My breadwinner days are numbered: My husband is going back to work. I never thought I would say this, but I'll be sad to surrender my role as household chief financial officer.
It was a job I signed up for willingly three years ago -- so brave! so forward-thinking! -- but then I swiftly resented the financial strain of being the provider, the time away from my then-newborn son, the baffling changes to my marriage.
Despite the rocky start, I am proud of having been something of a pioneer in a vast new territory -- sort of like being a female astronaut.
The breadwinner wives I've interviewed agree: This job is daunting, thrilling and stomach-churning all at once. If you're doing it, you're among an increasing number of women. Here are some thoughts on how to thrive in a role that requires you to ditch tradition, trust yourself and keep a parachute handy.
Gains at work, struggles at home
How many women are a significant source of financial support for their families? The numbers are growing, says Ellen Galinski, a co-author of "Times Are Changing: Gender and Generation at Work and Home (.pdf file)," a 2008 study by the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization in New York.Among dual-income couples in 1997, just 15% of women were earning significantly (at least 10 percentage points) more than their spouses or partners, according to the report, which relies on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2006, 26% of women were earning more.
"This is a sea change," Galinski says. A number of forces have converged, putting more women in the primary earner role:
- Women are better educated. Women were earning 58% of all bachelor's degrees and 60% of all master's degrees as of 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
- Men have lost more jobs. Unemployment data from January 2008 through January 2009 suggest that recent layoffs have hit male-dominated professions (e.g., construction and manufacturing) harder, leaving more women to bring home the bacon.
- Women are profitable. Several studies indicate the presence of women in executive positions is linked to better company performance, according to the best seller "Womenomics" by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay. "The companies with the very best records of promoting women beat the industry average by 116 percent in terms of equity, 46 percent in terms of revenue, and 41 percent in terms of assets," the authors write, referring to a 19-year study of more than 200 Fortune 500 companies conducted by researchers at Pepperdine University.
All those statistics sound empowering because they focus on the gains women are seeing professionally. But they're not the whole story.
The bigger, continuing struggle for most breadwinner women and their mates is adapting to changing roles and expectations on the home front, especially regarding conflicts around household chores, child care and money.
Galinsky says that as difficult as these changes are for women, "they're even more painful for men."
Finding some sort of equilibrium emotionally and financially requires many steps and stumbles, a willingness to be creative and three essential adjustments.
1. Give up on 'Father Knows Best'
There is a belief in our society that money is power, and when your income is bigger, there's a tendency to want to call the shots. The male breadwinner model says, "You should be in charge." But this can backfire when a woman is at the helm."I've become the drill sergeant, and it has become a huge problem," says Jennifer Owen, a mother of two who commutes four hours round trip each day to her job as a corporate trainer in New York City. She earns more than double the salary of her husband, a former actor, who has just started a job in sales.
"When I would come home, in the beginning, I couldn't understand why he didn't have dinner done," she says.
At times, she also resents how he spends money. "I'm working my butt off to provide for the family, so I feel that I have the authority to say things like 'You shouldn't be spending money on that,' even though I know that's totally unfair."
Taking that kind of control grew stressful for both. The solution for Ann (she didn't want her last name used), an interior designer in New York who is the primary earner in her relationship, was to define a new, more collaborative dynamic with her spouse, "so that you're not the bitchy breadwinner or the dictator."
I agree: My marriage improved 600% when I stopped trying to rule the roost. But true collaboration, I found, can't be in spirit only; partners have to find fair ways to renegotiate the balance between paid and unpaid work.
2. Split the work fairly
It dates to Neolithic times, no doubt, but we tend to value those who come home with a big side of bison more than those who spent their day tending hearth and cave.In my own relationship, I've found that it helps to behave as if both parties are earning an income, under the assumption that the labor-force role and the at-home role are equally valuable -- because they are.
In fact, Salary.com does an annual survey of what a stay-at-home parent's labor is worth, in terms of the number of hours they work and the skills they provide (cook, chauffeur, soccer coach, psychologist, etc.). For 2009, that work is equivalent to a job with an annual salary of $122,732, the Web site says. You can plug your own duties into the salary wizard to see the dollar value of the work.
Renegotiating the household chores seems small and perfectly reasonable, but it can be hairy. My husband and I had one big, very short fight -- and a thousand small discussions -- about who should do laundry, shopping and cleaning when I was basically the sole provider.
Hiring outside help would have been ideal, but most of us don't have that luxury. He ended up doing most household chores, but it wasn't like I kicked back every night with a brandy either. I did my share.
(Note: The traditional expectations are different for guys, unfortunately. Now that he's working more, guess who's doing more dishes, child care and vacuuming?)
When you renegotiate domestic roles, you really have to toss tradition out the window and respect your partner's contribution -- even if it's not on your terms. That's what Lynne (a pseudonym), a real-estate developer in Los Angeles, found when her husband took an early retirement three years ago, when their children were 9 and 11.
"The hardest thing for me was learning to keep my mouth shut, not asking him how he was spending every hour of his day," says Lynne, who didn't want her real name used. "He is not my nanny; he is not my maid. I can't give him some big to-do list.
"I learned that if the dishes didn't get done after breakfast, they'd get done eventually. And if the kids ate pizza five nights in a row, well, there are more important things to worry about."
3. Manage your money
If you earn the lioness's share of the income, it's up to you to make certain that the bases are covered, as I wrote in "Secret lives of breadwinner wives," my first take on the subject a couple of years ago.Although I felt strongly that a mutually agreeable money management system was important then, having interviewed more breadwinner wives, I now think it's essential.
Basic money management is tough for most couples, and the issue often gets more fraught when the woman is earning more. But don't let that become an excuse for treating the household finances as a hot potato.
Ann believes that being financially open is a tonic. "It alleviates anxiety and stops you from blowing things out of proportion, especially when you're the breadwinner and feel like you're supposed to do everything."
