{"id":8309,"date":"2021-09-10T18:35:17","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T22:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/awarningministry.com\/?p=8309"},"modified":"2021-09-10T18:41:30","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T22:41:30","slug":"give-up-work-to-help-your-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awarningministry.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/10\/give-up-work-to-help-your-husband\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Give up work to help your husband\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

‘Give up work to help your husband’ | Women | The Guardian<\/a>
WORLD<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Give up work to help your husband\u2019<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Kate Bussmann<\/a> 27 Feb 2009<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Megan Basham seems surprisingly shy for the latest controversial American author to have charged on to the public battlefield between mothers who stay at home and those who work. Ordering an iced tea in a New York restaurant, the 33-year-old conservative commentator appears to be cut from a different cloth to the ever angrier voices on both sides of what the American media refers to as the \u201dMommy Wars\u201d. Her new book, Beside Every Successful Man: A Woman\u2019s Guide To Having It All<\/em>, reads like a cheery pep talk for women alienated by the increasingly polarised debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the book, Basham sets out a strategy for women who want to stay at home but can\u2019t afford to. \u201dMost research says 80% of women want to work fewer hours when their kids are young,\u201d she says. \u201dHow can you ignore that and tell them they\u2019re wrong or naive?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She argues that women can opt out of the nine-to-five by focusing on helping their husbands be more successful in their careers, and find fulfilment by doing so. And as a happy side-effect, she says, these more traditional marriages are less likely to end in divorce. She cites herself and a series of high-profile couples as examples, and backs her argument up with statistics such as: \u201dMen whose wives aren\u2019t employed earn on average 31% more than single men, but for men whose wives have full-time jobs, that number drops to 3,4%.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics have denounced the book as irresponsible, delusional, immoral and misleading, but Basham insists she didn\u2019t expect such reactions. \u201dIt wasn\u2019t originally meant to be political,\u201d she says. \u201dBut at the time, there were books coming out saying that women must work full-time, that it\u2019s not fair to the sisterhood to take any time out. I just didn\u2019t feel they were realistic. I\u2019d noticed how many successful men would say, \u2018I wouldn\u2019t be here without my wife,\u2019 and I was curious, I wanted to know what these women were doing. I wanted to emulate them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, she already had: the book tells the story of how she helped her husband, Brian, now a TV weatherman, work out what he wanted to do with his life. But more than just acting as cheerleader, she rewrote his CV, researched jobs, wrote letters and found him an agent. And when he landed his first job in the business, she quit full-time work as a journalist and university curriculums editor, went freelance and moved from Arizona to Texas. They now live in Tucson, where he works on breakfast television. After a long time trying for kids, she is five months pregnant and looking forward to \u201dfinally scaling back\u201d her work in the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dWomen are collaborators,\u201d she says. \u201dWe have a more communal concept of success, and a lot of that applies to our relationships. Look at Michelle and Barack Obama. People forget she introduced him to the political scene in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her main critic is the formidable Leslie Bennetts, a Vanity Fair<\/em> contributor and author of The Feminine Mistake<\/em> \u2014 an urgent warning to women that if they step out of the workforce for as little as three years, they will permanently damage their earning potential. When the pair appeared on a television show together, sparks flew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dAfter the cameras went off, she turned and screamed at me,\u201d Basham recalls. \u201dShe must have misunderstood me, because I didn\u2019t say all women should be at home, barefoot and pregnant. I\u2019m talking about women pursuing their dreams. I was shocked that she would brook no alternative, that there is such a violent reaction to suggesting other options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her part, Bennetts accuses Basham of misrepresenting facts, and it is true that Basham knows how to spin her statistics. Take what she refers to as the \u201dmale marriage premium\u201d, which states that when a man gets married, his earnings increase by between 20% and 50%, while women often experience the opposite: a \u201dmarriage penalty\u201d. While this kind of inequality enrages her opponents, Basham argues that if wives encourage their husbands to earn more, the extra household income enables women to take a pay cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basham\u2019s approval of the \u201dtraditional\u201d family is clearly influenced by her own experience. The daughter of an unwed teenage mother, she grew up to be, she says, \u201dpretty pro-life\u201d. Her parents reunited and married when she was five, before having two more children. After all her offspring had left home, her mother became an interior designer, and Basham holds her up as an inspiring example of a stay-at-home mother going on to have success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basham\u2019s book has arrived at a point when the Mommy Wars debate is more polarised than ever. One month after her row with Bennetts, a section of the American religious right launched their True Women Manifesto, calling for a counter-revolution to the advances of feminism. It asserts that men and women are designed to reflect God in \u201dcomplementary and distinct ways\u201d, essentially arguing that women belong in the home, men in the workforce, and that women can be liberated through submission. It\u2019s an extension of a Biblical concept known as \u201dcomplementarianism\u201d, one that Basham doesn\u2019t entirely reject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dYou can see that biologically there are differences between the way our brains are wired. And some of the things we prioritise might be different,\u201d she says. \u201dThe problem is that I know couples who are the opposite, so you can\u2019t say all women are complementary to their husbands. At the same time, I think the negative thing is pretending that women are men, setting up a paradigm by men\u2019s rules, assuming that only success in business is achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does she receive hate mail? \u201dYes,\u201d she says, with a dismissive laugh. \u201dI\u2019ve had a lot of emails from college students who are clearly in the midst of their women\u2019s studies, saying I must be uneducated. I took feminist studies like everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She describes herself as a \u201dchoice feminist\u201d, and in the book, writes that \u201dthough the feminist movement was essential in many respects, certain factions of it have led to a place where women are encouraged to treat their husbands as rivals and their homes as battlegrounds over whether everyone is doing the same amount of the dishes and earning\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, in the Basham household, she does more housework, \u201dbut he gets up at 2.30am. My schedule\u2019s not as tough. I think it\u2019s a bit silly to insist that the division of labour be 50-50, because, well, whose version are we talking about? Most men have a higher tolerance for messiness than women so they think the labour is being evenly divided. It\u2019s so funny, because when you show any love or support, well, you\u2019re letting down the sisterhood. Really, I\u2019m not.\u201d \u2013 guardian.co.uk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beside Every Successful Man: Getting the Life You Want By Helping Your Husband Get Ahead Paperback \u2013 September 15, 2009<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

by Megan Basham<\/a>  (Author) Beside Every Successful Man: Getting the Life You Want By Helping Your Husband Get Ahead: Basham, Megan: 9780307393647: Amazon.com: Books<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strengthen family bonds, boost family income, and acquire a sense of purpose by helping your husband achieve his career dreams.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terms like \u201cstay-at-home wife\u201d and \u201cstay-at-home mom\u201d once meant a woman whose lifestyle involved running the household, preparing the meals, and tending to her husband and kids. But today, a new army of educated, highly skilled women has completely reinvented\u2013and re-embraced\u2013the \u201cstay-at-home\u201d role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from being June Cleaver, today\u2019s female \u201cstay-at-homers\u201d tend to be highly educated and work-credentialed, which opens up exciting possibilities\u2013among them the opportunity to be her husband\u2019s most important career partner, mentoring and advising him to reach a level of success he wouldn\u2019t achieve otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Profiling a wide array of smart, driven women who\u2019ve found intellectual and spiritual satisfaction by assuring their husbands\u2019 success, journalist and researcher Megan Basham shows how those who forgo a second paycheck and make home \u201ccommand central\u201d can not only strengthen their marriage, but also\u2013eventually\u2013secure a higher income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One part manifesto, three parts hands-on prescriptive advice, this book is one of the most provocative and convincing ever written on the topic of women and work\u2013a manual that, with its precise tips, will speed women toward the balance they seek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s food for thought here for any wife, including one who has her own career.\u201d
\u2014Claudia Anderson, managing editor, the Weekly Standard<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Give up work to help your husband’ | Women | The Guardian WORLD \u2018Give up work to help your husband\u2019 Kate Bussmann 27 Feb 2009 Megan Basham seems surprisingly shy for the latest controversial American author to have charged on to the public battlefield between mothers who stay at home and those who work. Ordering…
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