Millennial men want 1950s housewives after they have kids

This is written from a feminist perspective so does not even consider the possibility that many women may not want a career.  She may be in the workforce to meet her financial needs but may center her ambitions on having children and maintaining a good relationship with a man she feels close to.

I married such a woman.  I was financially in a position where I could give her a good life without any need for her to go out to work and she greatly appreciated that.  I also became a full time house husband who could and did  give the children lots of time and attention.  So she had a pleasant social life and children who were no burden.  She became an expert at  keen shopping and international cookery, much to my benefit and to the benefit of the whole family

So that is an alternative ideal to the one described below

Even if the man is not as successful a breadwinner as I was, there are other arrangements that can provide a successful alternative to the simplistic scenario described below. The basic point is that the couple should have explicit or implicit agreements between themselves about what each expects of the other.  It is is where such an agreement does not exist that there can be a problem.  The scenarios described below are an example of where such agreement does not exist.

The rather moronic scenario promoted below is one where both working partners share all household tasks equally.  But there can instead be arrangements which are more respecful of traditional sex roles and they may focus not on a sharing of labour but on specialization.  The man may have cetain agreed jobs and the woman different agreed jobs.  A classic if usually trivial example would be the where the man takes out the garbage and the woman looks after the washing.

And what division of labour suits best is entirely one for the parties concerned.  Some services can be semi-invisible.  An example of that would be where the man undertakes to look after the security of the home. And that can partly be done solely by him  being there at night.  He may be doing nothing active or visible but what he provides may still be greatly appreciated, depending on the neighborhood.

So the sort of unhappy scenario decribed below is probably mostly to be found where there is no explicit or implicit agreement between the parties about what the role of each one  in the family is.  Explicit negotiations should solve that but if they do not the relationship is a bad one that may well end in divorce


The ambition of millennial women has long been lauded, from their girl-power childhoods to their PhDs.

Women are now the backbone of the workforce — in 2018, 74 men earned bachelor degrees for every 100 women. Some 64 per cent of women are now breadwinners or equal earners in their households. And no wonder — they’ve grown up being told that women are able to do and be anything.

Until they become mothers.

At that point, many of their partners apparently expect them to turn into June Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver. Lara Bazelon’s new book Ambitious Like a Mother, explores how working mothers get tasked with a “second shift” — i.e., all the domestic and family work that occurs after paid work ends for the day, NY Post reports.

Even among households where partners initially split chores equally, childcare ends up falling to mothers.

Seventy-five per cent of mums are the ones who assume responsibility for appointments like children’s check-ups.

They’re also four times more likely than their partners to miss work to take care of sick children — a statistic that became all too clear during the Covid pandemic. Even in normal times, women spend approximately two hours more per day tending to domestic work than their partners.

A 2013 research paper by economics professors Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn claimed that “modern men do not adjust the amount of time they dedicate to housework based on their wives’ employment status”.

In other words, putting in long hours at the office doesn’t mean your husband is necessarily going to pick up the slack and wash out the baby bottles. Women are exhausted, and many of their partners just aren’t helping.

One mother in Bazelon’s book explained that, even though she out-earned her husband, she was still responsible for “anything related to schoolwork, doctors’ appointments, [my child’s] IEP plan … my husband didn’t make any effort to understand it”.

“Professional working mothers who find themselves with partners who are unwilling to make that shift in perspective and allocation of time and resources have a tough choice,” writes Bazelon.

“Radically compromise who they are and what they want to stay in the marriage, or leave.”

Plenty of women opt for the latter — according to a 2015 study by the American Sociological Association, women initiate 69 per cent of divorces, and among college-educated women, it’s 90 per cent.

Breegan Jane, whom Bazelon interviewed for the book, initially tried to tell herself that she was “okay with traditional gender roles”.

However, she found that her contributions around the home were never fully valued. Her husband gave people the impression that she was “his spoiled wife”. She divorced him, started flipping homes and became an HGTV host who helps rebuild homes for families in need.

Her kids could not be more excited about her work. Another woman Bazelon spoke to spotted the problem early on when her fiance told her she would have to “lower her ambitions” if they were going to have children.

She broke off the engagement instead.

Bazelon experienced this choice herself. In addition to author, she is also a lawyer.

Following the birth of their children, her own husband hoped she would “stop chasing after bigger, harder projects so that I could be more present”. She felt certain her children would understand her need for fulfilling work and would benefit by knowing that “mum is out there making the world a better place”.

She had a great point. Studies show that children of working mothers are just as well adjusted and have no more behavioural problems than their peers.

Her husband, however, did not understand. The couple divorced — not an easy solution by any means, but working mothers who get divorced report that they are happier.

In Bazelon’s case, she found that sharing custody of her children “creates protected time pockets where I can be productive” and focus on her work with fewer distractions, and with full knowledge that childcare duties are truly being divided equally.

In 2022, for families to thrive, husbands may need to start supporting their wives’ careers the way wives have supported their husbands’ for generations. Women aren’t going to go backwards. If men want relationships to last, they’ll have to go forward into the 21st century.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/marriage/millennial-men-want-1950s-housewives-after-they-have-kids/news-story/0d8331d8cca4c7bfa510a6b0009471c1

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