- Liz Gendreau, the Chief Mom Officer, is a 38-year-old MBA who works as an IT program manager at a large company, making a six-figure salary. Her husband, Todd, stays at home with their three boys, ages 14, 10, and 3.
- She’s been the primary breadwinner since shortly after they were married, over 16 years ago.
- She’s spent over a year interviewing dozens of other successful women in her “Breadwinning, Six-Figure, Millionaire Women” series.
- A few of the biggest things she wishes people understood: Dads who stay at home aren’t babysitting, her situation isn’t “lucky,” and there are more female breadwinners than you may think.
Being a breadwinning mom with a husband who stays at home with your three boys can be amazing.
When I need to travel for work, I don’t need to worry about who will watch the kids. When I stay late and have dinner with the executives, I don’t need to rush home to relieve the sitter. I’m able to go to conferences across the country and Skype with the boys without worrying about them. I come home from a 12-hour workday to dinner already made, kids shuttled to and from their activities, a clean house, and laundry already put away. When someone needs to get the car fixed, run to the bank, or take care of a sick kid, the “someone” isn’t me.
That doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and roses though.
My husband, our boys, and I are all happy with how we run our family — but other people often aren’t. Sometimes they’re confused, other times they’re defensive, and they often make assumptions about us that just aren’t true. I’ve gotten so many different comments over the years that it’s pretty obvious there are a lot of things other people don’t understand about families like mine.
So today I’m going to dispel the myths and talk about some of the things I’ve noticed other people just don’t understand.
I’m happy and proud to be the breadwinner
In the mainstream media, I see a steady stream of negative articles about families like mine. Millennial women are “worried” about and “ashamed” of being the breadwinner. Stay-at-home dads suffer from “stigma and isolation.” Let’s not forget all the articles telling us that our marriages are unhappy.
If you’re the family breadwinner and a woman, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re supposed to be unhappy about the situation. And trust me, other people read these kinds of articles and think that I must feel that way too.
No, I’m not unhappy. In fact, I’m proud of all my accomplishments. I’m not at all worried about out-earning my husband — I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who’s bothered by that anyway. I’m not ashamed that I work and he stays at home. To be honest, I’m extremely happy that I can be successful at work, pursue my passions, and have things taken care of at home so I still have plenty of time to be an awesome mom.
My husband is proud of me
The other side of the stereotype coin is that men are supposed to be embarrassed by their successful wives.
I’ve heard so many stories about men being ashamed of their wives paying for everything, resentful of having to take care of the kids, or generally unhappy about their wife’s career success outstripping theirs. So people assume my husband must feel that way too, right?
Not here. My husband is extremely proud of my accomplishments, and he’s never been embarrassed about my success.
When we were first married, we both made the same amount of money. Then I got a job in IT about a year later, and that all began to change forever. I started pursuing my MBA when our older boys were 6 and 2 and finished when they were 10 and 6. Guess who baked and decorated a cake to celebrate my graduation? And who watched the boys so I could go off to class after a full day of work? Who took care of things at home while I studied abroad in France and China?
The only thing I’ve ever heard from him is excitement about my success.
Dads don’t babysit
One of the most annoying comments a stay-at-home dad can get out in public is: “So you’re babysitting today?”
My husband has heard this one more than once while out with our three boys. Can you imagine the reverse, someone commenting to a mom out and about with her kids that she was babysitting? No, you can’t. I’ve literally never had anyone say that to me, and yet more than one person has said it to him.
This one is particularly frustrating because of the assumptions behind the statement. People assume that a dad out and about with his kids is a once-in-a-blue-moon type of scenario. His wife, their mother, must be having a rare busy time. So Dad is out with the kids, struggling to manage them, and probably feeding them junk food.
Dads don’t babysit their own children. It’s called parenting.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- Here’s how much the typical millennial, Gen X, and baby-boomer worker earns in every US state
- New York is the most expensive place to get married in the US — here’s how much it costs to have your wedding at the city’s most popular venues
- Young people today are having fewer babies than older generations because kids are just too expensive
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