“Well, look at that!” said the governor, “if you had married him instead of me, you’d be married to a ditch digger!”

“No,” the wife quickly replied, “if I’d married him, HE would be the governor.”

That joke always makes me laugh. And groan. The dynamics of a two-career household can be challenging, especially once a couple starts growing their family with children.

I’ve been working on this post for a while. It’s been harder than expected to write because I know every couple and every family is different and needs to do what’s best for them as a couple and as individuals within that couple. I know from experience that women have career challenges in certain industries that men don’t experience. And I know not every family has two parents and I want to be sensitive to that.

However, I also know plenty of families like mine where the husband is the successful primary breadwinner and the wife is happy to focus more on the children and the home front. I’ve been to two weddings recently and I’ve heard both brides say they want to be a stay-at-home mom once they have children. Certainly, there are a few pieces of advice I should share with them, but this traditional setup still appeals to many.

On Twitter, I occasionally see mocking criticism of the successful businessman/husband who surely must have a supportive wife propping him up behind the scenes.

Perhaps I am somewhat defensive of this more traditionally structured household, having lived it with my own various reduced work schedules for the past 25 years.

The benefit of having a supportive spouse cannot be denied. When one spouse is able to focus fully on the demands of their career and clients, of course their ability to achieve great things during the day or work week is increased.

But there is more to the story than simply crediting the professional success of one spouse to the support of the wife (or husband). There is also more to the story of the supportive spouse.

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It’s Father’s Day in the U.S. this weekend, so now is as good of a time as any to quit editing and post this to the world in honor of breadwinning dads everywhere. Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there! Now, consider with me the following points:

My Husband Would Excel in His Profession With or Without Me

Some people possess an impressive blend of intelligence, drive, people skills, work ethic, and leadership ability. They will excel at pretty much everything they set their mind to. The ability to put together and lead a winning team seems second nature to humans wired in this way. They are willing to take calculated risks that others fear or shy away from.

My husband is one of these people. Many men are. Many women are too. Some are single and some are married. Sometimes both partners in a relationship are wired for professional achievement and then you have a power couple.

For us, it makes sense that we optimize deployment of his in-demand skills and talent.

He Can Have the Long Hours at Work

I don’t want them. Overtime without pay? No thank you. He admits to some workaholism in his early career-building years, but you know what? He would have preferred to be home with his family. His schedule is much more family friendly now in the later years of his career.

Some jobs require longer hours, especially when you work in a client/service-based field. We as Americans often feed the beast by getting sucked into jobs with ongoing schedules that include lots of overtime work. Some get overtime pay and some get compensated at the end of the year with bonuses.

A recent article by Claire Cain Miller in the New York Times makes some interesting observations about how demanding (aka greedy) occupations make it difficult for both parents to achieve the highest level of success in those fields. The article discusses recent studies that show it is usually the wife who cuts back on the career pursuit. Ms. Miller quotes Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard: “Women don’t step back from work because they have rich husbands, she said. They have rich husbands because they step back from work.”

How does that statement strike you? As someone who has worked hard to keep a career going on a part-time basis, it actually unsettles me a bit and I plan to track down Ms. Goldin’s report. I wish it was easier for both spouses to be successful without the extreme mismatch in hours and compensation.

His Success Helps Me to Reach My Goals

My definition of success places less emphasis on professional accomplishment. Yes, I put in the time and effort to obtain an engineering degree and worked in the field for years.

But my personal definition of success is less about my career. Look at my list of big dreams from years ago and you will notice there is no mention of corporate ladder climbing.

Instead, I love being the parent who is available for the non-school hours. But I also love using my brain for additional fulfillment, so success for me has also included finding meaningful, challenging, and interesting work ON A PART-TIME basis.

My husband’s willingness to work full-time and be the primary breadwinner for our family frees me to work a reduced schedule or even leave the workforce for a time. Year in, year out, he works without complaining.

He is Not My Sugar Daddy and I am Not His Maid

He is not “taking advantage” of my free labor. I am not “taking advantage” of his bigger paychecks.

We are a team. Two adults raising a family and managing a household.

We pool all our money and use joint banking accounts.

We both clean the house (and in fact he does a better job at it than I do). Sure, when I’m not working out of the home at all, like this summer because I recently quit my job, then I will do most of the housework. The division of labor between us is dynamic and changes as needed.

He is Also Mr. Supportive

Don’t short my husband’s parenting – he is an amazing and devoted dad. Our kids adore him and look to him for advice, wisdom, amazing grilled burgers, and a good laugh.

He is a great husband, son, brother, and friend to his friends. He is a good steward of our finances and caretaker of all that has been entrusted to him. He is no slouch on the home front.

His Success Helps Others

There are A LOT of stay-at-home moms and dads who are out of the work force but could contribute significantly with accommodating work schedules.

Anybody whose career has benefited because of a supportive at-home spouse (or was raised by a stay-at-home parent) would be wise to advocate in their workplace for policies that help, or at least do not hinder, career progression for coworkers who are constrained by the responsibilities of parenthood. Pay it forward already!

As a work force, we need to create more flexible and part-time solutions for working parents.

My past supervisors have all been men and all have been incredibly supportive of my various part-time schedules. All were dads, and all but one had a wife who also worked.

My spouse pays his success forward by employing, mentoring, and promoting others, both men and women. Now, as a business owner, he along with his business partners and human resources manager are in a position to design and implement policies to address the needs of their growing workforce while still meeting the goals of their business.

He Embraces His Role of Chief Provider for Our Family

He really does embrace this role and he does it without complaining.

We’ve been intentional throughout our marriage to reduce our cost of living so we’re not dependent on two full-time incomes. He earns the bigger bucks and I do the bookkeeping to manage it. Since we consider all income and all expenses to be joint, his net worth is my net worth is our net worth. This is what works for us.

Do you think mismatched salaries and separate finances could get in the way of marital teamwork? 

Side note: In my opinion, school districts need to teach foundational financial literacy and career planning in school. It needs to start before the age of adulthood. It would help so many for years to come as those school children grow up and start choosing their jobs and career paths and colleges and spouses and having kids of their own.

We need to figure out how to better help kids from all walks of life plan for success in adulthood.

Back to the Ditch Digger

Before I close, I would be remiss to not address the ditch digger in that opening joke. There he was, minding his own business and working outside in a dirty, physical, labor-intensive job. For the joke to imply he was “less than” the governor is wrong.

When you consider he is outside, free from the confinement of a cubicle, and physically active all day while improving his community’s infrastructure, he may be the happiest of the three. We’ll never know, but we shouldn’t project our own definitions of success on to others.

Featured image by Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash

Please, say “Hi!” in the comments and let me know which path you’ve chosen. Are you the breadwinner in your family? The one with a part-time schedule or the stay-at-home parent? The mom, the dad? What has worked for your family? Kindly share your thoughts in the comments below!