The Federalist<\/a> published a critique, \u201cModern Feminism Means Forcing Your Wife To Work.\u201d<\/p>\nThe quick summary of the former article is that the author\u2019s wife, when pregnant with child number 2, wanted to quit her job and be a stay-at-home mom, and the author, as the title says, wouldn\u2019t \u201clet\u201d her. \u00a0(Was he really, Promise Keeper-style, saying \u201cI\u2019m the man of the house and I say so\u201d? \u00a0Presumably the discussions and decision-making were more complex than that.) \u00a0He says a number of appalling things, such as \u201cI was so afraid of my wife becoming stagnant,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m just terrified she\u2019ll lose her drive,\u201d and other comments that imply that to be a stay-at-home mom is to surrender any intelligent thoughts, which, of course, the Federalist author, Mollie Hemingway, recoiled at.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not as simple as that. \u00a0True, he admits that they\u2019re not financially dependent on both their incomes, but he worries that\u00a0\u201cif something were to happen to me, she\u2019d have to start over at a much older age,\u201d and says he doesn\u2019t \u201cI don\u2019t want our daughter \u2014 or my wife \u2014 to ever be in a bad marriage and feel they are stuck because they have no experience, no options or can\u2019t make enough money to sustain themselves.\u201d \u00a0Both of which are legitimate concerns. \u00a0And, depending on one\u2019s career, it can be quite easy, or rather difficult, to return after a significant time away from work. \u00a0And he implies, though he doesn\u2019t state, that her desire to stay at home was not the result of a carefully-considered decision that it\u2019s what\u2019s best for the children, but borne of frustration with specific problems at work at the time.<\/p>\n
Dunbar reports a happy ending, of sorts, in that his wife found, it seems, a new job (or maybe a role change at the company) with a fixed 7-4 schedule \u2014 not part-time, but still something that allows her to the ability to be home reasonably soon enough to have some more sanity in the late-afternoon early-evening hours that are otherwise a frenzy of daycare-pickup, quick dinner prep and eating, bathtime, storytime, bedtime. \u00a0(Whether mom bears the burden of an early-morning frenzy and a super-early drop-off, or whether dad handles the morning childcare isn\u2019t stated.)<\/p>\n
The story that\u2019s told of mothers, working or staying at home, is that they either choose to pursue a career, or scale back\/quit entirely for the sake of their kids or family sanity, or stay at work to support the family. \u00a0But here\u2019s another piece to the puzzle that\u00a0Sean and Lauren Dunbar\u2019s story highlights:<\/p>\n
In the first place, husband and wife are partners. \u00a0Whether the family \u201cneeds\u201d the wife\u2019s income or not, it is a major decision that impacts the family; sure, you can portray it as a husband bossing around his wife, but it\u2019s not that simple.<\/p>\n
And secondly, there are two entirely different perspectives to the question of employment. \u00a0In some families, it is taken as a given that it\u2019s optional, in some way, for a mother to work, due to a belief that a child is best off being raised by parents rather than hired caregivers of some kind or another (this was, of course, the reason why I have worked part-time since my oldest was born). \u00a0In others, both-parents-working the default, for the simple reason that (if you\u2019re not troubled by day care centers) there\u2019s no reason why both husband and wife shouldn\u2019t be contributing to the household finances, both sharing the responsibility to support the family. \u00a0Even in cases where the husband earns a good living, there\u2019s an issue of\u00a0being responsible and pulling your own weight. \u00a0Heck, though we\u2019ve struggled through the early years when even working part-time meant for some stressful mornings and nights, my kids are now all in school, and I could, if I had the self-discipline, bump my work hours up to near-full-time without inconveniencing the family too greatly \u2014 though now my husband is also earning a comfortable enough living that it\u2019s equally tempting to imagine quitting and spending my days blogging, crafting, exercising, and the like, but it feels wrong to say to my husband, \u201chey, I know you work long days,\u00a0but I don\u2019t feel like it any longer\u201d!<\/p>\n
Which brings me to the Dutch, and an article in The Economist<\/a> which repeats what I\u2019ve read in the past, that \u201cin the Netherlands 26.8% of men and 76.6% of women work less than 36 hours a week.\u201d \u00a0From what I\u2019ve read, a part of the case is that many more professional jobs are open to part-time work (as I\u2019m guessing is the case with the female colleagues I deal with, from the fact that they\u2019re perfectly happy to say about a project, \u201csorry we didn\u2019t finish; we\u2019ll do that in a couple days\u201d and go home). \u00a0But these aren\u2019t just \u00a0moms, let alone moms of small children; Dutch women, it seems (and see the comments, too) have come to expect that, even if they\u2019re not even married, their spouse\/boyfriend will contribute more than their fair share so that they can take it easy. \u00a0Are they lazy? \u00a0Not pulling their weight?<\/p>\nWhat do you think?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In other news this week (because, remember, I don\u2019t like what\u2019s going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I\u2019m not particularly well-equipped to talk about it): \u00a0USA Today published an op-ed by one Sean Dunbar, \u201cWhy I Won\u2019t Let my Wife Quit her Job,\u201d and The Federalist published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
"Forcing your wife to work"? Or sharing the load?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In other news this week (because, remember, I don't like what's going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I'm not particularly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Forcing your wife to work"? Or sharing the load?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In other news this week (because, remember, I don't like what's going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I'm not particularly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-13T01:38:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-13T02:33:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"Forcing your wife to work\\\"? Or sharing the load?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-13T01:38:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-13T02:33:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"In other news this week (because, remember, I don't like what's going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I'm not particularly\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“Forcing your wife to work”? Or sharing the load?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Forcing your wife to work\"? Or sharing the load?","description":"In other news this week (because, remember, I don't like what's going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I'm not particularly","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Forcing your wife to work\"? Or sharing the load?","og_description":"In other news this week (because, remember, I don't like what's going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I'm not particularly","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2015-05-13T01:38:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-05-13T02:33:57+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html","name":"\"Forcing your wife to work\"? Or sharing the load?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-05-13T01:38:33+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-13T02:33:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"In other news this week (because, remember, I don't like what's going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or Garland, any more than you do, but I'm not particularly","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/forcing-your-wife-to-work-or-sharing-the-load.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Forcing your wife to work”? Or sharing the load?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}