Here’s the headline… Is ‘Opting Out’ The New American Dream For Working Women?

The short version: Women have started to figure out that it’s more fun and easier being at home than going to work. I mean it’s better for the kids yada yada yada, whatever… There’s started to be an actual shift out of the workforce, back to the home.

Here’s the most important part of the of the article. In fact we know it’s the most important part of the article because it’s the only thing they bolded in case men read it and didn’t know what was expected of them.

But it’s true: according to our survey, 84% of working women told ForbesWoman and TheBump that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to.

What’s more, more than one in three resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality.

So let’s speak plainly. Huge numbers of women want to go back home and raise the kids and one in three Fitness Test their husbands into a sexless marriage because he can’t provide them with their dream in a down economy.

Look, I’m really torn by this. I think having someone at home is great if you can afford it, but if you turn one spouse into the financial dependant on the other, there’s significant risk in a no-fault divorce society of an unmitigated disaster in the future. After a divorce, no matter how you slice up one income between two households, there’s going to be a ton of pain to spread around. But at the same time, it’s a bit of a return to more traditional values and thinking. Family matters, relationships matter, kids do better with an adult around rather than a key under the mat and junk-food. Hell I work from home now and I can see how everyone looks a little happier.

The great risk is that the husband that encourages/caves/allows his wife to stay home with the kids for a decade or more, really is somewhat de facto adopting her financially. She’s become his dependant. If she then ”takes early retirement” and turns into a worthless house keeper, a crappy cook, a neglectful mother, mires herself in soap operas, trolls Facebook and even cheats on him… he’s got no easy options for fixing the situation. The minimum requirement for effort as a stay at home parent, is the threshold where the state decides it needs to remove the children from the house. So unless the state moves in, all the husband can do is choose between putting up with it, or divorcing and having his wallet removed through his rectum.

The nightmare / dream is this…

So anyway…

…here’s the deal. There’s not enough to do at home once the kids are in school to keep an adult properly occupied. There’s just not. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t want you to know how great it is being at home. So they tell you it’s the most difficult job in the world. Plus if they have an IQ over 100 they just go stir-crazy from not seeing any other adults during the day other than the mailman.

As I’ve said many times, what a stay at home person needs to be, is a SAHM or SAHD “plus something”. What that plus something is, I don’t care, you just need some sort of productive activity that your spouse or any other person can look at and say, “Yep that’s actually something of value you’re doing.”  Have a part-time job, take care of someone’s elderly parent that needs some kind of assistance, special needs kids majorly up the effort needed too, run the PTA, teach music on the weekend… seriously anything other than soap operas and Facebook. Get outside and walk around if nothing else, especially if you look like a bag of soccer balls.

The truth is many SAHMs are already SAHMs+Something, but some aren’t. You have to make very very sure of things before agreeing that a working wife should become a SAHM. It’s a very significant decision, right up there with getting married in the first place.

Also for women who want the SAHM route… you’re making a serious choice too. It’s not Marriage 1.0 anymore with copious alimony, it’s Marriage 2.0 with a lot of variance in alimony and child support. Even if you “win” the divorce and get cash and prizes, you’re still likely to have a very hard time of things financially if you can’t immediately start working. Doesn’t matter how you split one income over two households, it’s going to be worse than before. You may find yourself unable to extract yourself from a truly terrible marriage because you can’t afford it. Also assume that if you are divorced and you can’t find proper employment promptly, you’re going to have to consider finding a new male partner quickly, with his income being his most important feature. Which is to say, he might bring home the bacon, but not be someone you’re terribly into getting naked with. Blowjobs on the second date and all that. Welcome to Marriage 2.ho.

Oh and $1500 of Mary Kay cosmetics in the hall closet and you selling $40 of foundation to your mother doesn’t count as “plus something”. That’s called you wasting $1460.

 

 

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