Another book on the to-read list:

I ran across a book today after spending some time spelunking yesterday on a message board that is fairly opposed to the concept of working mothers -- or working women, period. Although I recoil at a lot of the conceits that swirl around this line of thought -- it's better for both partners because then nobody's stressed about housework (translation: the wage-earning partner isn't stressed), it actually saves money because you don't have to spend on work wardrobes and other related expenses (because people who stay home never need new clothes or food?) and so on -- I would like to better understand this line of thought that seems so alien to me.

The book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, is blurbed thusly: "More than two decades ago, the women's movement flung open the doors of the workplace. Although this social revolution created a firestorm of controversy, no one questioned the idea that women's involvement in the workforce was certain to improve families' financial lot. Until now."

My first gut reaction is, oh, great -- first working makes women delay childbearing, then it makes them guilty mothers, now it makes them responsible for running their families' finances into the ground. However, that's largely derived from me judging the aforementioned book by its cover, and we all know not to do that, right? The reader reviews on Amazon -- with the hilarious exception of one -- seem to indicate that this is less a polemic against women working and more an examination of why a two-income house still doesn't work well.

As for that exception, it's written by someone who is clearly dismayed that the young trophy wives aren't falling in his lap:

In the past age of lauded "single-income family", it had been normal for ladies to seek out for marriage older men who have already acquired substantial financial wealth, and established a proven record of long-term economic stability and ability to support the family through thick and thin. In the most of the rest of the world, it still remains the case - the main qualification of good husband material is solid financial security, not looks, dancing ability, youth, "coolness", athletic prowess, or even the level of intellectual or emotional development. In the modern era in the US, with ladies conditioned to be so independent, many choose husbands for all reasons but, and the rest deemed "golddiggers". Well, regretably but inevitably, those who choose whom to marry the same way as whom to hang out with in high school, often experience the consequences.

I love it. I like to imagine this person is still sulking over the pretty girls in high school passing him up for someone who went on to dig ditches for a living.