Lies Parents Tell Themselves About Why They Work
Few topics are as important--and involve as much self-deception and dishonesty--as finding the proper balance between child-rearing and work
Clearly, Hochschild's thesis applies mainly to those who have jobs they like and are employed by companies that allow them a good deal of control over their work. But there is a broader message in her thesis that confounds deep beliefs about the meaning of family and work. Women are discovering what men have always known: Work can be a haven. "What is going on is a cultural reversal in how we view work and family," says Hochschild. "It is something we need to start talking about honestly."
Lie #4: Dads would gladly stay home Joe Leone, a lawyer in Bethesda, Md., finally had the opportunity to stay home with the kids full time when a blizzard last year kept him housebound. After four days of watching Barney, making meals, and playing with a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old, Leone came to a surprising conclusion: "If I won the lottery, I'd come up with a reason to go to work every day. It's not that I don't love them. It's that the attention they require is constant and regular, and that they're irrational."
Men may say they are willing to stay home and be the househusband, but when given the chance, few actually do. For 31 percent of dual-earner couples, the wife is the principal breadwinner--yet only a tiny fraction of fathers (about 2 million) stay at home with the kids. The reasons are less financial than psychological. According to the Yankelovich Monitor Survey, men and women define "masculinity" not in terms of athletic or sexual prowess but by the ability to be a "good provider for his family." The definition of femininity was (according to women) the ability to juggle work and family and (according to men) about female sexuality. These surveys confirm academic research showing that for men, identity is strongly connected to occupation.
Tim Collins, 44, works part time manufacturing specialized farm equipment so he can stay home with his sons, 8-year-old Galen and 3-year-old Carlin. His neighbors in Santa Barbara, Calif., consider him a pioneer for being a stay-at-home dad, he says, but "when I'm in a more traditional place like Ohio, people say, 'Oh, you poor sap.' " Collins wrestles with many of the same feelings that women do: "If we made some changes in lifestyle we could live comfortably if I [completely] stopped working." But if he did so, he says, his wife would "stop looking at me with a certain level of respect."
As much as women say they wish their mates would take over the house and the kids, some may subconsciously wish that their husbands kept working to preserve the traditional roles. A few cutting comments about how the husband burps the baby improperly can make him want to turn the child back over to Mom. Heidi Villanueva, 30, a welfare caseworker in York, Pa., admits that her husband, Rosendo, is more patient with their three children than she is. But she suggests that if Rosendo stayed home full time he would not measure up to these "feminine" tasks. "He can't do the wash," she says. "This morning, there was my daughter's underwear in my drawer." William S. Pollack, a Harvard Medical School psychologist and coauthor of a book about notions of masculinity, says he often hears men complain that when they have tried to play a greater role taking care of the kids, their wives criticized them: "No matter how many women say, 'I'd like to have a househusband,' many would be sorely disappointed because he couldn't fulfill their view of what a masculine man is."
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