Stray At Home Mom

Ah the Stay At Home Mother. Rosy cheeked children in clean clothes. Happy husband greeted at the door with a fresh application of lipstick and the smell of dinner. I admit it, I want that, sounds wonderful. But just like a Disney vacation it's for most of us just a pleasant fantasy experience rather than something you can actually afford.

Back in the 1950s it was possible for a regular guy to hold a job that could support a family alone, and there was enough physical labor in the home to require a "full time employee" doing the stuff in the house. As women entered the workforce in greater and greater numbers, it actually flooded the labor market with an oversupply of labor and devalued the average workers paycheck. Loosely speaking the same sort of job in 1950 that would have supported a family, supports about half a family today. So back in the 1960s and 1970s and even 1980s, a woman entering the workforce was all about "choice for women", but by 2010 there is no real choice for women anymore as if they don't get a freaking job and work it the same way a man has to, the family will go bankrupt. Plus with modern appliances, housework is vastly easier these days than in 1950, and there are typically less children to care for as well. So there is far less need to have a wife solely "work at home".

Understand that I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I'm just telling you what happened. And just to be clear, I see the pre-1950s housewife as having a serious workload, nowdays though, not so much. In fact I doubt most modern SAHMs even have half the skill set or work ethic of a 1950s SAHM. Ask yourself which one could probably make clothes and which one can't sew a button. Guess which one can get a quick meal on the table in a time crunch with creative use of leftovers, and which one dials for a pizza.

Now I certainly agree that many SAHM are doing a fine job of house and child care and holding up their end of the agreement of helping propel a husband to fame, glory and a higher paycheck. If you want to pop out a small army of children, a SAHM (or SAHD) is quite probably cost effective. However I suspect for many women today the SAHM lifestyle is a pipedream of what amounts to early retirement at the expense of their husband who must work insane hours outside the home.

Furthermore, there is not enough actual work to do in the home. Especially with only one or two pre-school children. Which leaves the SAHM with far too much free time and boredom. And free time and boredom is the seed and soil for a woman to seek an affair. Nothing like getting rewarded for pulling extra shifts by your wife chatting on Facebook with an old boyfriend and her complaining to him that she’s lonely because you’re always working. Sure here’s a photo of my tits, but I shouldn’t really be doing this. I just put the baby down for a nap, so have about and hour and a half. (If she's on MySpace she is defintely cheating on you.)

If a two income family wife is lazy, stupid and careless at her job, she will risk getting fired and there are immediate consequences for that. So it tends to be self correcting in that the wife will attempt to adjust her work performance to ensure she is not fired. Outside forces will ensure she continues to pull her weight for the family.

If a SAHM is lazy, stupid and careless at her job... the husband isn't truly her employer, and termination for lack of job performance is basically divorce. Which is an appalling option to have to choose. Furthermore thanks to alimony, the husband will have to continue to "pay her" for the job she wasn't doing during the marriage after the divorce is final. So there is a serious moral hazard for the wife in that she can continue to fail at her job of SAHM and still get paid. Or as one of my in the middle of divorcing his Stray At Home puts it, she says she doesn't need a husband, just my money. Simply awesome.

Now whether a couple decides to go the two income family route, or worker drone and SAHM route, is completely up to them. I just think for a modern husband you have to evaluate very carefully the character and work ethic of your wife when she floats the idea of her being a SAHM. (Really this is something to talk about and evaluate before you marry, but the little head is usually in charge around the getting married time so understandable how mistakes can be made) If you don't see a bunch of Suzy Q homemaker stuff going on now, you won't see a bunch of that stuff magically happening after she turns into a SAHM. I'm talking about meals from scratch, baking, decorating, house cleaning skill, an obvious love of children and joyous babysitting for friends with kids yada yada yada. Knitting... show me your knitting sweetheart. Can you even do a scarf?

Put another way... if you were an employer and interviewing women for the position of SAHM, does she show any of the skills the job requires? If she doesn't, pass on her as a wife, or simply state she gets a job like everybody else. Welcome to life in 2010. Thank feminism and birth control pills, men had nothing to do with this.

The other thing to watch for is the easy way women can just extend their SAHM contract for another five to six years at will. You forgot your pills huh…. Really. You just forgot them. Really. This has never happened before all of human history. Alert the news media. You just forgot. That’s just super. Really really super. No I’m so excited about the new addition to the family. Can’t wait. Just super super excited. Tears of happiness darling, tears of happiness.

No doubt I'm going to catch flak by saying there's not enough work to do in the home for a SAHM to actually do. In my defense when my two kids where little, I was the SAHD... plus I held down a full time nursing job during the nights and weekends. I can very much assure you that my time at home with my own children was far easier than my time on the job dealing with the total care of mentally retarded adults. The difference between diapering or feeding a cranky toddler and a combative wheelchair bound adult is quite significant.

As a final thought – for many couples the cost of child care is pretty extreme for pre-schoolers. Having one parent home during the week and still doing something part time makes a lot of sense financially. However once you hear that spending time with just one or two children is just so exhausting that the extra job just isn’t possible, you’re looking down the barrel of the Mother of All Shit Tests. You’ll be told that it’s not about her needs, it’s for the children, the children the children the children. You reply to that is that the family needs a certain level of income, and they also need an involved father who isn’t just a paycheck. You work not just to support your family, but to be with it. I mean if you’re just going to never be home to see your wife and children and just hand over your money, plus you’re down to sex a couple times a month, well what’s the difference between that and being divorced? Well apart from being allowed variety in your sex partners of course…

So go carefully gentlemen. Go carefully.