don't fear dying in harness, as Slocum apparently does. A man knows his duty, he does it, and he considers it a privilege to be able to.
I don't fear dying in harness, as Slocum apparently does. A man knows his duty, he does it, and he considers it a privilege to be able to.
Well that gave me a smile. I suggest you your screen name to 'Sisyphus'.
Seriously. First -- consider the women of a couple generations ago who had the choices of teacher, nurse, or housewife (with the emphasis on housewife), would you have suggested they should have just known their role, accepted it, and considered it a privilege to be able to?
Second -- I'm not worried about myself. My wife has always had a career, and even though she makes less than I do, she makes enough for us to live on, if it came to that. And we're savers -- the money for the kids' education is put away already, and we have plenty of cushion on top of that. So if either of us ever felt trapped in our jobs, we could afford to stop and figure out something else.
But I have a son -- I'd like for him to be able to stick up for himself -- and expect as much from his wife as she expects from him -- without it having to be such a violation of cultural norms.
Slocum
But that's short-sighted. A mom who stays at home until all of her children have started school is a mom who is out of the workforce for a decade or so -- a decade (say 25-35) that is generally very important for career development. There are exceptions of course, but in general, such a woman is not just giving up income for those years, but giving up a big chunk of her earning potential for life.
If your only measure of success and happiness is more money or status then I would have to agree with you. Yes, for someone who is defining themselves by their career development those year can never been regained. Not everyone desires to be on the fast Type A track.
If she works, you get more than just money -- you get a wife who's a full adult, a partner who understands the satisfactions and frustrations of a career and the responsibility of supporting a family. And you get increased security and flexibility for your family and yourself, too. What if, after 20 years, you find that your career is stagnating? Or financially it's going OK, but you're sick to death of it and would much rather do something else?
I disagree about the fully adult partner bit. I have seen no connection between staying at home and being a full adult. If anything I’ve seen more immaturity in two worker families where the extra income fools them into making childish choices about money. But that’s neither here nor there; it’s all dependent on the specific case.
You, and jmo3 before you, make a big deal about the security of 2 incomes. I, and my wife, prefer the security of 1 income. I have a field I love that is both secure and has many openings. Yes, that means that pay is so-so (middle class but not upper middle class). Its a personality thing. You would hate my job. I would hate yours given what I know of your attitude towards money, ambition, and time.
However we also have one financial/career goal to aim for (no need to obsess about career building moves that would negatively effect the other spouse's career). Plus with the cost savings we’ve found that with a stay at home spouse we’re doing fine on that one income. It’s a somewhat silly analogy but we’re playing low scoring defensive ball while you are running and gunning. Both can work but you need personnel that are committed to your style of play in either case.
You would hate my job. I would hate yours given what I know of your attitude towards money, ambition, and time.
I think you know virtually nothing about any of that -- but are making a lot of unwarranted assumptions based on your general beliefs about 2-career families. When our kids were very young, both my wife and I worked part time to share child care duties. I have been independent and working out of a home office for many years, which has meant a non-traditional career track to say the least. But it's also meant a lot of flexibility. No time wasted in long commutes. I've been the one home with sick kids, the one who coached the teams, the one who was around after school and during the summers.
Got any other unfriendly, unwarranted assumptions I can puncture while I'm at it?
Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but to me the most appalling part of this story is that the NYT pays this ninny $120,000 per year to write on finance and economics. It could be worse, I suppose: he could have an advice column.
jmo3 -
Oh, now I get it. You're recruiting, quite possibly in Washington DC and for lawyers. Someone I know is in the process of rotating back to the government world after being a government lawyer and then a law firm lawyer. It's not just the difference in workload. Sometimes government lawyers actually get cooler work, and most seem to get into court more often and earlier in their careers. Government careers and private sector careers also have different trajectories and development opportunities, and someone who's on a plateau in one place may switch to another to get things moving again.
Add in job security in a recession and the possibility of a pension when 401(k) plans are tanking. And the fact that $250K a year isn't enough to get some people to put up with law firm culture. I'm surprised you get even 25% to sign up.
I would really like some information. He says he started this process in 2004 and that he had two teenage sons. Since I don't think they are twins, the youngest they could be and still be teenagers are 13 and 14. Well, the re-fi happened in 2008. I would have expected at least one of the sons to be 18 and the child support to end. I don't know how much of the $4000 is alimony and how much is child support, let's split it at $2000 for the wife and $1000 for each child. Given that it has now been nine additional months with no mortgage payment clearly one if not both of the "teenagers" must now be 18.
I know this guy was clueless enough to overspend by >$3000 PER MONTH
I don't know the law in Maryland - but I'm from New York and as I understand it if the child is in university then the parent is responsible until the age of 21. I think Virginia it is only 18. I had cousins who lost their child support which created headaches for funding school.
I deal with this every day. You would be amazed at how much more you have to offer people do even the slightest bit more work. I have people working for the government working 37.5 hrs a week making 65k and I offer them 250k and they aren't interested. The 250k job may require 10 extra hours a week and a trip once a month - but upwards of three quarters aren't interested.
The odd thing is that I could be interested in such a move (with the caveat that I do not think there is a similar change in job for my field). But I do not think that it is as easy, risk free or available so you make it seem. How many consultants can your field really hold before they start cutting into each other’s income? How long do you have to go without even making the 65k before your income is really going to be securely above 100k? How many people have attempted to go that route only to fail? Your “work 10 more hours a week and earn an additional 200k per year!” has the smell of a shady deal or a sweetheart deal.
You might well be able to get them such a job but I know I wouldn't jump on a similar offer unless it was from a trusted friend or associate and I had the ability to check it out for myself. If a consultant/contract worker just mentioned it to me I'd be tempted to ignore it as a combination of boasting and idle chatter.
And that's great, if people want to make these choices. But, if you do chose to exchange income for leisure don't be upset that you're living in your 3 bedroom cape and driving an 8yo Accord on your 2 hour commute and you kids will be up to their necks in student loan debt. You made your choice to only earn a working/middle class living so don't complain that you’re poor.
That’s a great point. On the other hand I have yet to see anyone on these threads complaining about being poor from their choice of the laid back career track. Instead I just see loads of Type A people boasting and bad mouthing everyone who might possibly make a choice that is not all about the money and career.
I'm really surprised by the number of people who blame working women for all sorts of social ills, notably obesity. Here is a handy chart of obesity rates by country, and here's female participation in the workforce. Sweden, for instance, has a 74.9% rate of female workforce participation, and a 9.7% obesity rate, compared to 70.1% and 30.6% for the United States. I'm not going to run a regression, but I see no obvious correlation here.
Anecdotally, my parents always made a point of cooking meals from scratch despite their demanding careers. Of course, they actually enjoy cooking, and they don't watch much television. Priorities matter.
Back in 1990, I asked a couple of competent women
who had both careers and children, the following:
"Can one have a career and raise children ?
They looked at one another sadly, in a way which
suggested this was much discussed, and answered:
"It is possible to do both, but it is not possible
to do both well."
So how far will our economic WayBack machine take us:
to 1990, 1970, 1950...and how will one manage then ?
A couple of things I really don't understand:
* When Andrews' girlfriend left her husband to be with him, why did she take her children with her? It sure looks like she and Andrews can't afford to raise them. Wouldn't they be better off with their father, instead of with their irresponsible mother?
* Why does everyone in this discussion seem to assume that bringing the children with her is the natural and right thing for Andrews' mistress to do?
jmo wrote:
I deal with this every day. You would be amazed at how much more you have to offer people do even the slightest bit more work. I have people working for the government working 37.5 hrs a week making 65k and I offer them 250k and they aren't interested. The 250k job may require 10 extra hours a week and a trip once a month - but upwards of three quarters aren't intersted
Please. I am a government lawyer, a damn good one if I may be immodest for a moment, and I get heckled by headhunters almost weekly. It takes about 10 minutes of questioning about most of the positions (whether firms or in-house) to demonstrate how lame most (not all) of the offers really are. I get taken out of court and total ownership of my cases and get placed in some plush office where my every action is subject to the whim of senior partners. My life revolves around the billable hour instead of the pursuit of justice, and I rarely get to go to court.
And my reward for a job well-done is to become a partner, where I cease practicing law half the time and instead become a marketeer. Hours increase exponentially as it is in the firm's best interest to keep me working as long as possible (and I am the type of person who has to make himself go home anyway, 37.5 hour weeks? I think not) and I lose the opportunity to enjoy whatever extra money I am making, or end up in a ridiculous sprial of consumption for no apparent reason. Worst of all, my little girl grows up thinking that she's playing second-fiddle to some moon-faced goon senior partner in Fairfax who is putting his kids through horseback riding lessons on my talent and hard work.
No deal.
Madmarcus,
But I do not think that it is as easy, risk free or available so you make it seem.
There is slightly more risk - I'll admit that.
How many consultants can your field really hold before they start cutting into each other’s income?
That's what amazed me! I would have thought that once everyone finds out how much you could make they would all jump into it. What shocked me was finding out that your average middle class American is happy making 75k and really have no interest in exhanging a few extra hours a week for 100s of thousands of extra dollars.
How long do you have to go without even making the 65k before your income is really going to be securely above 100k?
You wouldn't leave your current job unless you had a 18month to 36 month contract that includes substantial severance provisions (even if you are being fired for cause).
How many people have attempted to go that route only to fail?
My honest answer is 0. Some have made some money, paid off their homes, put away a few 100k for retirement, put the kids through school, and then they go back to their 37.5 hr gov't job.
hugo,
I totally understand what you're saying! I had a friend and her mother always said - "People earn their money." I didn't really think it was true - how can someone really be paid 250k, 550k, 850k a year. You mean to tell me you can't find someone to do the 850k job for 750k?
In reality you can't - that's why they get the 850k - it's the least you can pay them to take the job. And you're the reason why. You have someone, like yourself, who is happy with his job, happy with his life, and happy making (let us say) 118,500 a year.
jmo -
I completely agree with you. Part of not being wiling to move for more money means that I don't ever begrudge folks making big bucks to do their jobs. Unless and until they prove me wrong through gross incompetence, I operate with the presumption that they are earning every penny.
I STILL don't see what this has to do with the original post about how tough it is trying to survive as a writer.
"[supporting six kids is] something that's only ever been possible for very rich men."
Or very poor men ;). My Mom raised me and my sister on about 6k a year (she was a writer, and actually pretty successful if you count by books published- she used to put out at least one book a year, and usually two.) This was back in the 80s, of course, but even so it wasn't much money.
The key phrase here is one you keep repeating: "by middle class standards." If your "middle class standards" require you to go into deep debt it might be time to take some advice first heard in the 80s: "Ladies, lower your standards." Living really low on the hog won't kill you, though I have come to regret the fact that I grew up without much in the way of dentistry.
See- there you go Stewie. Brought it back on topic. Ask and you'll receive.
I STILL don't see what this has to do with the original post about how tough it is trying to survive as a writer.
I have a sneaking suspicion that there was always a 240k a year PR job at Fleishman-Hillard waiting for Mr. Andrews - but the snob appeal of being a "writer" was too much to give up.
I thought she had two and he had two. His were teenagers in 2004, the way I understood it? Does anyone know how old his kids are now? If they are 18 does he have to continue to pay child support? Does Andrews think that he will be paying for their college?
I am just too wrapped up in this story. I really want to know more.
I was glad to see this post. After reading your original post I thought, that was an interesting perspective on a writer's lifestyle, not too far my life as a graduate student who's friends are young professionals with real salaries and not my tiny research stipends.
Then I read Andrews' article and was appalled at your original post. You being "busted" restored my confidence in your writing and opinions. Your original point about writers and who they work and recreate with is still valid and akin to many other professions - judges vs. corporate lawyers as an another example.
But I have a son -- I'd like for him to be able to stick up for himself -- and expect as much from his wife as she expects from him
Again with the weird and unexplained notion that a housewife doesn't have much expected of her, or is less than a full adult, or is taking advantage of the husband who can't "stick up for himself." What's with that?
I have two sons, and I'll teach them that it is their job to do what has to be done. Just like their father, who goes to work everyday and some nights to boot, and their mother, who wrestles with a furious baby who has just thrown up all over the place while dad is miles away and unable to help.
Again with the weird and unexplained notion that a housewife doesn't have much expected of her, or is less than a full adult, or is taking advantage of the husband who can't "stick up for himself." What's with that?
What I mean is that based on common cultural norms, when it comes to work and family life, a wife has options and a husband has obligations. The wife is expected to be able to decide to work full-time or part time or stay home (whatever she thinks she would find most fulfilling), and the husband is expected to work full-time and support whatever decision his wife makes. But why should he (or any man) willingly accept such second-class status in marriage? Equality cuts both ways.
Biology, once again, bows to nobody's notions of equality. If a relationship bears children, it is and always will be the partner with the womb that spends all or most of nine months carrying the child, and which will have two other interesting organs capable of supplying an infant with a completely ideal blend of nutrients.
This has shaped division-of-labor responsibilities in every society and it will continue to do so in the modern one. We can navigate around it where practical, but we cannot pretend it doesn't exist.
The wife is expected to be able to decide to work full-time or part time or stay home (whatever she thinks she would find most fulfilling), and the husband is expected to work full-time and support whatever decision his wife makes.
Your understanding of cultural norms differs from mine. True, househusbands often get sideways looks. But on the other hand, I don't see any expectation that a husband blithely support whatever decisions his wife makes, or any norm that a woman can choose the most "fulfilling" option without regard for her husband's wishes or the family's practical needs. I suppose a man shouldn't undermine his wife's career deliberately, or deliberately under-perform so as to force his wife into the workforce, but I don't perceive any great cultural norms at work here so much as an issue that couples have to work out for themselves.
Psst. Megan, it was obvious simply reading page 1 of the excerpt, and I said as much in a comment on your original article. You had to read the book to figure this out, seriously?
Shall we take it as a given that most sensible adults sort of like work of some kind? People who don't want to do any work are a pain in the neck, and no sensible person wants to encourage them. THAT'S the problem with the wife in the story that started all this.
But there are a lot of different kinds of work. You can work with stuff, symbols on paper, or people. If people, the people can be big or little and can vary in number. You can be the sort of person who wants to do the same thing for 70+ hours a week, or you can be the sort of person who wants to do a bunch of different things in a week. You can produce for someone else and benefit your family indirectly by the money you bring in. Or you can produce for your own family so that they get the direct benefit of your efforts.
Take two people with whatever set of preferences they have and then let them interact with the job market in any way they find mutually agreeable. They'll have to consider how much different jobs pay, and if they're smart they'll have contingency plans in case something goes wrong. But there are still a lot of possible combinations.
I'd also like to see the job market be a lot more flexible in letting people move in and out of high-intensity (and high-salary) jobs as their circumstances change. These jobs can be interesting, and people do need to earn money to function. But it's kind of warped to say that anyone needs to be in one of those jobs continuously from age 21 to 65. Unless you are The Genius in Your Field and that job is Your One True Calling, that doesn't make for much of a life.
Hey - here is an idea. Don't get married. If you want to work crazy hours - then do it. If not, don't. Considering I am at the office right now - I have made my choice. It is the self-righteousness that grates - implied in the book review and even in some of the comments. - Just live your life. The defensive justifications are painful to witness. ( gov't lawyer - "I do justice.." ha ha bwahahahahahahahahh! - Ah, that's a good one! Yep, no bureaucracy ! Just pure unadulterated justice. No egos, no alterior motives - no jealousy, self-promotion - you see that is amongst all those greedy other lawyers - no "getting" someone - why perish the thought! - "Law" has little to do with "justice" - just as "marriage" is only faintly, tangentially, related to romantic "love" - confuse the two at the peril of living with massively unmet expectations.
What I mean is that based on common cultural norms, when it comes to work and family life, a wife has options and a husband has obligations. The wife is expected to be able to decide to work full-time or part time or stay home (whatever she thinks she would find most fulfilling), and the husband is expected to work full-time and support whatever decision his wife makes.
Once you have the baby, and especially the second and third babies, someone's got to take care of it. If the husband isn't willing to take the career hit and embrace life as a full-time parent of small children, the mother must either stay at home herself or put the child in day care. If the woman doesn't have a lucrative professional job, it's often not financially worth it to work, and personal fulfillment hasn't got much to do with it.
I live in a city with a reasonably low cost of living, and day care centers charge about $125/week for toddlers, and $150/week for infants. I have toddler twins and an eight-month-old, so day care would cost me $1600/month. If you make $25K/year, your ENTIRE take-home pay goes to child care -- when you factor in the costs of working, like professional wardrobe and gas, you actually wind up in the hole. If I were a teacher or a receptionist or a waitress or a bookkeeper or a retail clerk, what would be the point? Would you work 40 hours a week to net an extra $200 or so per month? Unless that couple hundred dollars is absolutely required for financial solvency, or unless you like your job more than you like being a full-time mom, why on earth would you bother?
I'm a computer programmer, so I have a career path and make enough for working to be worth my while, but I quit my full-time job when my twins were born. I'm now getting back into part-time freelancing after my son's birth, and working is something of a luxury -- there's not much left over after babysitter costs, and it's mainly so that I can keep my skills up and my sanity intact. Most of my mom friends, on the other hand, were teachers or office workers before their kids were born, and they come out just as well by staying at home and maybe selling Pampered Chef or Mary Kay.
Being a SAHM is really rewarding in many ways, but it can also be mind-numbingly tedious, socially isolating, and infantilizing. I am fortunate enough to have the choice, but only because I'm an upper-middle-class professional. If I had had a garden-variety job, I'd be staying at home whether I liked it or not, because it would be the financially responsible thing to do.
But how about once the kids are in school? My sister is also in the baby phase at the moment, but I can't see it lasting more than about five more years. And she'll have more than 25 years after that before she can collect Social Security.
Adulthood is LONG. Childhood, especially early childhood, is short. The length of adulthood is why women should have careers of some sort. The shortness of childhood is why a lot of women (and some men) choose to interrupt those careers when the children are small.
Even Sandra Day O'Connor had a break in her legal career when her kids were little, but it doesn't seem to have slowed her down very much.
I know I'm late to this party, but I just read through all the comments and am shocked that no one has brought this up:
Not only does Andrews' story force the uncomfortable question of whether or not he could afford to marry, but it also raises the almost more uncomfortable question of who can afford to be a parent. In marrying his second wife, Andrews assumed partial responsibility for his stepchildren. But the kids are presented as an afterthought in the article. Andrews assumed they would rent a house or apartment, but it "became clear" that they would need something more permanent because of the kids. Uh, really, did that need to be pointed out to him.
It seems that many of expenses deemed "necessary" by the Andrews family were only made necessary by the presence of children. Suddenly, renting seems unstable. Plus, the cost of renting a home big enough for a couple with two children plus room for Andrews visiting children would be astronomic in the DC area. Then you have the issue of schools, which necessitates living in a district with a decent public schools, raising your cost of living further. Then you have to feed and clothe them, etc... Marrying someone with kids from a previous marriage is not something to be taken lightly, particularly when you already have kids from your previous marriage. Why did the expense of children come as an afterthought and surprise to someone who recently signed a very expensive separation agreement?
But the larger point, and the one related to Megan's original post, is that "middle class" means something different when you have kids. Like many writers, I make far less in my job than many of my friends from graduate school. But I'm childless and don't plan on having kids, so I can spend my money precisely as I please. Which means I have no problem going out with my friends, who have mortgages and property taxes and expenses related to having a family that I don't have and never plan to have.
Choosing a low paying field without out a lot of stability because you love it is fine. The larger problem is all the people who choose these fields, and then assume that they still get to live the exact same upper middle class existence, complete with a house in the suburbs and kids in good schools, as people who chose less interesting or fulfilling jobs that pay better. It's great that Andrews second wife respects his work. But she, and Andrews, live in a fantasy world where we're all entitled to a great job, a family, a house, a summer vacation, Starbucks... where does it end? Does anyone think about sacrificing for their dreams anymore? Is there anything we're not entitled to anymore?