In this land of the brave new recession it is increasingly a woman's job to support her family. Hers is the job that puts food on the table, maintains the roof overhead and, with luck, provides necessary benefits like health insurance. A recent headline article on MSNBC discussed the impact on society at large and marital relationships in general. Women are now half the workforce and represent the major wage earner in male/female headed households about 33% of the time.
I was a bit amused by the gee-whiz isn't this progress feel of the article because it overlooked the fact that single women, and women in same sex partnerships, are breadwinners by default.
In my first marriage, I was the breadwinner by a fairly wide margin. I bought the house we lived in and paid the mortgage. It was I who provided us with health insurance and my credit score that floated our rare splurges. And it bothered my late husband despite the fact that he was raised by a single mother and at least half of the people he knew growing up were in female headed households.
We live in curious times. Women in the western world have never had more opportunities or freedoms, but the realities of where our society is still doesn't line up with the out-moded fantasy of family and values still used as the measuring stick by so many.
And it's not just family make-up that is called into question. Our ideals about masculinity and womanhood are tied up in the notion that men should be breadwinners and women should have hobby jobs until their souls have been fulfilled by motherhood. For some reason working for money is dirtier when it's done by women unless they are on their own - through no fault of their own.
I never thought much about being the spouse with the better paying job although it bothered Will a great deal and was the impetus behind his taking a second part-time job and actively pursuing other opportunities within his company. My father instilled in me the reasonable expectation of self-sufficiency. He was a traditional man. Dad hated it when mom went back to work once we children were all in elementary school, but he believed that his daughters should be able to take care of themselves because he recognized that his world was changing and his girls were going to have to live with those changes.
Before Will was diagnosed with a terminal illness, we were moving towards the idea that he would stay home with our daughter and go back to university to finish his degree. It made sense. And sense often times has nothing to do with who is the man and who is the women.
When I remarried two years ago, my husband Rob and I were faced with the issue of where to live. In the United States or in Canada. As Rob's employment was the more lucrative and his home no longer carried a mortgage, the choice was Canada. This meant a period of stay at home-ness for me because of my immigrant status. But the choice could have gone the other way too and I could have continued on as the breadwinner.
I think in this discussion the point - of what makes the most economic sense - is being missed, or at least underplayed. It's not about changing gender roles or feminism as much as it is about bills that need to be paid and who stands the best chance of achieving the good paycheck and the coveted benefits. It's really not that complicated.
Original post to 50-Something Moms Blog.
