The Economy of Women's Work

Any woman worth her salt hates that phrase, and most of the women I know will hate me for using it. 

Hate might be too strong a word, but the fact is, many of us bristle at the notion that there is "women's work" and "men's work."  The unfortunate reality of our culture and our world is that there are tasks - daily tasks, even; necessary, tasks that, if they don't get done, could actually mean the difference between life and death - that are often undervalued and dubbed "women's work."

Like cooking meals, which is by and large considered women's work.  Unless one is a famous chef who makes fancy food and yells at people on television.  THEN, cooking is okay for a man to do.  

But the daily task of feeding people is usually a job relegated to the Mom. 

I was never going to be a stay-at-home mom. In fact, I went to college, because I never wanted to be dependent on anyone for financial security.

And then, that all changed.  I still don't like being financially dependent, but over the course of the decades that Deus Ex Machina and I have been married, and that I have been a homemaker, I have learned a few things about the economy of having a full-time stay-at-home partner.

My efforts haven't always been appreciated by the greater world, and I can tell lots of stories in which I am featured as a lesser person, and my value as a contributing member of my family is seen as worth much less than my husband, who has a job making money. 

That's the problem with our society, though, this emphasis, the NEED, for everyone to MAKE money.  I could tell lots of stories about times when I was made to feel worth *less* than other women who work and less than my husband, but I won't tell those stories - today.

Today, I want to tell you the story of a pair of pants.

Deus Ex Machina is not a suit and tie kind of guy.  He likes a no-fuss wardrobe made up of good quality clothing, preferably comprised of items that just appeared in his drawer.

He hates shopping almost as much as he hates having to wear fancy clothes.

I have had some negative experiences of buying clothes for other adults, and so, in the early stages of our relationship, I was a little gun-shy about buying pants and shirts for him, but he made it super easy for me.  Being in the military was perfect for him, because he never had to fuss about his clothes.  He had a uniform.  Over the years, since leaving military service, he has embraced the idea of a uniform in his daily work attire.  He likes this one style of pants in a light, earth tone (preferably tan or khaki), and he likes this one style of shirt, in black.  

He has multiple pairs of tan cargo pants and a half dozen black, polo-style shirts.  It's what he wears to work every day, and it makes getting dressed super easy.  Tan pants.  Black polo shirt.  Work boots.  The only decision he has to make about what he's wearing is socks and underwear. 

As a funny aside: We never thought much about his "uniform" look and how other people might see it, until he heard, through the grapevine, that one of his colleagues had expressed some concern about his private life.  The story is that, since he didn't appear to be changing clothes, this person thought he might be having some trouble at home and was sleeping in his car.

That story was almost as good as the one about the colleague who wanted to take up a collection at work to purchase a television for us, because she found out that we didn't have one, and she thought we didn't have a television, because we couldn't afford to buy one.  I mean, why else would we not have a television, right?

People are funny.

Anyway, I was talking about pants.

Deus Ex Machina has a half dozen or so pairs of this exact same style of pants.  Like most things, eventually, they start to show some wear, and a couple of the pairs started fraying around the hem.  

The good news is that we bought them a little long, and also that I have both the skill and the equipment to make repairs to clothes.  That is, I have a sewing machine, and I know how to use it.

We could probably afford to purchase another pair for him, but the fact is that there was nothing wrong with those pants except that the hem was fraying, and so it just makes zero sense to relegate those pants as yardwork pants, and purchase a new pair, when there is nothing wrong with them except the hem.  

But he can't wear them to work like that.

So I fixed them.

 Fixed

There might be some Super Women out there who are good at both - who are able to do as that 1970s perfume commercial jingle says - "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never ... let you forget you're a man."  

But given our disposable culture and the number of young people who don't have basic home making skills, my guess is that most women who work full-time don't spend their off-work time mending their husband's clothes.  It's not a judgment.  It's just to say that, because we chose this lifestyle and Deus Ex Machina has the luxury of having an at-home wife, he also is afforded the privilege of spending less money on clothes.

He likes spending less money.

And because I repaired his pants, rather than buying a new pair, I saved us $65.  

Having a full-time homemaker was a very conscious decision for us.  We opted to earn less money, than maybe we were both capable of earning, because we wanted to live in Maine, where potential earnings in his career field are less than he could have earned in other parts of the country, and because we wanted to cultivate a certain lifestyle.  We wanted our children to be raised by their parents rather than by under appreciated and poorly paid childcare providers.  We wanted the option of homeschooling.  

Because Deus Ex Machina had me at home to, literally and figuratively, tend the home fires, he was able to grow his career; he was able to travel for work whenever necessary without worrying about who was taking care of the hearth and home; he was able to learn some new skills (like taking flight lessons and guitar lessons) that he might not have been able to pursue, if he had needed to accommodate my work schedule.

And because I am home full-time, we are able to be more economical in our lifestyle choices, which, in reality, gives us far more money in cost savings than I would earn if I had a job, even a job using my teaching degree (especially after subtracting the cost of having said job). 

The added bonus is that, while my on-paper income is a lot less than what my wages would look like - on paper - if I had a full-time job outside of the home, between the income I do earn in wages doing part-time contract work and what I save by doing much of what other people pay to have done for them, I am earning a lot more.

There are some huge benefits to having a full-time at-home partner.  The least of which is that buying new clothes can happen a lot less frequently than, perhaps, in the average two-income family. 

Mother's Helper