My name is Aaron Gouveia, and my wife makes more money than I do.
Wait. This isn’t a support group for losers? Are you sure? Because after reading Hanna Rosin’s Slate column about “breadwinner wives,” I just assumed it was my lot in life to huddle with the growing number of financially castrated husbands whose pitiful paychecks are causing marital strife.
Rosin started off with an interesting topic, which she approached evenhandedly, citing census data and Pew Research Center surveys. And as a member of the 22 percent of American marriages in which husbands make less than their wives, I was intrigued to learn more.
Until Rosin’s article took a very wrong turn and inexplicably careened off a cliff.
Some couples seem to ease into the dynamic naturally—the woman is a born workaholic and the man lives at a slower pace, picking up contract work, savoring his afternoon coffee. One mother at our preschool can’t stop bragging about her stay-at-home husband—although I am still startled by the sight of him hanging around the school, helping the teachers make handprint T-shirts.
It’s the word “startled” that really threw me. I re-read it several times to see if I was just being oversensitive, but each time I went back it leaped out even more. Quite frankly, its use here is baffling: I can’t fathom any scenario in which a father taking a positive and active role in his kids’ lives could be construed as a bad thing, not to mention alarming or frightening.
Rosin goes on to talk about the women she knows in her life who are currently dealing with this issue.
One woman I know never seems to run out of ways to call her husband, who works as a part-time airline mechanic, a loser. Another complains about the small things: Why does he spend all her money on dress socks if he hasn’t had a job interview in over a year and why does he have to subscribe to every damned sports channel and why will he never clean up after himself? In a couple of cases I know of, the disparity never felt natural and the couple got divorced.
Let’s keep the recession in mind. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seven out of 10 workers who lost their jobs are men. So wouldn’t it stand to reason this guy should consider himself damn lucky to have any job at all? Not to mention the man is an airline mechanic, which is a highly trained and specialized field. It hardly sounds “lazy.”
But even more confounding is why Rosin even bothered to include the husband who allegedly doesn’t know how to clean up after himself. Isn’t this a story about income disparity? What does his level of cleanliness have to do with this? Rosin’s last comment that these people are getting divorced really strikes me as no surprise—I wouldn’t want to be married to someone constantly calling me a loser either. But that has more to do with civility and respect, and less about the marital wage gap.
Truthfully I was disappointed to see this coming from the intelligent and forward-thinking folks at Slate’s DoubleX blog. Suppose I had written, “One father at our preschool can’t stop bragging about his working wife—although I am still startled by the sight of her hanging around the office, helping to broker multi-million-dollar business deals.” I have to believe I would’ve been taken to task. And rightfully so.
I’ll admit, I had issues with the fact that my wife out-earned me at one point by approximately $40,000 a year. But she works in finance and my heart and soul is in print journalism, a notoriously low-paying field. And after a while, she showed me that what I lack in the paycheck department I make up for in other areas. I’m the communicator, the social director, and the primary caretaker of our son. I still work full-time, but I cook most of the meals and perform the majority of chores—because those things are just as important as a padded wallet, if not more so.
In the end I realized it doesn’t matter if I make less money than she does. And while the issue caused some arguments, it was never something that was going to threaten our marriage. If two people break up because of something so arbitrary, I’d argue that their relationship had far more problems than an income disparity.
But I guess the important thing is that I don’t show up at my son’s school. I wouldn’t want to startle anyone.
—Photo via SoFeminine.co.uk
So I googled the term “Breadwinner husbands” and much to my chagrin and surprise I came up with no articles decrying the fact for the better part of 2000 years or more men have borne the burden of being the primary breadwinner. No articles complaining about how lazy and burdensome the wives of Breadwinner husbands were, no articles sounding the alarm as to the signficance to society that such a long lasting trend has had, no articles at all . . . in fact what I did come up with were articles relating to breadwinner wives and the complaints they… Read more »
You said above that
“I find it “startling” that anyone would bitch about being the primary breadwinner. As primary breadwinner you are endowed with control and power that the secondary breadwinner/caregiver does not have.”
Now you call breadwinning a “burden”….When for quite a lot of the time you mentioned, women were not allowed to work because it was assumed they weren’t smart enough, or talented enough–
Which is just as stupid as thinking a man isn’t caring enough to be a good parent. Stereotypes are stupid no matter who does them…Let’s not rewrite history.
It is a burden, but it is a burden with certain benefits. Nothing in life comes without a price. As the primary breadwinner you carry the burden of financial responsibiity for others and in return you are entitled to certain control over how money is spent. Women have historically opted to cede financial control (to a certain extent) to their husbands in return for being relieved of the burden of breadwinning. Through the manipulative use of love and affection women have been able to obtain from men the resources to get the things they want without having to carry the… Read more »
I, too, was shocked and dismayed by Hanna Rosin’s choice of couples to highlight. I see a lot more nuance in the world than that; and a lot more fathers helping out, be it preschool, elementary, or high school. I know so many couples in which the woman earns more than the man that it’s not even worth enumerating them — there’s the CFO whose husband works part-time and volunteers at school, there’s the bike shop owners where the wife worked for years in technology to save up money to start their business while the husband stayed home with their… Read more »
I find it “startling” that anyone would bitch about being the primary breadwinner. As primary breadwinner you are endowed with control and power that the secondary breadwinner/caregiver does not have.
You’re in my opinion, teaching your kids to do exactly what your ex did. Choose a career over a family. Am I misinterpreting this?” Yes you are. The fact is after we separated the “good” doctor with whom she cheated on me with while we were married moved in with her. She has since left full time employment and is only working part time. The “good” (and rich) doctor pays her mortgage and property taxes. When she faced career setbacks, like a lot of men have, instead of soldiering on, like most men do, she sought a more lucrative ship… Read more »
I should have read the rest of your comments before I responded. Then I would have known to avoid engaging you because your outlook makes me sick. You are saying that 1) the primary breadwinner of a family is the one with power and control and 2) the “natural order of things” is for men to have that power and control over their wives, which is totally okay because 3) women want to be controlled by their husbands. Making career sacrifices for your family and your spouses more lucrative career, finding out your spouse is a cheating asshole, and getting… Read more »
Steve, I don’t know how old you are, but in your lifetime how many articles have you seen, how much media has been dedicted to the voicing of complaints of men who are primary breadwinners. You have seen none and I challenge you to google the topic because you will not find any. You will find a plethora of articles about Breadwinning wives. The gist of most of these articles are complaints, put downs of the husbands and the marginalization of men. I don’t like it. My ex sought out a better earning man at the expense of my life,… Read more »
just by way of correction–
We should avoid women that aren’t willing to give up that control.
Did you read Hanna Rosin’s article? It was a put down of men, in general. I heard a lot of that during 15 years of marriage and apparently it is not uncommon. You may willing to endure that kind of abuse, but I am not. Any man that wrote about women the way Hanna Rosin did would be vilified, raked over the coals and if he had a journalistic career, it would be over.
You sound too young and idealistic to really understand, so I won’t be offended by your insults.
Steve: Infidelity is never right regardless of the gender of who commits it. Had I refused to move with my wife to accommodate her career opportunity, no one would have faulted me for it and no one would have so much blinked an eye. I believe that had I protected my own career and refused to move she either would have turned the offer down or come crawling back after it failed so miserably especially since I would have had custody of the kids. And had I done that I would have been the PB and my career would have… Read more »
The fact that you went through that yourself and are now advocating for a more traditional paradigm which places women at great risk of the exact same thing is just fucked up. Have you read these articles by women complaining about being the primary breadwinner? If you don’t like that role don’t do things that are likely to place yourself in that role especially if the things you do are likely to impair or impede your husband from having that role. I am simply saying that men have to basically establish boundaries that will steer women in the direction that… Read more »
I don’t want a dominant man. I really, truly do want someone with whom I am equal. Please don’t try to speak for all women, you are way off base.
Courage, I feel you dude. You obviously had a touch go at it. But I have to ask if you mean what you say or is this just the open wounds of a recent and painful divorce? “Jealously guard your career opportunities. If I could do it over again, I would say to my wife when she suggested we move to accommodate a career opportunity for her would be “that’s nice honey that you have a job, but I have a career and nothing is going to impair that, so if you want to leave go for it, but the… Read more »
I work 60-80 hours a week trying grow my practice and make up for the time I lost acquiecing to my wife’s career aspirations. She in the meantime enjoys the luxuries that come with being a kept woman. The women bitching about being the primary breadwinners should shut up, hunker down and move forward, like men have done for more than a milennia.
I drank the feminist kool aide and it destroyed my career, my marriage, ripped apart two families and damaged my children. I married my now ex wife in 1993. I was two years out of law school and working on a budding legal career; she had an MBA from a top 5 business school. At the time we got married she earned more than I did, but not by a significant margin. Seven years and two kids into the marriage I had been a fully supportive father and slightly less equal earner and had managed to nuture a legal career… Read more »
That’s a long, sad story and I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. Honestly, it reminds me of what a whole hell of a lot of women have gone through. (Making career sacrifices for their family, having a cheating spouse, and ending up divorced and making way less money than they could have.)
That said, I’m having trouble seeing how it has anything to do with “drinking the feminist kool aide” as you put it. Could you explain what you mean by that?
What that means is at the time my wife informed me of her extraordinary offer I had bought into the feminist philosophy of equal rights and opportunities. Think back to the 1950’s. Would a man move to accommodate a career opportunity for his wife. Not a chance. But I was enlightened and I believed that women had the right to pursue equal opportunity and equal pay and all that other BS. Of course, my wife (now my ex) would have been compelled to choose betweeen her career and her family had I taken a more traditional view and said –“its… Read more »
Will you teach all your children to jealously guard career opportunities? Even your daughters? It would be a valuable lesson for them, because your story can and has happened to women as well, it is not a gender-specific thing. I have a close friend who was a successful doctor, who moved for her husband’s career to a state where she couldn’t practice. She became a SAHM, her children no longer respect her because she isn’t working… and her husband refuses to discipline them on that issue. She’s isolated and I’ve never seen her so miserable before. Should she have told… Read more »
SunaDokei: First of all after moving from a place where my career was starting to take root and grow to a place where it withered on the vine, my ex’s career didn’t do all the well notwithstanding the promise of the offer she was made. When the company she worked for and we made the move for imploded I wanted to go back where my career held greater promise, but she refused and because of the custody laws of this state she held the leverage with regard to the kids, so I was faced with the choice of returning to… Read more »
it reminds me of what a whole hell of a lot of women have gone through. (Making career sacrifices for their family, having a cheating spouse, and ending up divorced and making way less money than they could have.)
Yes and women generally end up with a greater share of the marital property and alimony because of the sacrifices they have made.
Women being breadwinners isn’t the entire problem. What we resent is working all day and coming home to cook dinner, clean the house, and take care of children while paying all the bills. This is more likely all too common, and absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn’t be so resentful being the breadwinner if I could come home to a clean house, and have a partner that gave a minimum of 50%. Now, he does work, but it only pays ‘his’ bills..ie, car payment, student loans, etc. He actually works more hours than I do but his income goes to pay nothing… Read more »
I think the problem is that you just married the wrong person, or aret a miserable, miserable woman.
are*
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t belittle men in their capacity as parent, be it stay-at-home, or be it a super-involved dad who works, then turn around and cry sexism when the arrogant guys around the boardroom table don’t take you seriously enough.
I wonder how it would be taken if some CEO said that he was “startled” to find a woman sitting at his board-room table.
You started from a “all women think this way” which is a purely personal argument i.e. all the women I know think this way”. Two wrongs do not make a right.
“Non-traditional”… what does that mean for someone under 30? So many of us have been raised by single parents, divorced parents, in blended families…
I feel like you’re talking about a nuclear family where the father earns more money and the mother stays home. That hasn’t been the standard for a long time, and that’s not something familiar to a lot of the people who are starting their families at this time.
Thank you for addressing the article… the idea that women are startled to see men involved in school activities, working at a daycare or caring for their own children on a full-time basis is very disturbing. I’d like to hear more about the motives of anyone that feels that way. Why is it startling? I am a full-time father (much preferred label than SAHD since I’m actually a very happy guy) and have had no issues with playgroup integration and have enjoyed getting to know many mothers and fathers of children close to my daughter’s age. I think the idea… Read more »
I think Hanah Rosen’s message by intent and design is to serve as an agent to empower women. I have neither read nor heard any subtle message that would serve to empower men in their current circumstances. Nor have I seen any gesture that would represent the same. In reviewing her survey questions I notice once again consistent with this approach a method that will gather information by proxy. Which leaves room to massage the results and the message. I think her efforts are that of a good sister to the sisterhood, she is a feminist opportunist divot looking for… Read more »
The issue here the the inability of most women to let go of the household decisions. When a significant number of women are able to let there husband choose the curtains, furniture and colour scheme of the house I will start to believe in equality. Men, in general, are emotionally and sexually dependent on women, while women strive to be independent. This is now becoming the fundamental inequality in relationships today. Because women overestimate male power, they overcompensate by building their power and independence. I learnt in HIStory that independent nations can easily go to war while interdependent nations have… Read more »
Startling.
Perhaps once less people are “startled” by the sight of a man in a classroom setting spending time with children, more men will feel comforable taking on the role of teacher or primary caregiver.
Or, perhaps the idea that men and women are truly equal is just a lie fed to us over the last 40 years.
I certainly hope no one is Ever “startled” by the sight of my wife makng decisions in the corporate setting.
I actually think a woman’s career is incredibly important and so take it into account when dating; then again, I live in DC, so maybe that colors my opinion.
As a woman in professional school, I have never had a serious relationship with someone who wasn’t at all interested in my career. Maybe had fun for a couple weeks, but it never lasted because I need someone more supportive than that. One of the reasons I decided to marry my fiance (no “proposal”, we had multiple discussions and came to a mutual conclusion!) is that, not only am I in love with him, but he is flat-out PROUD of me. Sure, I’ll out-earn him eventually, but I couldn’t do it without him. Never underestimate the power and importance of… Read more »
Oh boy, is that relationship headed for a cliff. When the babies start coming the family’s reliance on your income or a step down in the class strata if you elect to rely on his will only serve as a source of resentment and hatred. Mark my words. It happens every time. Women really don’t want to work (nobody really does) especially once children come along. The guilt and longing to be with your baby is natural for you and you cannot defy mother nature. Good luck in your social experiment, I just hope children don’t end up paying for… Read more »
Ass much as we say we like the idea of SAHD and bread-winning moms, we still can’t get the old beliefs of men as providers out of our head. SAHD still aren’t welcome in this Mommy and me culture, nor at the park gatherings, which are mostly moms. And a SAHM play date at the house of a SAHD? A man and a woman alone in a house with two tots? It’s a page out of “Little Children.” Most of the bread-winning moms I know (now all divorced) used to complain that their hubbies didn’t do things right (aka, their… Read more »
Still, we’re a long way from giving SAHD the same weight as CEO, even among men. I hope that changes one day. I imagine it won’t be soon enough. It won’t happen IMO. Women by a very large margin would prefer to stay at home with children than leave the home and be the PB. Men feel the exact opposite, as a general rule. Men are still the majority of PB’s, though the margins of that majority have decreased. I don’t see a day when women are the majority of PB’s and in fact my bet is that there will… Read more »
I think it ironic that feminists have been bitching for years about not earning equal pay while at the same time mothers have been complaining about men not being involved parents; and so here you have a situation where women are actually making MORE in most cases, and dads are actively involved; and yet these women are not only still bitching about it, they’re berating men because of it. I’ll concede to generalizing here, but really this is just a bullshit smokescreen from these women hiding the fact that they are unhappy with themselves. And in my opinion, Rosin represents… Read more »
“And in my opinion, Rosin represents a small minority of disgruntled X chromosomes, who really don’t know what they want, but in putting others down it makes them feel better about themselves”
Eat, Pray, Love?
IMO, these women are greater in number than you suggest. They also have widespread media coverage.
Dana: You’re missing the point. And you’re wrong on several fronts. My son is not yet in elementary school, but he is in preschool full time. And there are a slew of dads there dropping off and picking up their kids. There are also two male volunteers there that act as teacher aides on a daily basis. I also do some work with a local father’s group, and I know for a fact it’s not uncommon at all for dads to be involved at local schools. So I think you’re dead wrong about involved men being “unusual and a bit… Read more »
It is possible that I’m missing your point. I’ll give you that. It’s fantastic that at your sons preschool there are so many involved Dads. I assure you that this is not the norm. It may be more likely in the past couple of years with the economy and more Dads out of work, but it’s definitely not an everyday, everywhere thing. Up until 2 years ago I took my nephew to elementary school and picked him up everyday (he’s in Junior High now), and I can tell you that I almost never saw a Dad. Plenty of single/working Moms,… Read more »
Self serving lip stick politics with about the same depth. Using the term “startling” supports a migrating perception that does not point towards a positive representation. It is no different than an air line policy that prohibits fly alone children from being seated beside a man. Being an apologist for unintelligent drivel is a poor career choice.
Sorry but taking the Slate article and it’s writer to task is really showing your hand. I read the article a week ago and just read it again and it in no way puts down men with less pay than their wives. It’s simply reporting on the growing differences and some anecdotal evidence as to how some women react to being in the situation. You take offense to the author being ‘startled’ seeing a Dad at school engaging in activities? Clearly you haven’t been to an elementary school lately. When a father shows up to school activities it’s still, in… Read more »
Wealthy men give women more orgasms
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article5537017.ece
Equal footing? So you would oppose a man who earns less, or who doesn’t work at a paying job, right?
Dedalus, you are a total idiot to be making such claims and interpretations.
Men need to beware of women’s inherent hypergamy.
Now doesn’t that tell you what women really want?
Same here. I don’t want a dominant man. I want a man on equal footing with me. I don’t care who makes more, so long as both of us are happy with our jobs and both of us are happy with each other.
Sexist pig.
And their experience is no more universal than Sarah’s.
If you have followed Rosin’s recent work, e.g. “The End of Men,” then you know that she not only has been documenting the decline of western men in work and academic standing, but lauding, no, gloating over it. Her position is clearly saturated that of female superiority. Any façade of objectivity she presents is an unconvincing attempt to appear scholarly.
I was hardly surprised to see the word “startled” and all the implications that come with it. In her perception, a man making less money than his wife is “down.”
This was just her chance to kick him.
I have to disagree as regards the article “The End of Men.” While it is easy to take offense and see it as a gloating over the decline in men in work and academic standing and the perceived decline in masculinity as a whole, it was more about the changes that are occuring and how they change the american familial and sexual social system. I’ve read a lot about the ‘decline of men’ recently. A while ago, I postulated that the social mores of the 60’s and previous were destroyed and while they have been replaced for women, men have… Read more »
Did you read The End of Men? “All you are is a paycheck, and now you ain’t even that” ‘Get out of the house, bitch.’ She’s calling you ‘bitch’!” “That’s right. She’s the man.” “The sociologist Kathryn Edin spent five years talking with low-income mothers… “I think something feminists have missed,” Edin told me, “is how much power women have” when they’re not bound by marriage. The women, she explained, “make every important decision”—whether to have a baby, how to raise it, where to live. “It’s definitely ‘my way or the highway,’” she said. “…many of the same complaints I… Read more »
“I postulated that the social mores of the 60′s and previous were destroyed and while they have been replaced for women, men have seen no such replacement, and I still think that’s true.” Given that 1960 was a single generation from a world war bloodbath, the male psyche was still languishing in violence. Compare barbie to GI Joe, and then look at the toys for children pre-war. Cinema was brimming with war movies and propaganda. Masculinity was defined by the military industrial complex. Sacrificing for the family was an extension of sacrificing for country. Men left the battlefield as fodder… Read more »
Its Grenada not Granada and I wouldn’t call that a war. The Falklands we were not involved in at all– it was a war between the Brits and Argentina. The problem is not as complex as you make it out to be. Being the PB is a lot of stress and pressure. Stress and pressure that men have bourne for a thousand years or more. Stress and pressure we accept because we also enjoy the authority and control that goes with it. Women don’t like the authority and control enough to bear the stress and pressure. They don’t like it… Read more »
Er, no. Growing up in a “traditional” nuclear household, where my father almost committed suicide from the strain of long hours and my mother was in constant therapy for depression and anxiety, I don’t care about “dominant” or “superior”: I just wanted whoever it was that I would pair with later in life to be happy and *not* stressed by money or status. I had enough of those things when I was growing up to know I wanted none of them later in life. At the moment I’m planning my marriage to a public servant who I will out-earn in… Read more »
Perhaps that reflects the nature of people you happen to be friends with. To go along your efforts, I too know of what I speak – my vet sister (earning well over six-digits) teamed up with a teacher and part-time statistician who would just rather watch the cricket. Friends of mine who have postgraduate degrees and good professional jobs are engaged to chefs, security guards and labourers. I would hazard a guess that my generation (18-27) is different to yours with regards to these things. Of course there are women in my generation who won’t go out with guys because… Read more »
18-27 means it’s too soon to see how those engagements pan out.
you don’t care what money he earns now, but when that first baby comes along and you have to trudge off to work as the baby is screaming for you and your husband is staying home taking care of the baby, what will be growing in you then is the red hot poker of resentment, fury, guilty, angst and anger which will eventually boil over and explode leaving a path of destruction.
Really Bec? When you are outearning him in 5-6 years from now and by your income you have established a comfortable lifestyle, nothing extravagant, of course, and that first baby comes along are you going to feel the same way as you leave for work and your baby is screaming in her father’s arms for you to stay or are you willing to move down a social strata or two so you can stay at home with the baby and your public servant husband goes off to work earning far less than you could or were before baby came along… Read more »