Female Bread Winners

I noticed a strange phenomena the other day when I started a new job. Perhaps it’s who I know or perhaps it’s because I worked on the Pasadena Magazine’s issue about Leading Ladies a month ago, but whatever it is, I was really struck by how many women I know bring home more bacon than their husbands.

I was just thinking about my situation after a discussion with a friend of mine last night. After I left the bank, I spent two and a half great years helping my kids start school while I finished a certificate program in creative writing and completed my first novel. My contribution to the household budget during this time—a day’s pay as a poll worker and a Christmas job at a bookstore. You guessed it, my awesome wife was the bread winner.

My friend, who has some great stories about his life, with recent periods of unemployment, said the one thing that has pulled his family through it all was his wife’s steady job.

My father was a salesman. A profession with erratic pay checks: some months could be awesome, some horribly bad. The thing that got us through these swings was my mother’s job at a local bank.

Similiar situations I'm aware of include: the contract TV worker–banker wife; pro bono lawyer–highly credentialed teacher wife; college student-supervisor wife; unemployed banker–V. P. wife; chef–V. P. wife; part-time professor-P.R. wife; among others.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying women are taking over the bread winner role across America or even California. When I drop off the kids at school 90% of the parents dropping the kids off are mothers. When I frequently volunteered in my son’s kindergarten class (an experience I wouldn’t give up for anything in the world) the teacher said I was the first stay-at-home dad she had helping out in the classroom and thought it was wonderful. When I went it to PTA meetings, I was one of the only men in a sea of women.

So I wonder, what is this phenomenon of women wearing the financial pants in the family today? Is it the record unemployment? Or has this how it’s always been, and I’ve just never noticed it. After reading a draft of this post to my wife, she said it’s always been the wife’s role to support her husband morally and emotionally in his work to realize his dreams. But fiscally, I asked. At this she shrugged.

I think back to stories about my grandmother. The woman who worked as a waitress in her husband’s restaurant to help make ends meet and made and sold her own beer during prohibition (which she claims was very popular).

Growing up, my dad had a shirt that said King John on it. And in his house, he was the law, even though he was often being out-earned by my mother who still did the cooking, laundry, helped with homework, etc. I’d like to think of myself as head of household (not like my dad however – my siblings and mother have said they’d send me down the river if that ever happened – you should’ve seen their faces when I asked my son one day, “What is the law?”). But when I filled out the taxes and indicated that my wife was head of household as she was the sole income earner, that “man in charge” title took a hit.

I find it interesting, that still today we have movies/shows about men rescuing the princess or girl from dire fiscal straits or she marries the rich man and thereby realizes her dream, when in our society there are many women rescuing men or supporting men so that they (men) can fulfill their dreams. I must say however, that when I tried to come up with movies to list as examples, I found it difficult to find recent movies fitting either pattern. I’ll admit most of the movies I watch are action-adventure where men are saving the day, but where finances play a little role. Although in many of the movies, the guys are lowlifes and the women who almost always are business women/successful leave them because they can’t hold a job but come back to him when he saves their life. I wonder what this says about society?). I did watch The Devil Wears Prada with a highly successful hard-nosed business woman and Mamma Mia where the female owner of an inn is in dire fiscal straits but is given a generous sum by a man to save it.

To close, I must say, I’m really glad there are female bread winners out there and that most of the ones I know mirror my mother rather than Miranda in The Devil Wears Prada.