Have you noticed the viral “battle” about whether women should work for pay or stay at home? It been raging for about 2000 years but recently went viral with TRAD WIVES.
I am providing this article to put an end to this INSANE DEBATE (which is a distraction from more important isses). This post shines a light on the truth of motherhood so that women and men can BOTH make an INFORMED choice about what is best for them.
If you did not know, a TRAD WIFE is a “traditional wife” who chooses to stay at home and “take care of her home and her husband.” There are many videos showing TRAD women loving life while caring for kids, baking bread etc. while other videos scream at women to wake up and realize it’s not all so ideal.
So what is the truth? As many of you know, I wrote a book on motherhood. It took me three years of research and here is Chapter 8 which is the most important chapter. I call it the ELEPHANT in the room, that nobody talks about: women’s financial independence.
Motherhood is Madness: How to Break the Chains that Prevent Mothers from being Truly Happy
Chapter 8: Ensure Mothers are Financially Independent
“Many feminists believe the role of full-time child-rearer is inherently oppressive because it is a role that prevents direct access to money. They might be right.” ~ Selma Greenberg
“No matter how lovely their homes are, economic dependency is the proverbial elephant in the living room – the enormous issue that is almost universally ignored despite its power to destroy everything in its path.“ ~ Leslie Bennetts
The most eye-opening book on the subject of mothers and money is The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. This extensively researched book describes how millions of women today get married, quit their jobs to care for kids, then end up divorced and destitute. By leaving the matters of earning income and finances to their husbands, women fall into the trap of financial dependency that wreaks havoc on most mothers.
Many women get married without fully understanding the consequences of their decision. They effectively enter into a legal contract with their husbands whereby the wives agree to bear and raise children in exchange for their husbands’ financial support – for life. The wife often quits her job or works part time so she can take care of the children and the home. The husband often works full time and often earns most of the family income, which he shares with his family. Although this sounds great in theory, what many mothers do not see is the longer term cost of this decision. What seems like a logical decision about the children can come with a hefty price tag, with loss of career, power and identity a result.
When women quit their jobs they give up direct access to income. This means they have no salary, no bonus and no benefits. With no income, mothers aren’t able to contribute to their personal savings and retirement funds. It also means that women don’t typically have access to work-related life insurance or disability insurance (since they aren’t working and there is no income to insure!). Although husbands are expected to share their salary with wives and ensure their life-long financial security, given the divorce rate hovers around 50%, this does not always happen.
Indeed, there is a commonly held belief that the income earned by the husband is his money. It belongs to him and thus it is his to share or not. This money is rarely thought of as belonging to the wife or the family. This is evidenced by mothers still seeking permission to buy basic things like groceries, not to mention personal effects. This lack of direct access to money, combined with the fact that most women take on the bulk of the domestic and childcare responsibilities for no pay, results in a master and servant-like relationship with their husbands. I find it odd that no one seems to care that women rarely have money of their own. I am sure men would suffer a huge dent in their self-esteem if they were required to ask their wives for pocket money each morning.
Of course upon divorce in North America (which happens in about 50% of marriages), this sharing of the spouse’s income ends. The income earner (usually the man) may walk away quite angry that he has to continue doling out money to someone he doesn’t even like, yet this is the agreement the couple entered into. Even the laws requiring alimony (court-ordered financial help to assist the lower-earning partner – usually the ex-wife – become self-sufficient) do not balance out the finances.
Research shows that upon divorce, women’s standard of living drops on average 36%, while men’s standard of living rises by 28%. Bennetts points out that single mothers have twice the bankruptcy rate of married couples. In recent years, alimony has become rarer and child support payments often are insufficient even to meet the children’s needs, let alone the mother’s. Recent research by Susan Solovic found that “only 15 percent of divorced women get any type of court-ordered spousal support, and then 5 percent of that number gets nothing. As for child support, it is usually inadequate and many divorced fathers don’t bother paying it.”
It’s not just lack of money from divorce that is an issue. Mothers find it near impossible to find work that fits with child-rearing. Many workplaces are not inviting to those mothers who have been away for any amount of time. Mothers are accused of having no skills or knowledge relevant to the work world. This often forces mothers to re-invent themselves, start new careers or take jobs in lower positions, often for less pay.
The cost of becoming a full-time stay-at-home mom and leaving paid work is not just the loss of income and a job, but of an entire career. Mothers lose self-growth, the chance to hone their career skills and the potential to earn even more money as they move upwards in the workplace. Bennetts proposes that one of the biggest losses a woman encounters is the loss of earning potential or the long-term development in her as a valuable commodity in the work world.
She says, “Your own career is an investment you make in yourself, one that – unless it is interrupted or derailed – will pay dividends throughout your life. Some benefits are financial, some are intellectual or creative, and others involve different kinds of personal growth. If you devote your life to supporting your husband’s career, all those dividends belong to him – as does the career itself. Ultimately it’s his asset, not yours.” Women are actually investing in their husbands’ earning potentials instead of their own which, “makes about as much sense as putting a million dollars’ worth of renovations into a house you don’t even own.”
When mothers search for paid work they face a world where most of the jobs are full time and where the part-time or flexible jobs pay significantly less, without benefits. After the kids are grown, mothers face even more barriers trying to get back into their careers.
Many women also lose their independent identity when they become mothers. They become dependent on their family for their sense of self: mother, wife, homemaker, daughter-in-law, etc. Some women eventually forget their own interests as they begin to identify with those of their husbands and children. As Bennetts says:
In choosing the stay-at-home life style, they often don’t differentiate between what they believe will benefit the family and what is best for them as individuals. Although the consequences can be horrendous, it’s hardly surprising they continue to fall into the same trap. A steady flow of cultural propaganda encourages wives and mothers to think about their situations in precisely those terms – and to overlook their own unique vulnerability.
Mothers often feel that their decisions must be made for the greater good of the family and if she does otherwise she would be considered selfish. The loss of identity can be compounded by the value our culture places on mothers pleasing others and not putting themselves first. When taken to the extreme, this set of beliefs not only makes women financially dependent but emotionally and socially dependent as well.
The last hidden cost to mothers who give up careers to stay home is loss of power. In my mind, this is the most serious cost of all and is the main reason why mothers have not been able to break the chains of motherhood. We may all know a mother, whether a friend, colleague or relative, who is married and remains in an unhealthy or abusive relationship. But it isn’t uncommon to simply shake our heads as if to say, “That’s the way things go,” as if there is nothing we can do. Yet, if you can look at it from a non-emotional perspective, the whole reason she is not leaving is that she has become powerless. If she has no money of her own and has children who need full-time care, her options are limited. If she left, she would have to find a high-paying, flexible job that would allow her to care for her children. Her decision is mired in economics.
As author Anita Roberts says, “Without financial independence, women cannot truly be free. For example if a woman cannot leave a relationship because she cannot support herself and her children, then she is trapped. In order to survive she must prostitute herself either within the relationship or outside the relationship as a way of supporting herself.”
Solovic describes this situation beautifully:
I have also sadly seen too many women trapped in unhappy and abusive relationships because of economic dependence. Women who have been full-time homemakers and have no marketable skills find themselves with no means to support themselves or their children should they decide to leave. So they bravely (or foolishly) look the other way when it comes to infidelity, they make their excuses for drunkenness, and they cover up the abuse. Eventually, their self-esteem slips away, and all that remains is a shell of a woman.
This power imbalance around money and earning capacity wreaks havoc on our relationships, our sex lives, our families and on our sense of self-control and self-worth. The ultimate irony surrounding mothers and money is that women are actually blamed for their financial predicament. They are told that they should have stayed at work and should not have let go of the financial reins in the marriage, another instance of the cultural push and pull to be both primary caregiver to the children and financial contributor.
As for taking the financial reins of the family’s income, this is easier said than done. I have attended many financial planning seminars for women and have been told that I am completely wrong for not managing my husband’s income or our family’s money. I’ve also been blamed for not separating my money from my husband’s and making my own investments ─ all good ideas. What many financial planners don’t recognize is the psychological, personal and relationship side of money.
Often women delegate the responsibility to their husbands for many practical reasons. The husband may prefer to do the accounting or the wife may not enjoy the task. The husband may feel it’s his responsibility, as the primary income earner, to do this work and may need that sense of authority, control and competence. To make matters more complex, some women come from a tradition where women were not allowed to have their own money or property. As a result many have ambivalence around money. Indeed, the whole topic of ambition and financial success can be problematic for women and girls. Mired in our cultural belief that females can count on males to support them, women were not taught about the critical importance of and skills related to financial independence – as a means to freedom and choice.
Having said this, all mothers must take full responsibility for their own financial well-being. As Solovic says, “Women make up three-fifths of all people living in poverty in the United States. The reality is that at some point, the majority of women in this country will find themselves solely responsible for their own financial security. That is why you need to start planning your financial future now, no matter what your current circumstances are.”
The Bottom Line. When a woman marries and has children she may give up her career and become financially dependent on her husband. This comes at a huge cost to women and their families. Women lose income and the sense of security that provides. They lose not just jobs but entire careers and the investment in their own skills and experience that would provide later opportunities. They lose money, insurance and savings even if they leave for a short while. Mothers rarely get back to where they would have been had they not taken the time off. In effect, mothers are investing in their husbands' careers at the expense of their own. And should a women divorce she will likely be in a worse financial situation than her husband.
What To Do. To be truly free, women must have direct access to money. They must have economic power and financial security. This means income, savings and property. In situations where one person is not earning income, couples must have regular, frank and open financial discussions – both before and during marriage. Money that husbands earn is best shared at the point of earning to give the wife a sense that it belongs equally to her. All property, such as home and furniture should be held jointly and a wife should have her own bank account, although a joint bank account can be used to combine income for the benefit of the family. If a couple divorces it is critical that the cost of her giving up her job or career is compensated in some way (like alimony). END
If you want to buy the whole book (or my other books) please visit my website at www.MaureenFitzgerald.com.
TRAD wives