Clutch Magazine: Ladies Can Have It All (If You Get A House Husband)

For the extremely career-oriented like myself (I've always wanted to be a writer. This is what livin' the dream looks like), career v. family is a battle constantly being waged within ... as I have no immediate family without. I have some adult sisters and verging on elderly parents, but no children or significant other of my own. This has left me lamenting why-oh-why I can't have the kind of marriage my father had -- where you get your spouse and kids and you get to keep your great career too. 

For Clutch Magazine Online, I examine my desire for what my father had ... and the realization that getting either side of the deal in my parents' marriage will be hard to come by. (It's not like I'm turning down a bunch of awesome bread-winning males left and right, I'll take what I'm compatible with, whether that's Joe Ambition or Joe the Cool Dad.)

Here's a snippet:

I wish I could have some kids, love them, help raise them, nurture them, but then have some dude actually play my mom's role of the less ambitious helpmate who puts family first. The problem is society isn't very accepting of the "House husband" concept. And when you meet a guy who actually WANTS to be a house husband, he’s met with suspicion due to the high number of sociopaths and lazy grifters who are looking for gullible meal tickets. But I've met quite a few men, who like women, are utterly miserable over the path society chose for them and would probably LIKE taking on fewer financial duties to stay home to be the primary caretaker of the kids. 

But just as women feel a lot of pressure to do gender normative things they don't want to do, men who would be most suited for this know that it’s not what’s expected. They try to be good guys, and are so good and so respectful of society that they'll just continue to flounder alone, miserable, screwing up left and right, trying to eke out a living, but finding that women write them off because they don't have ideal breadwinner traits. They're more nurturer/supporter types and although society is slowly coming around it might not come around fast enough for someone like me who's starting to worry about my fertility at 34, wondering what's going to happen if I don't meet the right guy in the next three-to-four years to have a kid with, afraid that I'll have to sacrifice family for my career and stare at my father wishing I could have had both like he did.

Read the full post at Clutch Magazine Online.