Month: June 2013

Summer Lovin’ – Day #2

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Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to people. For those few months you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are. The fresh cut grass smell in the air & the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool, gives you courage you didn’t think you had. Summer just opens the door and lets you free.

She Said/He Said – an Entrepreneurial Dillemma

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This weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a two-day Father/Son basketball camp with my oldest son. There were many dad’s that were there either trying to reclaim their youth or was just excited to spend some quality time with their son. For me it was a little bit of both.

While at breakfast, I struck up a conversation with Ronald, a fellow Jerseyan about his statistics. You know, where are you from, what do you do, etc…What was fascinating to me was not what he did for a living, but what he gave up. Ronald was an accomplished, self-taught IT entrepreneur that worked for Charles Schwab for 20 years until he was recently laid off. He decided to go out on his own and after a few months and was making the same money just working 3 days a week. When he wasn’t working he would spend his free time on his motorcycle, taking care of the kids, or doing what IT people do, play on the computer. He felt things were going well.

His wife on the other hand didn’t view his career choice the same way. She was a successful accountant that worked very hard 5 days a week. Even though her husband felt he was doing well, she felt that he wasn’t working hard enough, especially when she saw how much fun he was having. She felt that if he could earn the same amount of money working just 3 days a week, imagine if he worked every day. This was a source of conflict for them as couple. Ultimately he gave up his entrepreneurial dreams and went back to a 9 to 5.

In this post of  He Said/She Said who do you feel was right?

Should the husband have stuck to his guns and maintained his business?

Or, the wife for wanting him to have more structure and work as many hours as she was.

McDreamy gives 3 reasons why Husbands are Nervous about their Breadwinner Wives!

Last week the New York Times

printed an essay from Richard Thaler, a professor at the University of Chicago’s business school, that women are now the primary earners for nearly half of American families with children.

Some of the reasons they offered as the cause was that women with greater earning power have greater economic security so they can leave bad marriages. And another possibility is that many men seem to be clinging to a social norm from the “Mad Men” days: that the husband should be the primary earner in a family.

Even though these reasons may be valid, there is a real problem in place that can only eloquently stated by McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey in the movie Freedom Writers. It’s about an idealist teacher named Erin Gruwell, played by Hillary Swank in her first teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School, which, two years earlier, implemented a voluntary integration program. For many of the existing teachers, the integration has ruined the school, whose previously stellar academic standing has been replaced with many students who will be lucky to graduate or even be literate. Hillary Swank was newly married to Scott Casey played by Dempsey. Overtime as Hillary’s character got closer to her students and they began to respond, Dempsey became more distant and withdrawn.

It all came to dramatic end after Hillary went on one of her trips with the students. In this scene, Dempsey echoed the feelings on how many husbands feel when their wives become the major breadwinner.

 

He never thought their marriage would be this way! – Over the course of movie, Patrick Dempsey increasingly became more aggravated with his wife as she began to do more to provide for her students. In his job, it’s safe to say that he was unable to have the type of dream job he wanted because he had to make sure they had stability which was a source of resentment for him.

Men feel the need to be needed! – If women are devoting so much of their quality time at work, or doing other outside activities, they feel their wives will no longer need them. Most men as Dempsey calls it, “Don’t want to be the wife.”

Men want to always feel they will choose them! At some point if the husband feels their spouse will choose their career or endeavor over them, they feel they have no choice, but to either leave or find someone who will appreciate them being the focus of the relationship.

What do you think about McDreamy’s comments?  Is he right about his feelings.