Stephen Marche in the article Home Economics ; The Link Between Work Life Balance And Income Equality talks about the standard American family always having to work leaving little to no time for family entertainment. He compares the domestic lifestyle to a behind TV show series. In other words you ask yourself how will you make this happen ? but along the way there’s tears and also laughter, and at the end of the day the only important thing is that everyone is fed and has clothes on their back. No matter whether the household income came from the father working and the mother staying at home or vice versa. It doesn’t matter who brings the money home as long as the family has the necessary things they need.
He also says that however over the years things have changed. Decades ago there was gender roles. It was a woman’s job to take care of her kids and the responsibility that needed to be done at the house. While the men were the head of household because they provided the income for his family. Men would also make the decisions around the house. But over the years things have changed there are no longer gender roles.” The family has changed and is further changing, while at work, patriarchy survives as a kind of anachronistic holdover, like daylight savings or summer vacation”. In his article he talks about the Pew study. It’s a study that asks cohabiting males and female couples who makes the decisions at home. The results of the study were ” in 26% of households, the man; well and 43% of households the woman did. Marche talks about how woman are equal to men when it comes to jobs. He states that out of the fifteenth fastest growing jobs categories in the United States 13 are dominated by woman”.
I can agree with Marche that over the years gender roles have evolved. Each household has different opinion on who should be in charge and what responsibility belongs to who. Not everyone going follow the same beliefs or the same process as someone else. When Marche says it doesn’t matter who brings the money home as long as the family has the main necessary things they need I agree. I find that Jennifer Ludden article connects to stay at home dad while moms are the bread winners. If the couple don’t have a problem with the woman working and the dad being a stay at home father, then why should anyone else. Ludden two colleagues also find that there nothing wrong with being a stay at home father and neither do I .
When I was fifteenth I became a teen mom and had my son. I remember sitting down with my boyfriend in front of a computer applying for jobs. We had to find some sort of income to take care of our responsibilities. We were both applying for jobs. The baby’s father and I had agreed whoever got called first for an interview and got the job would be the one that would work. While the other stayed home with the baby since we had no one to watch him. I remember I was the one that got the call First for an interview at McDonald’s. We were finally so happy to have some sort of income. I didn’t mind him being a stay-at-home dad for the time being. He was happy with staying home with the baby taking care of him while I was at work. Luis was a stay-at-home dad for about 4 months until he started working. We have found a really good daycare opportunity so we took it and made the best of it. We were both working. We both worked for about two years. Recently Luis had found a better job opportunity. And we both came to the conclusion that I would focus on my education and attend college full time while Luis worked and attended college part-time. As a couple we have tried everything from him being a stay-at-home dad, to me being a stay-at-home mom, to both of us working. Any of those methods work as long as you’re both happy as a couple and both agree that’s all that matters. I agree with Marche gender roles have evolved over the years and not everyone has to follow the same belief.
Work cited
Marche, Stephen. “Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 May 2017.
Ludden, Jennifer. “Stay-At-Home Dads, Breadwinner Moms And Making It All Work.” NPR, NPR, 15 May 2013, www.npr.org/2013/05/15/180300236/stay-at-home-dads-breadwinner-moms-and-making-it-all-work%C2%A0. Accessed 11 May 2017.