50's Housewife

[WhataRacquet]

I was looking up money saving tips on Pinterest and came across this the50shousewife.com/2014/06/how-to-survive-on-one-paycheck-1950s-style/

I can't believe any woman would think like this!

[QuietWhenReading]

I know several very successful men. They are extremely driven to succeed. What drives them isn't the need to attract a good looking wife, although that may be a side benefit.

I'm not sure we can blame men because some women scream and throw knickers can we?

I absolutely don't ever want a baying crowd of men throwing their underwear at me.

[itllallbefine]

No - i dunno. I was just thinking about "alpha" males and what it is that drives them an what reward they get for being driven etc. It seems gendered.

[StarCat]

Couldn't think of anything worse than 'alpha man'. I alway wanted a man who looks after children. Nothing more attractive.

[QuietWhenReading]

itllall I think that what drives men and women may be different. I'm not sure though, I'll need to think about it.

[EmpressOfTheVulvaCupcakes]

I've just read the whole thing. Admittedly I'm lesbian but ????

I also felt a bit sorry for the imaginary husband tbh. Do men actually want their wives to inform them out of the blue that the "full social & economic responsibility for their families" is officially their problem and they now have to make all decisions?

[QuietWhenReading]

Empress not in my experience. All the men in my family and social group want an equal relationship.

[EmpressOfTheVulvaCupcakes]

That's what I thought, Quiet. None of the men I work with come across as caveman types either.

[OTheHugeManatee]

The bit about handing over finances is nonsense though. Historically just not accurate

[Twowrongsdontmakearight]

DH isn't s caveman type. But he's more interested in researching the best deals and creating a spreadsheet for tracking our spending than I am. He reads Which? and Money Week for pleasure. So he takes care of the finances.

[DeoGratias]

Many women control money - In Japan women would take the whole male pay cheque and hand back some spending money. Ditto in traditional English working class families so the man had enough for beer and not much else. So I am not convinced it was always the norm men managed money. In the UK in the 1500s there were plenty of widows and other women running homes and estates. And of course most of our history is before the advent of money.

In our marriage I earned 10x what he did and I did both our tax returns etc etc. He took the children to the dentist for 17 years and there was a phase when usefully I c ouldn't work the washing machine so he did all the washing.

Most couples want some equality. It is a big burden to be the only earner.

[QuietWhenReading]

Equal of course doesn't necessarily mean earning equally.

When I was a SAHM I had completely equal access to our money even though I wasn't earning any. Now I earn a comparable salary to my DH, we don't have his money and my money - we just have our money.

[DeoGratias]

Absooutely. Earning 10x my man was much much more fun than just earning the same as him. Go forth and earn it. It rocks.

[scallopsrgreat]

I'm the sole earner in our household. Not seeing the pressure myself. I had way more pressure when we were both working and constantly having to juggle childcare, household and actually having a life. Way easier now.

Men don't want to earn loads of bugs to bag a woman. They want money for the status. If they wanted money to find a woman why wouldn't they just slow down after that? Or take on more childcare responsibilities when they came along? After all they've got their woman. Oh wait...

[MizK]

Ha!

Thanks for posting this. It gave me a good laugh and I am going to read sections of it aloud when I next sit in the pub with my friends, (some working FT, some PT, some SAHM) whilst our poor beleaguered men care for our children despite having spent their day battling other men for power.

Nobody I know thinks like this. My gran, who was a housewife with 10 children in the fifties, very clearly tells me to enjoy my life, do whatever makes me happy and would be horrified if I handed control of my life to my DP.

[HowBadIsThisPlease]

Has anyone read onto page 3? This is a sentence that made me stop and think:

"Years ago when I was preparing to wed, my mother told me it was time to make my marriage quilt. "

I am fascinated imagining the kind of home in which this conversation happens:

"Mother! Father! Great news - Quentin has proposed and I have accepted!"
"Darling, come here and let me kiss you. Now - it is time to make your marriage quilt."

[HowBadIsThisPlease]

I do think there is some logic to this "let the man manage money" though.

I mean it is completely horrific in the sense that if you apply it as a blanket rule across society that people with penises get direct access to money, people without only get access to money through association with people with penises - applied like that it is simply an abusers' charter (which is one very arguable view of what the family is, as an institution).


However, looked at another way: IF you marry a good, loving trustworthy spouse AND between you, you have children and / or other interest and commitments (like, who hasn't): there are at least two ways of managing the business of staying afloat as an economic unit:

1 - you share responsibilities. Both earn, both do housework, both do childcare, both volunteer, both have time for hobbies, both take care of aged parents, both are in good contact with the school, both do the household admin, both are potentially equally on the hook when the 6 year old gets sent home vomiting (and you know it will be the 4 year old the day after tomorrow).

How many families do you know who want to work like that (or the woman wants them to)?
How many really work like that?

2 - you split tasks down the middle. Person A does X block of tasks: Person B does Y block of tasks.
Both have privileges and responsibilities.
Both feel the full trust of their partner and this is part of what spurs them on to do these tasks sincerely and fully and to the best of their ability.
The tasks match their personalities and talents.
Both spouses appreciate that the other is an expert on what he / she is doing and enjoys the results of that expertise.
The material goods (and other resources, like leisure) of the household are shared equally, as both partners are recognised as equal forces in making their household's existence possible.

Now obviously among the problems of scenario 2 is that too often these conditions don't apply: giving the man direct access to money gives him (practically, though not ethically) full discretion as to whether he chooses to respect his wife or not. or materially manifest that respect.

this is an abomination. Under all religions that I know anything about, it is explicitly laid out in writing (though pretty much ignored in practice) that men should respect their wives according to the ground rules of scenario 2. Of course they don't because power corrupts and they've basically been given a choice as to whether to be shits or not. How surprising that some find the temptation to be a shit just too great to withstand. not.


Anyway. I can imagine - I am not arguing for this by the way - I can imagine a woman in a failing version of scenario 1, where the "split responsibilities" model is basically landing her with all the shit work on top of a WOH job, and there is resentment and tension in the marriage: I can imagine that woman thinking "what if I just trusted him SO MUCH that he was FORCED to step up and do ONE THING properly. Just one thing, that was done right - the money - if he really owned that, and did it completely, I could do everything else, and it wouldn't be too much, and I could stop being pissed off about every other thing that he barely half-arsedly does"

I can imagine her thinking that. But.... well, good luck to her

I mean there is something in it. You don't get good work out of people by not trusting them with it. Do you?

So...

[DeoGratias]

Plenty of women would rather do their nails than the family tax returns. I prefer the tax returns but then I won a tax prize at university and you'd have to pay me a fortune to paint my nails!

If you go to the divorce threads on here however far too many show so little interest in the family pensions, finances, income, accounts that on divorce they have no idea what their husband earns or has and their children suffer for it. So put down that nail varnish and start reading up on investments - you'll find it's much more interesting than nails too.

[Want2bSupermum]

deo I am 100% with you on that. I do our taxes both for our company and individual returns. DH is fantastic at what he does for a living but with our business I'm involved. I know exactly what is going on, what our obligations are and the potential impact it could have on our family.

As to the marriage quilt I take that as 'you make your bed you lie in it' as in make your marriage what you want it to be. Well I wasn't going to stick around in a marriage where DH thought he was above me. We had a bit of a bumpy road during the first 2 years but DH finally got there. That's my marriage 'quilt'.

[BreakingDad77]

One of the things I was most shocked to learn about is the secret life of men. Secret to women, that is. It’s a brutal, stressful world that they live in—far worse than anything a woman can imagine, simply because our brains and our thoughts don’t work the same way as theirs

This made me firstly on the 'brains' have we not moved on yet from female/male brain and secondly based on ex partners and DW experiences in nursery and service jobs experienced work places more toxic than I could ever imagine.

[teacuphalfempty]

TransStepford

[Bloodybridget]

And she doesn't know the difference between reigns and reins .. .