Second Shift
A Woman’s Work Is Never Done Traditionally men worked and brought home the bacon while women stayed home and took care of the children and the home. This changed when the new liberated independent women became driven towards acquiring a career, caring for the children and balancing domestic work. Thus women started to complain about being exhausted from working, multi-tasking, and solely taking care of the house-hold, while their husbands worked and bring forth a paycheck and think that is efficient enough and his job is pretty much done. ’I definitely concur with The Second Shift because this essay most women can really relate to, including me. It filters the contribution of what the husband brings to the house-hold versus the woman. It makes me ponder about why our husbands are letting us become husbands”. The author, Ariel Hochschild demonstrates keen examples and stated factual research from her findings on the percentages of husbands that said they should help out around the house and the ones that actually did, and furious Wives who not only had to work an eight hour shift; but also took care of the house-hold duties and tended to the children.
From the author’s eight year research she concluded that failed marriages were not due to alcohol, physical and or mental abuse, infidelity, or financial problems, but due to the lack of domestic assistance from the husband. Men say that they want a woman to build with but why is she building alone while he frolics in the sun. If wives work a nine to five just like their husbands then the husband should be just as domesticated as his wife. Times have changed and women are not succumbing to the position of home maker anymore. Now a day’s women are solid with a take charge personality; which most men are fancy of.
But even the most resilient woman can crumble after a hard day of work and then to come home to a husband watching sports while she has to cook, clean, tend to the kids, grocery shopping, schools visits, do the laundry, maintain doctor’s appointment and still have a whooping sexual appetite at the end of the night is just out right preposterous. Every house-hold, family, and situation is different; therefore if both partners work then both partners should come to a mutual understanding based on each other’s schedule and split the domestic work evenly.
A wife working is of great assistance to her husband financially, so like the old saying goes I scratch your back and you scratch mine. The husbands pay bills in the home and guess what, so goes the wife. They both occupy the same house, so why is the wife doing all the domestic work by herself? By all means the husband should help out in the house a lot more, but let us take a walk down the American road for a second to decipher what could possibly help this problem.
If America were concerned with the hindrance that the broken home poses on its citizens the government would offer a helping hand to families, As far as funding programs to offer low costing or free child care, offer family assistance to families that make a little bit above the poverty margin, offer in home cleaning for families with more than one child or any assistance that could alleviate the stress on the woman financially, mentally and physically; While bringing the family structure together and keeping it that way.
Who would turn this proposal down if it were given? This help would lead to wives spending more quality time with the kids and the husband. Families could do what they should do; enjoy and spend time together with mom not worrying about what elbow grease is ahead of her. A non-frazzled woman equals a euphoric home. Switzerland government offers a system very close to this, even in England and Canada health care is free, and these countries are not as rich and advanced as America. “In my opinion America will only help out if you are literally a bum on the street”.
If families make more than the marginal poverty line annually then forget about it. America could take a lesson or two from these countries. This sociological and economical methodology could move society on a whole towards a better functionality. Hence this kind of help is like a domino effect in that it would not only help out families, but there will be an extensive percentage drop in divorces, mental illness, teen crimes, parent absence, child neglect and single mothers raising children.
In essence, having a family and a beautiful home is a gift from god and should not be classified as the Second Shift; therefore the husbands should step up and assist their wives around the house daily so she does not have to feel this way. He too should have an idea of what it is like to arrive home from work and still have to work. He should have a very vivid idea of what it is like to work all day without any sleep prior to the night before, pick up each child from daycare, cook, clean, shopping and tend to the kids etc. And let us see how he holds up.
This domestic conflict between husbands and wives has been going on years now, and based on Ms. Hochscild’s studies from 1960s to the 1970s women worked fifteen more hours each week than men. Over a year women worked an extra month of twenty four hour days. Over a dozen years, it was an extra year of twenty four hour days. “Can you believe this? , Women working more hours than men”. Woman I have to credit you because you are so strong, for centuries you bore the struggles of society/mankind in your womb and now you have placed it on your backs.
