Category Archives: Husband

Who is teaching the male executives?

I read the article What’s Your Kids’ Wage Gap? Boys Paid More, More Profitably the other day. I have 3 sons. My husband does much of our housework. My sons are learning to do all form of chores, and are not paid an allowance.

wage-gap
None of the information about girls and boys doing chores, being paid (more or less), working inside/outside the home, etc. bothered me as I know my husband and I are teaching our boys the right things. What got me? Well, how about this:

Pew found that 37% of men want stay-at-home wives, compared to 11% of women who wanted to be stay-at-home wives.

 37% of men want stay-at-home wives? Ok, I could still see my way to a blissful statement like “to each his own”, until I then read:

One of the systemic issues we face is that men (overwhelmingly the case, see below) who hold these attitudes are seriously over-represented in the very places where we need change the most — legislatures and the corporate world. For example, research conducted by the Families and Work Institute revealed that 75 percent of 1,200 male executives men surveyed had stay-at-home wives.

75% of male executives have stay-at-home wives? Out of curiosity, how many of the remaining 25% share equally the household and child care with their spouses?

But wait, it gets worse…

Employed husbands in traditional marriages, compared to those in modern marriages, tend to (a) view the presence of women in the workplace unfavorably, (b) perceive that organizations with higher numbers of female employees are operating less smoothly, (c) find organizations with female leaders as relatively unattractive, and (d) deny, more frequently, qualified female employees opportunities for promotion.

So I started reading an article about helping our young sons become better men, learning their value is neither greater nor less than a woman.

But that is not a message they will hear reinforced. Not when 75% of men have stay-at-home wives, and 37% want them.

My husband and I can address what chores my sons do. We can and do talk to them about what others perceive as gender-appropriate chores.

But who, among the 85% of Fortune 1000 companies with all-male boards will do the same for our corporate leaders? Who is teaching the male executives to change this same wage gap in the workplace?

Husband = Slacker or Partner?

A while ago, my husband sent me a link to a fascinating article (take a moment to read it, I’ll wait): Maximize Earning Potential by Marrying a Slacker

I had mixed reactions when I read it too.

  1. I know my husband’s contributions to our family and household are made possible by a less demanding job than my own at the moment – consistent with the outcome of the study.
  2. I know there have been times in our marriage where roles were reversed.
  3. I know that my husband works extremely hard at his job.
  4. I know household work and child care are no less of a job, and frankly the latter is often more of a job than any corporate job I’ve ever had.

But after reading this, the thing it reinforced for me most, the thing I KNOW is…

My husband is NO SLACKER!

We are partners. Always have been, always will be. We are connected. We sense when one of us needs some slack. We dive in when the other needs support.

Why is it that we still feel the need to make one person in a marriage out to be less than?