Breaking the mold

You've probably read the line a few times by now: My name is Jim and I'm a male blogger. Yes, it's meant to be goofy. But it's also me trying to wrap my mind around a role reversal that's taken place. Thank God I'm not alone.

The Census released figures Tuesday that show women have more undergraduate and advanced degrees than men do. At first blush, I read that and thought, "Geez, guys are lazy." And then I thought about it for a minute. Uh, that's me. Sort of.

Mmmmmmm ... Western lack of civilization.
While I have a bachelor's degree, I do not work full time. And in a year, TW will have her master's degree and be able to perform surgeries and prescribe drugs. I plan to finish playing Red Dead Redemption and Just Cause 2 on my PlayStation by the time she graduates. So there's that to look forward to. Have I mentioned I don't have many friends here? My PlayStation is my friend.

As much as we love to be iconoclasts — you'll hear sometime about our long-running debate on moving to New York — there's no getting around this. We match this demographic trend.

Did Ted Danson ever wear an undershirt?
It gets worse, kind of. According to the same article, one in 15 fathers are stay-at-home dads. I can think of two, Chris and Joey G., without even thinking that hard. It's possible that I'll have the "stay-at-home" tag in front of my name when Amy graduates. Minus the fatherhood.

We are vastly different people, Chris, Joey and me. But there's a common thread: Our wives are really good at what they do and they like working. The same cannot be said for us guys.

Feminists will jump all over this news and point out that women still make, on average, about 75 percent of what men make for doing the same work. True. But ... what's going on with us guys? For every 10.4 women in college right now, there are 7.8 men.

What's going on here? I can only speak for myself and for my friends. We don't care that much about our careers. We care, don't get me wrong, but we're also OK with not going to work and focusing on being great parents. Or a great pet owner, in my case.

Staying home challenges you to think beyond yourself — sometimes, just to stay sane. You have to volunteer your time and get involved with something. And as long as our wives don't demand to know why we aren't in the kitchen, cookin' them up some dinner and handin' them a beer when they get home from work, the world will continue to rotate.

Comments

  1. JillApril 27, 2011 at 7:38 AM

    Women are awesome. That picture of the Three Men and a Baby freaks me out. 33-5-4.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JillApril 27, 2011 at 11:41 AM

    This goes along with the third to last paragraph and is an absolute outrage:

    http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/women-make-less-eating-hot-dogs-too-2477109/

    ReplyDelete

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