Does it matter who the "breadwinner" is anymore?
Because I have to be honest, I'd totally be cool if the Mrs. made more than me. In fact, I might even prefer it! That would mean a lot more money coming in (esp since she's a grad student right now, haha...) but even more so it would mean her career would be movin' and shakin'. And if we had two people bringing $75k+? I couldn't even imagine what that would do to our finances.I'll even take it one step further, cuz I'm crazy like that - When it's time to have those babies, I'd even stay at home if she wanted me to! I know it's a lot more work than I could ever imagine, but the idea of blogging full-time and working on all my side projects would be killer. As long as I had the freedom to get outside and mingle with other humans and all I think I could manage it. Plus, don't stay-at-home moms take their kids out to parks and shopping malls and stuff like that anyways? Maybe I could form some "Daddy Daycare" where we take turns watching the brood while playing poker or something ;)
But dream life aside, I really don't see the problem here. Would we suck as men if we can't bring more home than the woman? Does it mean we're not worthy of a happy life? I know it's in our genes to be super competitive and all (as with a lot of chicks I know), but if you're in a truly loving relationship I'd imagine you'd want what's best for the family regardless. Or at least I'd hope. I don't have any experience to back it up myself, but I'm fairly certain the future me would agree.
All in all, I think it's awesome that women are earning more these days. It might hurt a few frail egos at first, but people will learn to get over it. It's when your household is bringing in substantially LESS when you have to worry! So congratulate your girl if she's rockin' it out - she's making your family that much stronger.
Labels: career, life, men vs women, personal finance
posted by J. Money at
7:57 AM
26 Comments:
It's an interesting topic - I've seen a few posts around this lately. I think it's coming up more and more because women are starting to earn similar or increased wages then their male counterparts. Don't get me wrong, the glass ceiling still exists, but certainly not to the extent that it used to (and of course it is more prevalent in different industries).
Currently I gross $8,500 more then my boyfriend, and the gap will probably get bigger before it gets smaller. Economically, if we were to start having kids any time soon, it would make more sense for him to stay at home and me to work - but I would not want to give that up.
I don't think it matters to our generation as much as it use to (Gen Xer here). I married a very smart and talented women, who has made the choice to stay at home with our Munchkins. She use to work in the world of marketing but has stopped for now to care for our kids. Once they are in school she'll be back at it and hopefully pulling down more than me.
You bet you a$$ that if she makes more than me I'd be the first to stay at home and work other streams of income while watching my kids. I currently work with two such families that have the women as the bread winner. The families love it and wouldn't change it for anything.
I wish your Wife well J. Money. Because once you stop working to watch the kids we'll be able to read a ton of posts on how to be a Sexy Stay-At-Home Dad. I wonder it sexydadathome.com is take. Nope just checked.
Currently I'm in this situation. My wife carreer took af a couple years ago and now she'll pull in about $30-$40k more than I will. Personally I have no problem with it what-so-ever. We look at all our money, goals, and time as team. So far this has allowed us to reach our goals and will in the future allow me to increase our future income because of her current income.
I'm not bothered buy it at all...I'm actually quite proud of her
I saw that MSN article and was planning on tackling this topic on my blog, too! We fall into the category of she-makes-more-than-he-does. My salary is 150% of what Mr. Saver makes, and we joke that he's going to be Mr. Mom if and when the time comes. And what's wrong with that? Nothing -- but tell that to a few family members, who still espouse "traditional" gender roles. Don't get me wrong -- I would love to be a stay-at-home mom, because I could always freelance from home. But whichever way it works out, we're cool with it.
I always tease the wife that when I'm retired at 40, she'll continue to take care of me. She's never happy when she hears that hahah!
I so would LOVE to have a suga mamma!
I make more than my husband and he is currently at stay-at-home husband due to a relocation for my career. Several women I work with think its awesome that he quit his job and we moved for mine. I just think its normal because I am more ambitious than he.
Wow, you really need to stop reading my mind. I just looked at my pay stub and it looks like I'm going to be grossing more than DBF for the second year in a row. He's been teasing me that if I keep making more than him then I can pay the mortgage and he'll pay for the utilities. I hoping this finally annoys him enough to look for a new job at a company that will pay him commensurate to his experience; a programmer with 5+ years of experience making less than an office manager, WTF?
I have a couple of friends that are stay-at-home dads and they absolutely love it. Mind you, they also have niche craft businesses, pottery and wood turning, but their wives have the "pantyhose" (office) jobs with the health insurance ;-)
As long as you are both happy with the arrangement then it doesn't matter. I like being the breadwinner and my wife liked being home with our daughter. We've got another on the way so having her already home makes that decision a no-brainer. I think with more women earning more than their husbands it will lead to more stay-at-home dads. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Someone's got to have the good job with insurance and benefits. Why not have it be the woman?
Jerry
As of this moment I am the bread winner; I make over 110K a year and she is going around 38K. I pretty much subsidize everything we do from going out, to groceries, eating, etc, etc. I've asked her to put away most of her $$ in her retirement plans. With this said however, she has a VASTLY brighter future than I. She is VERY personable and very work oriented. Since she graduated college, less than 2 years ago, she's been given 3 raises and 2 promotions. In no time she will be making more than I.
I am VERY excited for this. I, like J, have that entrepreneur spirit and would use my time to grow closer with my young ones and fulfill my dreams of owning my own business on the side.
I say we should all welcome it with open arms!
As someone who tracks the numbers, I can tell you that my wife makes about 10% more than I do. In about one year in three I beat her. We both have variable incomes and I'm not intimidated by her higher earnings. If she could double her income, I'd be happy to stay home, but don't need to. We made it through the days of needing a nanny, and now the week is split between a high school girl taking Jane 2.0 to her first function after school, or either Jane or me doing it. Kids are so busy now that there's something every day.
My daughter also knows that we don't need each other's 'permission' to spend money. I'm cheaper with myself, but don't criticize my wife's purchases. (I don't get the handbag thing, but Jane isn't a gadget woman, so we're even.)
Our daughter has the best of both of us, loves the gadgets, loves the bags, shoes, jewelry.
My husband stays at home, I work. We don't have kids. In this market, he can't make enough that it's worth it to have him work. He does 100% of the cleaning, cooking and organizing. I def get some people that think he's not pulling his weight, but I personally disagree. I have never gone home at night and had to figure out dinner, throw a load of wash in or feed the cats... and for me, it's brilliant. I'd never trade the money for the comfort and free time we have together when I'm not working.
Maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong circles or something, but everyone I've ever dated that made less than me eventually came to resent me for it. They'd try to justify themselves and prove in some way that they made more, and to me it never mattered, but it really seemed to matter to them. Initially they'd be offended when I tried to pay for a night out or something, then they become accustomed to it, then it would seem to be emasculating to them and they would resent me for it. And I in no way flaunted the fact that I made more money (though I am careful to save as much as I can so maybe therein lies the problem, I’ve got a bigger bank account overall?) I think it would be great if the number of zeros at the end of my check didn't matter, and I'm hoping one day it really won’t.
My boyfriend loves gifts and hates work and teases me that I could support us both so he can play video games all day, but I think he would feel a little off if I made more than him. However, considering he majored in engineering and I in marketing, his entry job pays $30,000 more than me in just year one so I really don't see this being an issue anytime soon :)
This is a really interesting topic. I'm currently doing research on this subject at my college and I've had more than a couple conservative Christian males state that it was in no way acceptable for men to be a stay-at-home-parent. I was shocked! For many people, their opinion of this depends largely on the environment in which they were raised.
In our household, it doesn't matter who the breadwinner is. It's always been me, but right now, we're fairly close. It's both "our" money so as long as we're both fulfilled in our careers, that's really what matters. We always say my husband would be the one to stay home if we wanted that. I couldn't do it but he would probably be good at it.
You go, J. Money. I like the sound of thise post. My bf and I have talked about who would stay home with the kids and who would work and he's up for either. I think that's a great attitude. My BF and I make about the same right now - he makes about $3K more.
I used to have this whole plan where the Mr. would stay home with the kids and I'd work: he loves cooking, is a neatnik, loves running so he could take the kids and dogs out jogging during the day. I like doing my own laundry, as does he, so we'd take turns with that and the rest of the chores.
Best of all, I even had our vacations planned: His/Hers, Boys' wk and Girls' wk. I'm almost sure it could work out ....
Mr M is going to be stuck doing daddy daycare, he can't earn enough to justify the cost of childcare in LA. I've always been the breadwinner and while he always strives to earn more himself, he is proud of how well I do. Besides, he likes being home all day, his Hollywood job means being home a lot already. There are plenty of guys secure enough in their masculinity to tackle tasks like child rearing.
I would love to be a stay at home dad and my wife would love to be a stay at home mom, but we live in a high cost of living area, so it would be pretty tough.
My wife (who is 9 years younger) is the breadwinner. I make $67K/year and she makes $55K/year + ~$15K/year in bonuses and has a company car. I love it. It takes some of the pressure off me and helps us reach our goals.
I am in some kind of time warp here? Is it 2009 or 1969? What an incredibly patronising post. Are we supposed to applaud because you're "cool" with the idea of a woman earning more than you do? I thought attitudes like this had died out years ago.
I swear that if my own husband did not write this post, then you must be his twin brother. I love it! Good for you, and I can assure you there are already DaddyCare clubs/groups/get-togethers out there. I remember looking out my old house window to see a man with a stroller mid-morning on a week day and it was a delightful sight!!! Go for it! Best of luck! And if you start a new daddy care club, be sure to blog about it and let us know ;)!
Thanks for leaving your thoughts everyone! It's cool to see responses from both men and women here pretty much saying the same thing - who cares who the breadwinner is? We're all in it together :) And if you haven't noticed already, that MSN article that inspired this post REALLY took off created some buzz around the internet! You've got bloggers sharing their thoughts, different news streams, it's all rather interesting to see. I'm sure we'll be back talking about it some more later....happy weekend everyone!
I'd be pumped if The Wife made mor than I did - and she has the power to do it (she is in sales, and I am in a salaried position), but she has made it clear she has zero interest in working, so thats not happening in my household!
Strange that you would be all for women making more than their male companion then use phrases such as 'congratulate your girl' and "the Mrs." Those phrases make me cringe and think that nothing is ever going to change if society keep using these terms which are disempowering to women.
Anyway, my partner and I both earn around the same, but he is employed by the government which as I am privately employed, allows him to take the full 3 months paternity leave (same time as maternity leave).
Not sure I get what you mean - if putting congratulate in front of girl/women/female is bad, how do you prefer we talk about our wives?
I get that certain phrases upset people (for me, it's "douchebag" - can't stand that overly used word) but it's interesting that certain things stand out from a post meant to completely promote the women species ;) I guess that's the beauty of blogging.
Does it matter who the breadwinner is? Well yes it does. It mattered very much to Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem who the breadwinner was. Because the breadwinner had all the power. Because the stay at home was in position of dependency. Because if you're not the breadwinner you will be dependent, frustrated, unfulfilled, and unable to support yourself in the event of divorce.
If it doesn't matter who the breadwinner is, why has there been a feminist movement to destroy the patriarchal system of male breadwinners? If it doesn't matter who is the breadwinner is why would any one object to a male breadwinner? If it doesn't who the breadwinner is why are so many women going to college and planning to have careers? Because it matters very much who the breadwinner is. Thats why feminists have never said it doesn't matter who earns the money?
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