Which Is Better For A Man: Working Women Or A Stay At Home Mom?
In my last post, I made mention about the numerous studies that indicated working married women have extramarital affairs far more often than stay-at-home wives. A few days later, fellow asshole Vox Day posted about this aspect of women, though in much more detail. Not only do working women cheat more, also…
- Working women are more than three times more likely to be divorced than their stay-at-home counterparts.
- The longer hours women work, the more likely they are to be divorced.
- Children of working mothers are 23% less likely to pass college entrance exams.
- Children of working mothers are 29% more likely to be unemployed.
- Children of working mothers will weigh an average of four pounds more by age 11 than those raised by stay-at-home moms.
Good God. Some of those stats surprise even me.
Since I’m against the entire concept of traditional monogamous marriage in the first place, I tend to ignore statistics regarding the different ways people choose to manage their marriages. If they’re married with eternal promised monogamy, co-owned debts or assets, and no prenup, the damage is already done no matter what they do.
Where I differ with Vox is he believes getting married to a career woman is bad but getting a traditional monogamous marriage to a stay-at-home mom is a great idea. Despite his usual logic which I respect a great deal, he comes at this from a traditional Christian viewpoint, so I’m not super surprised. The problem is in both cases you’re eventually in for a shitload of drama, reduced freedom, reduced sex, cheating, and a divorce, at least some of the above if not all.
Therefore the “which type of woman makes a better wife” debate is one I tend to ignore. If you’re debating that, you’ve already missed the point. Instead you should be debating whether the vast majority of human beings are capable of monogamy that lasts 40 years or more. If you’re already read any of my stuff, you know they aren’t.
Coming at this issue from the real world with 60% divorce rates and 70% infidelity rates rather than a Disney fairytale world where people stay married forever and never cheat as long as they “screen” for a woman who would make a “good wife”, here’s where I stand:
In a living-together OLTR (whether legally married or not), the woman should work, at least part-time, at least in most cases. She should also keep at least some of the money she earns as “100% hers” that she can spend or save however she wishes. My reasons for this:
1. The vast majority of modern-day women who don’t work will eventually get BORED. A bored woman in a long-term relationship is a serious problem and is often the catalyst for everything else going wrong.
2. Women will slowly become resentful because of the fact they have to financially “rely on you”. Don’t get me wrong, initially they love getting all their bills and clothes taken care of for free, but over the long years they will grow to resent it.
3. As I’ve said many times, in romantic relationships co-owning anything with your partner that’s worth more than about $200 is a horrible idea unless you like drama. She should have HER money, and you should have YOUR money. There should be no “our” money. Her money will be more meaningful to her if it comes from her efforts rather than yours.
4. Happy, sexual, passionate, compliant women in relationships only exist when they know the man can easily terminate the relationship whenever he wants. When she knows she’s “got you” (by living with you, or being married to you, or having your kids, or whatever) that’s when she slowly transforms from cool chick to ball-busting bitch who doesn’t do blowjobs any more. If she does not work and you financially support her, your ability to easily terminate the relationship is severely hampered, and believe me, she will know this.
Are there times where a stay-at-home GF/wife/mother would work in an OLTR? Sure, and I’ve talked about how I would structure that arrangement before. I’m saying that in general, it’s usually better if your gal works and earns her own money, even if you make substantially more.
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Well…
> Working women are more than three times more likely to be divorced than their stay-at-home counterparts.
> The longer hours women work, the more likely they are to be divorced.
> Children of working mothers are 23% less likely to pass college entrance exams.
> Children of working mothers are 29% more likely to be unemployed.
> Children of working mothers will weigh an average of four pounds more by
> age 11 than those raised by stay-at-home moms.
This may well be true, but Vox didn’t cite any sources for this *at all*. I find this odd considering that he considers himself rather unceremoniously a “superintelligence” (ahem). I was about to question him on his comments page but didn’t want to get involved in a discussion with his legion of religious bible-bashing right-wingnut adulators.
But as you said whether is this accurate or not only becomes an issue once you consider long-term monogamy.
He didn’t, but I will for him. The study is here, done out of the UK back in 2005. It’s also mentioned here. The problem is his advice, like most marital advice, is the “here’s what you do if you never want to get divorced or experience an affair” type, and these things will eventually happen no matter what you do, unless you’re talking about two very boring, low sex drive people who marry each other.
Hrrmph one is behind a paywall. Nevermind, source’s a source.
Agree with the rest. Thanks for sourcing.
Kids need moms! Homes need moms! Everyine needs healthy home cooked meals! Everyone needs a home and as family! Life without raising them is no life at all. If you choose to have them you must chose to raise them and get over your me me me me mentality!
Totally agree. Kids also need parents who are happy together rather than constantly stressed for fighting, so parents adopt a relationship structure that works, not a structure that doesn’t work they’ve been told to have.
Your responses are unjust if the statistics are true, stop bringing up the few cases in the “those who stay together” are headed for heartache anyways. Â A stat is a stat. Â The truth is the truth, and a lie is a lie. Â end of story.
Funny how these stats are completely opposite of a 2015 Harvard Business School study: http://www.hbs.edu/news/releases/Pages/having-working-mother.aspx
And is consistent with other studies conducted by the Wharton School. Hmmm.
In reply to your four numbered points at the bottom.
1. Perhaps, but women get bored climbing the ladder too. The statistics you cited support this. Most would agree that happiness would come more from being with your kids and having less money than not being with your kids and having more.
2. Only if the man in the relationship doesn’t show how much he relies on her. He might be bringing home the only bacon, but she is cooking, cleaning, managing the household, and rearing children. Trust me, that’s just as hard as working. When both rely on each other, resentment doesn’t grow.
3. Separate accounts can cause just as much drama and competition. Fighting over expenses, being resentful that you have less money, etc.
4. Totally agree with everything but the last sentence. Women who have never worked often get shafted in divorces. Sure, they may get child support and alimony, but they’ve gone for years with no work experience, and many of them have no employable skills and will have to start at minimum wage.
I was talking about bored with the relationship, not bored with their career.
Right-wing Guy-Disney.
You might be right, you might be wrong (most likely wrong, since the real divorce rate is around 70%), and you have no idea until you’re too late.
I have literally never seen this happen with the scores of couples I know do this.
I wonder how much of those working women are professional college educated women vs. the lower income single mother type, which would also have most of those problems too. If you separated by class and then compared the two, what would be the difference?