Men are losing their role as primary breadwinners!

Ralphy1

Ralphy1

Well-known Member
Women are gaining higher education skills in greater numbers than men. This allows them to become the main support of families that was traditionally a man's a role. This change in our society is causing stress for both men and women. I don't think that this shift is a good thing and surely you agree with me...
 

No, I don't agree. In our family the role of primary breadwinner has gone backwards and forwards between husband and wife. At one stage my husband took time off work to study and get over a nervous breakdown. He supported me during the early child bearing years. The same thing has happened in my daughter's marriage.

At the playgroup at our church we have two stay at home fathers who attend with their children. I haven't been rude enough to ask why but both have wives who work.

Women need good well paid jobs to be able to be the main breadwinner because all to often they end up being the sole provider for their family. The days of all the good jobs going to men are well and truly over.
 
Don't forget though Ralphy, that sometimes women have to be breadwinners [even if they wish they hadn't got to be.]If they don't have good education they would be stuck in more menial roles. Some women don't want to marry/have a partner and they need the money, others are happily married but love their jobs.Some women are dumped by their husbands and have to seek out a well paid job.Sometimes the husband is ill and the wife must be the breadwinner. All sorts of reasons actually.
 

Why is this shift not a good thing?

These days; women often have to support themselves, and often their children too.

I have been primary breadwinner since 2000; and the only breadwinner since my husband died in 2007.
what would I have done if I couldn't pay my own way?
rely on the state? Then be called a scrounger?
i don't think so...
 
Some situations demand that women have to work to support their family. But you would have to admit, as many women do, that something is lost by not seeing their children's milestones. Many men, on the other hand, feel something is lost by not having a career...
 
I never missed any milestones; I was lucky enough to work part-time until my children went to secondary school; so I was always there when they were;
As for men feeling lost without a career; how do you think women have felt....for centuries?
 
Ralphy1 said:
Women are gaining higher education skills in greater numbers than men. This allows them to become the main support of families that was traditionally a man's a role. This change in our society is causing stress for both men and women. I don't think that this shift is a good thing and surely you agree with me...
Click to expand...

I disagree, where would the world be without strong women?
 
Many women would say that being a mother and a homemaker is a full career...
 
That's a joke, Ralphy. As a teacher who often had to contact parents because their children were sick or injured at school, the only ones we could be sure of contacting were the working mothers. The at home mums were mostly out of the house - playing tennis, having their hair done, shopping or having coffee with friends. Homemaking is not a full time career if you are any good at it.

Good luck to them, I say, but if they should lose their husbands they are often ill prepared for earning enough to make ends meet on their own. Once out of the workforce for any period these days you soon discover yourself out of date; deskilled by advances in technology. It's hard to get back in unless you have been maintaining your professional connections.
 
Then Ralphy, what do you do when your children have left, and you are divorced or widowed....

look back in history; only a generation or two; when women were property; look at domestic violence; from either side; why should anybody be bullied; mentally abused, or owned; by somebody else?

Women need to be independant, or else many of them just sink...
 
Yes all of the modern conveniences have allowed many housewives to play all day. But I would hope that some stay home and make their own bread and pies and maybe grow some vegetables and do some canning and that sort of thing. Oh, and also be home for the kiddies when they come home from school with milk and cookies ready...
 
I picked mine up from school every day until they were 11; I made cakes; did all the cleaning, washing ironing, gardening, doctors dentists, etc etc; but that only lasts 15 to 20 years at most.....then what?
 
Sorry, I have made this personal; but I am so grateful to my parents for allowing me the same educational opportunities as my brother; and for allowing me independant thought.
my mother had to give up teacher training just because she got married; so went back when I was 14, qualified, then taught for 15 years.

She still did everything at home; but my Dad often worked away, so was left alone; she needed to do something to keep herself going; and she was still there for us if we needed her; still is.
 
Ralphy1 said:
Some situations demand that women have to work to support their family. But you would have to admit, as many women do, that something is lost by not seeing their children's milestones. Many men, on the other hand, feel something is lost by not having a career...
Click to expand...

The thread is remarkably sexist, imo. Men and women are equal, and both should share the bread winning and child raising.
 
Yes all of the modern conveniences have allowed many housewives to play all day. But I would hope that some stay home and make their own bread and pies and maybe grow some vegetables and do some canning and that sort of thing. Oh, and also be home for the kiddies when they come home from school with milk and cookies ready...
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But I was crap at all of that and gained no satisfaction from the domestic arts. On the other hand I was very good at raising children.
 
Well, the empty nest syndrome has been well documented and it depends on your economic circumstances and educational and work background as to what your next "act" could be. Men face the career challenge all of their lives as their identity is closely woven into it...
 
Just what "day and age" are you living in?? LOL
This sounds like the old Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best days........when the wife was always shown wearing a nice dress/hairdo and the father was in a white shirt, tie and dress shoes just hanging around the house. The husband worked in an office all day while the wife took care of the kids and home. It was just weird thinking about the wife dusting the home in a nice dress w/high heels on. LOL

I'm a retired (Social Security) "stay at home Mabel" and my wife loves it. I take care of the laundry and other cleaning things in our apartment. I have the SS income, but it's much lower than my wife's job salary. My wife got her Bachelor's Degree when she was 47 b/c she knew a degree would pay her a better salary.........and it did.

Ralphy1 said:
Yes all of the modern conveniences have allowed many housewives to play all day. But I would hope that some stay home and make their own bread and pies and maybe grow some vegetables and do some canning and that sort of thing. Oh, and also be home for the kiddies when they come home from school with milk and cookies ready...
Click to expand...
 
Yes, yes, there was some tongue in cheek to part of my reply, and your case proves that a woman can have a second act--and so can you, Maybel! However, this change starting in the sixties and seventies of changing and blending roles defies biology if men are the nurturers of young children and women are at the office wondering about what they are missing out on...
 
Gee this makes me different ... I was a stay at home mum .. did all these things.. you say Ralphy and I loved it .. also my husband is one of the old
timers says its a mans job to keep a woman .. be the breadwinner and he did .. we had 5 children between us , it was a struggle but I never went with out nor the children either.. and I never worked till later years when all the kids had left home , youngest was still at home at 16 attending high school and I started working again at our local hospital.. the school was just down the road from the hospital so she used to come there after school till I was finished and do her homework.. it worked out good for us.. and still now both my husband and I are retired.. he is still the head of the house.. and I respect him for that ... he is not my boss or a slave driver we both share the chores and its a happy situation...
 
I do see what you are saying, but today, most of society would really disagree with you.

Ralphy1 said:
Yes, yes, there was some tongue in cheek to part of my reply, and your case proves that a woman can have a second act--and so can you, Maybel! However, this change starting in the sixties and seventies of changing and blending roles defies biology if men are the nurturers of young children and women are at the office wondering about what they are missing out on...
Click to expand...
 
I feel quite sorry for men who feel their identity is woven into their career.......and women.
 
Maybe, but the battle of the sexes is still there as some try to blend the sexes...
 

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