Hogwash

                Thank goodness the Pew Research Center and Peggy Drexler are on the job. Whoever they are, the Center has just published a masterpiece of research and Drexler’s interpretation explains all of life’s problems for some of us males.

          Drexler explains everything, using this research. Every problem some of us have had for, lo, these many decades. Years of low self-esteem. Years of terrible depression. Years of self-doubt, uncertainty and confusion.

          Yes, even decades of all that stuff lumped together. Just terrible angst. Imagine three decades or more of bad TV nights and that’s what we’ve been through. Oh, the humanity.

          Now, with all the science the Pew Research Center was able to use to study the problem, Drexler has put a name to it. At long last, some of us poor, suffering men can point a shaky finger at the root of the agony and say, “There. It isn’t my fault after all.”

          According to a story I read on the internet (and remember that anything you read on the internet has to be true, including this blog) written by Drexler, many women earn more than their husbands and men suffer when their wives earn more money than the men do.

          Yes, the word used is, “suffer.”

          Naturally, Drexler’s story uses only first names when pointing toward examples of this load of nonsense. The story did not mention the names of the firms where either spouse was employed. Gee, that sounds reliable.

          Let me explain for you how your loyal blogger has suffered all these years with a wife whose employment generated more funds than my own.

          When our kids were sick, my wife’s insurance benefits paid for doctors, hospitals and medicines. That hit me hard.

          Sometimes I got sick and, again, my spouse’s insurance paid the medical bills. Once in a while, even my wife got sick and her benefits paid for her to get well.

          I suffered through all of that. It was terrible. I was saddened that I wasn’t paying cash for all those bills.

          When the kids were off from school, I had to spend up to half a day watching my own children. Had to spend time with them virtually every day of the working week, sometimes.

          What punishment. If only wifey had made less money, I might have been spared the depression.

          Yep, when I went to the used car lot and ended up with a Mustang GT convertible instead of a fuel-efficient money-saver, I suffered again. I paid for the car but I suffered because I knew I couldn’t have afforded the payments if my wife didn’t make enough money to pay for so much else.

          Still have the car. Still suffering for it. Talk about trauma!

          I’ve been unemployed. Who hasn’t? I sure felt terrible about my wife’s earning prowess then, let me tell you. Catastrophic humiliation.

When my newspaper career (which paid poorly and kept me away from the family constantly) threatened my health, my wife told me to do what I had to do. I did. When I choose self-employment and a profession that takes me away from home much of the time, my wife gave her blessing.

Yep, her salary and benefits made all that possible and I was miserable.

          Read this and understand the words: Neither the Pew people nor Drexler asked this blogger about the terrors of having a successfully-employed wife. I’d have told them that any husband who feels inadequate because his wife out-earns him was probably inadequate before they were ever married.

          My wife and I have had more than 20 great years together and she has always been the top money-earner. Come to think about it, I really don’t feel too bad about that at all.

 

          Thanks for reading.