Is the recession changing domestic dynamics?

More men than women have lost their jobs due to the recession, and male participation in the domestic sphere has increased as a result. Tune in to learn how the recession is affecting domestic dynamics in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stop Mom? Never told you?
From house Stop works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen. And Kristen.

(00:20):
You know, it's kind of a bummer. We've started lots
of podcasts this way, but their session it's affecting everyone.
You know, you see all sorts of stories about it.
But I've been interested in this crop of stories popping
up about not how their session affects the workplace, but
how it reflects in the home, not just tighter spending,
not just cutting back at restaurants and grocery stores, but
actually the dynamics in the home, right Molly, I think

(00:43):
what you're referring to is is this kind of rash
of trend pieces about at home dads who were forced
out of their job because they re session and now
they are staying at home while the wife is out
working and is the new breadwinner. Um And I think
the most telling statistics to talk about is the fact

(01:04):
that of job losses from the recession have befallen men.
And that's according to the Bureau of labor statistics, and
to some extent, this is because men are in industries
that haven't really stood up on their session manufacturing, construction jobs,
whereas women are in uh, slightly more recession proof jobs
that involve education, healthcare, things that we can't really afford

(01:25):
to have cutbacks on. Right. But at the same time,
you know, we still have the same kind of issues
with with female employment where uh we're working fewer overall
hours and more likely to have part time jobs without
health insurance or unemployment insurance, which is probably one of
the reasons another reason why they're more recession proof. Right.
So a lot of people are you know, looking at

(01:46):
these statistics and being like, oh, this is such, you know,
great news for women because they're finally closing the gender
gap in the workplace. There. You know, it's fifty split
in terms of men and women in the workplace. But
that's not really the whole story. It's you know, it's
a sad story for men. But there was sort of
hope that if you could find a silver lining in this,
maybe it was that men were staying home with the

(02:06):
kids more and it would help out sort of with
the genderal dynamic exactly. Um, because a lot of these
trend stories that we're talking about have have looked not
only at the number of men who are getting laid
off and are ending up at home, but actually how
they're spending their time at home. And I think that
if you look at that, just seuse anecdotal cases, um,
it says a lot about whether or not this is

(02:28):
gonna be a permanent shift towards more men taking um
more responsibility at home. Yeah, it's actually kind of troubling, Kristen.
You know, women might be the sole breadwinner, but they're
still remaining responsible for all the domestic responsibilities. For example,
here's a stat we got from the New York Times. Um,
when women are unemployed and looking for a job, they
still have to do all the work at home. They're

(02:50):
taking care of the children, housework, Their work at home
basically doubles, So it's not like they're unemployed per se.
But when a man is unemployed at home, his childcare
duties are virtually the same as when he was working
forty to sixty hours a week, And instead of spending
more time you know, with the kids are cleaning, they're
spending their time sleeping, watching TV. Looking for a job right,
they're more they're more apt to consider that process of

(03:13):
finding a job, hunting something down as their new full
time job at home, and might be um a little
less prone to taking out the trash more or cleaning
or whatever it is. And I thought one of the
most interesting parts about all this was reading the comments
that were attached to this New York Times article, because
it seemed like overwhelmingly like, uh, you know, there are

(03:34):
some women who were sticking up for their husbands and saying,
he's been great since he's been at home, I've been
a lot more stressed out, and he's really you know,
taking up more of the household duties. But by and large,
it was a lot of people complaining, like women complaining
that their men weren't doing enough at home and men
complaining that their wives were on their backs about finding jobs.
So of course they're not going to be you know, vacuuming.
They're gonna be online posting their resume and looking for

(03:56):
job openings. And overall, most people were saying that they
have not reduced the amount of out of home childcare
that they paid for, which I thought was pretty telling.
So even though we have all these articles about how
the number of stay at home dad's h skyrocketing. We're
really not seeing that at home it's making that big
of a difference. Right, There's still a pretty pretty large

(04:18):
complain about um from women saying that, you know, we're
still having that quote unquote second shift of after work.
We we have to come home and take care of
the household duties. But by the same token, um, some
of these articles are also reporting that maybe women just
aren't giving men enough leeway to take more control. Yeah.

(04:38):
The more I read these articles about stay at home
dads in this new trend, the more it seemed like women,
even though they're in the workplace more, are very hesitant
to give up this role of being sort of the
maternal primary caregiver. Uh. There was a Forbes article that
had an anecdote about a man who took his child
to the doctor, Um, you know, got a diagnosis, got
a prescription, took the child home, and he just felt

(04:59):
great because he'd been there for his kid. Um, you know,
he'd really been able to figure out what was wrong
and care from And when the mom got home, she's
kind of you know, u's lack of a better term,
she kind of flipped out took the kid to a
different doctor, I got a different diagnosis, got a different prescription,
and sort of, you know, the anecdote kind of implied
that she was uncomfortable letting go that control of her child.

(05:22):
It definitely seems like we're having a new challenge to
these stereotypical gender roles, like women might be out in
the workplace. According to that same Forbes article, um it
said that women are now the primary breadwinners in nearly
a third of double income homes in the United States,
but there's still a lot of stigma surrounding um women

(05:43):
out in the workplace, uh, bringing home the bacon and
the men at home cooking it. Yeah, and even with
um you know, like let's say the stay at home
dad takes his kid to carpool lane. He's not amilia
being accepted by all the other moms who are in
the same position. He's being viewed with suspicion. A lot
of these art close talk about men who aren't invited
to play groups. Say, you know, when they're just picking

(06:05):
out clothes for their kids at stores, they get looks like,
oh my gosh, it's a child predator. Like women are
not willing to sort of accept that men can be
in this role. Um. And a lot of this discussion
has has focused on like the dual parent households. But
there is an interesting stat also from the Bureau Labor
Statistics that said that at least two million dads in

(06:27):
the US take primary responsibility for taking care of that
their children. And that takes into account a lot of
single dads who are fighting for more paternity rights in
divorce cases, who are shouldering not only the role of
being the breadwinner, but also being the primary caregiver as well.
So I think that indicates that if you do it
a certain way, it can be done correctly. An article

(06:49):
in the Monitor on Psychology from the American Psychological Association
agrees with that fact, Molly Um. According to the Monitor
on Psychology from the American Psychological Associate Asian Um, in fact,
some stay at home fathers can actually make for a
better marital relationship aside from the stigmas that they have
to face. Um. These studies that they have done said

(07:11):
that the relationships between husbands and wives are actually benefiting
from uh from these well planned at home dad's. Now,
maybe those are stats from males who chose to stay
at home as opposed to males who have been forced
home by this recession, which is how we sort of
started this topic. But whether it's by choice, whether it's
not by choice, it seems that the tip to success,

(07:34):
based on these articles we've read, and you know, Christ
and I spent some time prusing a few daddy blogs,
there's a ever increasing community of stay at home dad
online networks. But the key to this into marital happy
really seems to be that you do not adopt the
philosophy that a stay at home dad is Mr Mom. Yeah.
That was something that that popped up in a few

(07:57):
articles said just don't call him Mr Mom. And it
was kind of that thing that we were talking about before,
where this is challenging stereotypical gender roles a little bit.
And uh, men who are staying at home, especially by choice,
don't just want to be considered like male nanny's right, you.
They want to maintain sort of that you know, stereotypical

(08:18):
masculine attribute. They're more likely to probably parent their children differently.
And I want to be seen as like a dad
at home as opposed to a Mr Mom. Yeah, and
there was an interesting point raised in UH an article
in the Boston Globe, and it's said that what children
need are adequate financial and emotional resources in short, stable
environments that is not contingent on gender or biology. And

(08:42):
I think that that's that's a pretty important part of
this whole whole debate. Right, we don't necessarily need a
mom at home, We just need a good parent at home.
So to answer a question, m hm. So to answer
our question, Kristen, I don't really know that the recession
is going to change gender roles long term domestic dynamics
long term, because it seems like you're still going to
come home from work and been into a certain box. Yeah,

(09:04):
And and it's that whole issue of men who are
being forced out of their job. They weren't electing to
quit their job, as you know, a high ranking executive
and come home and be being at home father. They
were they lost her job because of the recession. And
chances are if when the economy rebounds, those men are
going to find jobs again and they're going to to

(09:25):
leave the home. But I think that what we can
hope comes out of this is just sort of a
greater awareness of the domestic experient in general. You know,
I was reading an article about how you know, without work,
these men were sort of you know, becoming more involved
in schools and running for school board, and the administration
was expressing hope that you know, once these men went
back to the workplace, they still kept, you know, the

(09:46):
issues of schools in their mind. And there might actually
be something called the daddy tracks similar to the mommy track,
except you know, it's affecting obviously, like more men who
are choosing, like you said, if the if their wife
is making a significantly greater amount of money, these men
might choose to um, to stay home. And uh, it's

(10:07):
kind of similar. Penalties are are coming up for men
who are choosing to do that and then go back
into the workforce after their kids are school aged. Um
that women have had to face for so many years now, right,
So maybe if you have someone who was forced out
due to a recession, he comes back, he's a little
more accepting. If a guy comes to him and I
was like, hey, you know, I want to I want
flex time to stay at home with my kids. Um.

(10:28):
And and overall, I think that we can say that,
you know, there has been a trend outside of the recession.
There has been a growing number about home dads UM
and that Monitor on Psychology article, it's said that the
numbers about home dads have grown more than six since
two thousand four, So it can't just be linked to
the recession. Obviously there are a lot more men at
home because the recession, but this has been a building

(10:49):
trend for a while, right, So just just to cover
our backs, we do want to know note that the
thing to keep in mind about trends as they do
not tell every individual story. You know, we may have
some stay at home dad's out there who have heard
this podcast and feel that we have not represent their
view at all that maybe they do, you know, participate
in the housework. So we're just throwing that out there.
So we don't have lots of angry emails, but we

(11:10):
do want email from you guys to hear your perspective
on this. So if you have a anecdote comment question
about being a stay at home dad, have a stay
at home dad in your life, then email us at
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com. And if
you want to learn more about the economy and the recession,
you can check out a whole host of articles on
that at how stuff works dot com. For more on

(11:36):
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