Thursday, March 6, 2008

Men Overwhelmingly Unconcerned if Wife Makes More Money

At least, that's what this article indicates. Specifically, it states that 88 percent of men would not mind if their wives made more money, and only 12 percent would mind. This does not surprise me in the least. Perhaps the only people who would be surprised by this are rabid misandrysts who desperately want to paint all men as women-hating neanderthals (ok, perhaps it is un-PC to act like "neanderthal" is an insult - ugh, I've seen too many Geico commercials).

From personal experience, I can say that I really do not mind that my wife makes more money than me. In fact, we couldn't get by if she didn't. She makes more than twice what I do. She also gets rather large bonuses on top of that each year. If anything, she's upset that I don't make more, but then, she's always been a fan of making more money (both for her and myself - count me a fan as well).

Next year, I may stop working or only work part time for a while, to save money on day care (and on taxes - the marriage penalty sucks and hits us rather hard). We'll have to see how things go. Any job I do has to have great flexibility and reasonable hours so I can get the kids from day care because my wife often has to work very late and drive a long way (she drives to whereever her current client is, which can change from month to month). There aren't many jobs for lawyers that have that kind of flexibility. I'm lucky that my current job does, but my current job will evaporate in a year, so I will have to explore other options.

And so color me unsurprised that men don't care if their wives make more. I not only don't mind, I count on it. (And color me unsurprised that the media is yet again taking something that has probably been established for quite some time and treating it as "new" and a "sea change" because, well, the reporter didn't know about it).

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