The Chauvinist Corner                  

THE MYTH OF THE TWO-INCOME FAMILY

You often hear the passing comment, “You just need two incomes today.” This is said to bring to a close the discussion, if it ever comes up, of a woman shouldering the difficult job of homemaking as a full time career. “We might as well not even discuss it, because it is not even a possibility,” is what the comment really means. It is a great discussion terminator but is it a fact?

Judging from my own personal experience, I have found it to be an out and out lie! Yes, you might have to give up some non-essentials like living in a big house or owning a few of the toys you would otherwise afford, but you get by. I have supported two sons in this fashion and my wife, who is a hard working home maker, has made our family’s life a wonderful thing to behold. While renting instead of buying, often having to settle for apartments instead of houses, and driving used cars instead of new, we knew our kids were always supervised and that they were never going to be “home alone.” They have both grown up into fine young men, the youngest leaving the nest this very year. There is no doubt that a mother at home is a giant plus for any child growing up. Taking that away from a child is not an option which a loving parent can choose.

What about the money? This is not the issue driving women out of the home. Most women burn almost all of their income on extra expenses created by the outside job. An extra car, working wardrobe, baby-sitters (whether it is called day-care, pre-school, or some other method of passing off the responsibilities of motherhood), added income taxes and extra costs for eating out more often. The mother is gone, and so is the money. (What little extra there has been created overall has been consumed by the government dipping deeper into the perceived fuller pockets, and the increase in costs by merchants who feel you can pay more for less.) When all is considered, a working mother is adding very little to the financial well being of her family.

So, why does she work? Girls and boys are exposed to a propaganda machine from the time they are born until the day they die. Included in the workings of this pulp factory is the television, newspapers, magazines, school system and now even the churches. Cartoons depicting women super-heroes, as if that is what a woman should strive for, are becoming more popular all the time.The kids are told that women and men are exactly the same, with the same competitive drives, same roles in life and the same need to have a career. Day after day they are inundated with news stories of how the first woman to do this or that just did the impossible by achieving whatever thing it was that men have been doing for years or centuries. No stories of how a mother taught her son or daughter about how to deal with life. No stories of the struggling family who made it all work, while the wife was a golden success at creating a wonderful home. Instead the leader of a relatively small confused group like the National Organization of Women is interviewed to see what “women think” about an issue.

The result of all this deceitful propaganda is that boys grow up believing that women can be and should be totally self-sufficient. As men they are more likely to walk out on a family because, “Hey, this is the 90’s and women can take care of themselves!” A girl grows up thinking the same thing and then suddenly she has children and the whole facade suddenly comes down around her head. She ends up as a single mother because she believed that women are free to practice single sex without consequences, or her marriage comes apart from all the forces attacking it from this wonderful, liberated civilization of “the 90’s.” Now what? She finds that she is living on one income all by herself (or living off of her parents), and no longer has time to raise the children properly. Oh yes, the kids grow up after all but they haven’t been raised. They have no idea what a solid family even is. How can they possibly create one of their own?

That “second income” will be the most expensive money any family will ever earn.