"Why I won't let my wife quit her job."

A headline at USA Today that comes with this photograph that makes you want to skip the article and read the thoughts on the bride's mind:



Anyway, here's the article, and the point is that the wife went through a stage when she was tempted to leave work and the husband pushed her through and now she's very happy with it, but the headline isn't "Why I wouldn't let my wife quit her job" and that makes a big difference. He's in a continuing state of denying her this permission (which, of course, contains the assumption that he has veto power). He says:

I do wonder a lot whether I'm a bad man for pushing her to [work] even though she says she wants to stay home with the kids. I'm just terrified she'll lose her drive.

See? He wants a wife with "drive." It's about her and his preference for a Maximized Her (as opposed to money or what's best for the children).

The happiest times I have seen my wife (besides with the kids) is when she has achieved professionally. I don't want her to look back and say, "I could have done 'this' with my degree."... I'm scared my wife will feel inferior to me � and resent me.

So his seeming male dominance melts away into hammy posturing in The Theater of Male Feminism.

He proceeds to talk about his daughter, and how he likes that she dreams of "going to Mars or being the first female president" and not "becoming a trophy wife or stay-at-home mom." He doesn't want to pay her to go to college "just to see her walk away and let a man take care of her."

The key word "let" appears again. He won't let his wife let him take care of her. Who's letting whom here? He doesn't want to let his daughter let a man take care of her.

3 4 5 6 more things:

1. Everyone walks away from college.

2. In a truly egalitarian marriage, the 2 individuals would talk to each other continually and make decisions together.

3. The single-earner family with a division of labor can make economic and emotional sense, and people ought to think clearly about it as a rational option. I recommend transcending all the propaganda and polemics and understanding yourself and your own idea of the good.

4. Why are little girls always having the same old dreams, dreams that sound like they could have been written by a hack writer for Ms. in 1972? Why is it always President and astronaut? And isn't there a big inconsistency between Scientist Girl and dreaminess? If you'd really like the child to become a scientist, lay off the ideology.

5. If that girl is dreaming of being the first female president, I guess she's dreaming that Hillary will lose...

6. What if Hillary would like to stay home with granddaughter Charlotte and Bill won't let her quit?