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.

Movie Review: Stark Trek

Awesome movie! Whoever was in charge of casting did an amazing job. Syler from Heroes as Spock was great choice. And while I know some purist might not enjoy some of the twists in the characters’ stories versus the old t.v. series, I thought the director, producers and writers stayed as true to the old characters while remaining as relevant to today as possible. (Although changing the famous line “going where no man has gone before” to “where no one has gone before” surprised me). There were laugh out loud funny parts and plenty of drama and space battles. There was little blood and no torture – big pluses in my book. Some parts of the story one just had to accept and move on, but it was easy to do so in this rip roaring adventure.

Great Military Historical T.V. Series

Now that the Sarah Connor Chronicles are over, I'm finding a dearth of good genre action adventure shows on broadcast t.v. Don't let me get started on Heroes.

Thankfully, last week my best friend told me about The Deadliest Warrior series on Spike T.V. (http://www.spike.com/show/31082) Fortunately, for those of us without cable, many cable networks play their most recent episodes of t.v. shows online. So I've had the opportunity to watch who would win in the following death matches: Ninja versus Spartan and Pirate versus Knight.

While the show is entertaining, it is also quite maddening. For example, in the Ninja versus Spartan fight, the ninja was weighed down with a ton of weapons. Sword, flash bombs, a sickle on a chain (I forgot the name), a blow gun and who knows what else. Plus he is a fighter used to fighting one on one and by stealth where as the Spartan is all about protecting the man on your left-team fighting-and fighting your enemy face to face. I guess that's the point. Pitting two very different fighters against each other. And while I was saying, no way he wouldn't do that, or carry all that gear, I must say the show was interesting. And it makes for a good discussion later when you pull for one guy and your buddy is pulling for another. I won't spoil the ending, just watch the cool five minute clip.



That being said I wanted something different tonight. Something with a slightly less reality/game show feel and didn't have a chance of upsetting me.

So I went to Hulu.com. On a post early last year, I raved about Hulu.com's free t.v. shows and movies and how they actually had all of the episodes of Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot. While it is still a great site, it seems like they've gotten more into t.v. shows and less into movies this year. As I was searching t.v. shows as most of the the movies were pretty low quality, I there were quite a few links to History Channel t.v. shows.

Battle B.C. (http://www.history.com/content/battles-bc) is now my favorite new show (at least until and if The Sarah Connor Chronicles returns). It is the History Channel's new t.v. series where the greatest battles of antiquity are discussed by experts and replayed with cinematography reminiscent of Frank Miller's 300.

Tonight, I watched the episode discussing Alexander the Great's last major campaign-the invasion of India. It was awesome! If you love ancient military history, this series is for you.

Enjoy.

The New Bell Ringers for Charity

I’m sure everyone out there has been asked by their local grocer to donate money to charity.

I don’t remember when it started. Perhaps it was a year ago when I began noticing the clear plastic cans taped to the check-out counters asking for donations. Then about three months ago I remember being asked by my cashier if I wanted to donate a $1 to charity or round off my purchase to the nearest dollar. And now, not only is the cashier asking me if I want to donate to charity, the touchtone screen where you sign or key in your pin asks you if you want to donate to charity.

So I wondered, are the grocery stores really doing this out of the goodness of their hearts?

When all that was involved was taping a plastic container to the counter, I figured the charity put it there, someone came in once a week to collect the donations and then the container was taped back to the counter for another week, so there was no cost on the grocery store’s part.

But when grocery store cashiers started asking for donations, I started to wonder. I mean, they have obviously had training to ask for donations. The stores definitely put pressure on the cashiers to ask for donations. If the cashiers don’t ask, the customer receives a free 2-Liter soda, and I’m sure the employee would be reprimanded if that happened. Even if a cashier didn’t ask for a donation, I’m not sure I’d be willing to bust them because they didn’t ask. I'd probably thank them.

And now with the inclusion of the message on the touch screen that some computer programmer somewhere had to write the code for, and another to separate the donations from the rest of a customer’s purchase and then someone else in accounting cutting checks to the charities for the donated money, there is obviously a significant cost to the grocery store.

Again I ask, are the stores really doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? Are they really not comped in some way? At a minimum they must be receiving a write-off and the CEO probably receives a nice dinner and certificate at the end of the year by the charity for doing such a wonderful job. I wonder if the charities kick in any money to help train the staff--money that was donated to the cause?

I remember working at a large bank that made a huge push every year for their employees to contribute to a major charity. Sure it was all “volunteer”, but when every employee is required to return a form whether a donation is included or not, with a record of what you donated last year and how much you should contribute this year based on your salary, and departments are recognized based on their level of participation, it all gets a little seedy. Especially, when the scandal broke out in the 90’s about how almost all of that charity's money went to the people who ran the charity and for administrative costs and almost none of the money went to the people in need.

So again I wonder what the grocery store gets out of this pro bono work? Perhaps nothing, just a sense of doing something for the community. But what a great deal for the charities if that’s the case. The charities don’t have to pay people to stand outside the grocery stores begging for money. The charities actually have people working for them inside the store that potential donors have to talk to (we can’t avoid them by walking out the other door otherwise we’d be arrested for shoplifting), who they don’t have to pay. Grocery store employees that can use the peer pressure of those standing in line behind the targeted customer, or their familiarity with the customer to make their customers’ feel like a heel when they tell the cashier that they won’t round that .90 up to a dollar to help needy children.

Perhaps the grocery store's are trying to make up for their heavy handed tactics during the grocery strike--but I doubt it. Nothing's for free.