<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/business/31men.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/business/31men.html</a></p>
<p>What do you all think of this? I don’t think I would be too pleased to be the wife of one of these men. I think I’d be telling him to flip burgers rather than create a lifestyle while I work.</p>
<p>I took a year off and did some latte-jerking for 15-30 hours per week. The physical demands were tough for an older 30 year veteran office worker. But I liked the people and having something to do at least part of the week.<br>
I have known some educated permanent house husbands where they took care of the children, etc. The wives had very good jobs and did not seem to mind so how can I?</p>
<p>It’s a very interesting article, thanks for posting.</p>
<p>There’s a subtle angle to this that wasn’t really discussed; people who are just fed up with working at a job they hate, and refuse to take another one unless they are about to be evicted or have no other way of putting food on the table.</p>
<p>Very interesting article, but I think it missed its mark; it focuses too far on the negative. MANY people have been downsized, or become unemployed as a result of mergers, etc. and in subsequent employment job search received many offers, but none as good as the lost job. Often career counselors will even advise against accept a job that illustrates a “downward spiral” on a resume - makes the candidate less marketable. Then, unable to find anything equivalent to the job that was lost, the person becomes very entrepreneurial - it’s either that or accept underemployment, or starve. And it’s an iterative process - one doesn’t just wake up one morning and say “I’m starting a business”; usually it’s by job offer #30 or so, and the unemployment is starting to run out or the savings running perilously low, and so the person picks up one project, then another, etc. And sometimes the newly minted entrepreneur becomes very successful 
= that’s the side of the story I think the article misses. </p>
<p>I would be in the camp of refusing to accept jobs that equal underemployment. There are too many options and ways to be happy, interact with professional peers, generate revenue, increase skill sets and core compentencies, control one’s schedule, etc. that do not involve working for the next traditional employer, waiting for the next annual evaluation etc. - at some point it becomes SSDD. Been there, done that, won’t ever do it again. </p>
<p>I do know many professional people who have been unemployed for over a year or longer, and after a while they just stop looking. Mostly they tend to have been in the C-suite, and they’re unwilling to accept anything less. Their homes tend to have the very best and beautiful landscaping in the neighborhood though.</p>
<p>
Harkens back to the discussion of men “failing” in high school & college, in part because they know that they’ll out-earn women once they enter the workforce. For years, women have been getting more education than men. What we are seeing is the first round of those less-educated men who are simply not as qualified as women for the jobs they seek and refuse to be “demeaned” by taking a job within their skill/educational level.</p>
<p>Just my take.</p>
<p>While I fully understand the situations of these men and can acknowledge and empathize with the frustrating and difficult circumstances leading to these decisions, I do not have a great deal of respect for those who chose to burden their families or worse, the taxpayers, with their personal choices based on some misguided sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>If these men had the means to make this choice without burdening anyone, we should simply call it “early retirement,” and of course, anyone and everyone who can afford to do this is entitled to make this choice. But, if others are being burdened by this choice, it is another story entirely.</p>
<p>To include men from age 30-55 in this group of “men in the prime of their lives,” at least work-wise, is a bit misleading. Men in the lower end of this age range have many options not open to men in the older range of this group. Nevertheless, a little ingenuity and motivation would go a long way for anyone in this situation.</p>
<p>I wonder if this attitude toward taking “demeaning jobs” is uniquely American…this attitude that somehow, something is OWED to you. My family and I used to frequent a certain Chinese restaurant once a week over many years. There was a particular waiter there who was extremely adept at his job and possessed very polished “people skills.” He always did his job with finesse, pride, and dignity. Eight years after we had seen him and had had friendly chats with him once a week, we were STARTLED to find out that back in China, he had been an accomplished surgeon. He was not proficient enough in English to pass the medical boards, but he kept trying, all the while waiting tables at an unassuming local Chinese restaurant. Thankfully, his wife, a psychiatrist, had proficient enough English skills to pass her medical boards, but before she went back to work in her chosen field, she, too, had worked a “demeaning” job. Not only had both of those VERY accomplished people taken “demeaning” jobs, but they had done so with exquisite grace and dignity.</p>
<p>My own family has been affected several times by the same circumstances experienced by the men in the article. We have always done whatever we had to do to ensure my husband’s continued employment, including regular interstate moves and sometimes taking significant pay cuts. Thankfully, my husband has realized that it’s not always about <em>JUST</em> him. </p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>How would we feel if the genders were switched in this article? Not as much dismay, I would imagine.</p>
<p>I also read this article, and found it very interesting.</p>
<p>The focus of the article was on blue collar workers - men who have not had a lot of education, or developed wide skills. I’m sure that there plenty of highly educated, down-sized workers, but around here the blue collar guy on disability is almost a stereotype. Their options are more limited, and a lot of them just get really tired. My father had a blue collar job, and in his day - 60s and 70s - the union had gradually obtained excellent benefits for the mon, which included retirement at 55, with not much of a pension but great health care, so when men got “tired”, they could retire, and often bwgan working lower paid, but less strenuous jobs. Now they seem to tend to go on disability.</p>
<p>We have a close family member who has basically lived his entire life this way. Its been very difficult on his nuclear family, and difficult for those in his extended family as well as, of course, there are serious financial interests to deal with. My parents were upper middle class, income wise, but blue collar in that “you put food on your table to feed your family, whatever it takes, like it or not”. Most members of our family saw it as sponging, and marvelled at his wife for her patience and forebearance.</p>
<p>Dadguy–the guy who the article focuses on is living off his wife’s disability, plus she’s still working odd jobs to make ends meet, while he “finds” himself. I’m gonna make a wild guess that she’s still doing the housework, judging by the description of the way he spends his days.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’d be just as ticked if it were the other way around. As was said above, it’s fine if he has the means to do this–I would myself–but, as described here, it’s pretty self-indulgent at another’s expense.</p>
<p>When my Dad lost his job, he took what work he could. When he was too sick to work, he took care of us while Mom worked. What he wasn’t was self-indulgent.</p>
<p>I don’t approve, but was wondering if men would be held to higher standard then women in this situation. I don’t remember the article giving an example of a woman doing the same thing.</p>
<p>Dadguy, I was sickened by the big slob I saw sitting on the cluttered porch with his double chin & bare feet in the air. Go for a walk or a jog, for God’s sake! I think I DO find it more distatsteful that a man was willing to loaf while his family’s future was in jeopardy. Call me old-fashioned.</p>
<p>garland, I’d bet money that you are right. I don’t think he moves off of his chair very often.</p>
<p>Most people would agree that being a mom is a full-time job (plus some!). So when a woman is at home, we see it as something she’s done for 20 years - raising the kids - and lacking the up-to-date skills to get back into the market.</p>
<p>The other socially acceptable way for women to be at home is if they married serious money and do the charity/entertaining/socialite thing. Again, not mooching off the gov’t.</p>
<p>berurah: This is hardly unique to Americans! We work the longest hours of any country in the industrialized world. We’re go go go to the extreme. Immigrants are pouring in, and hundreds of thousands are quite adept at jumping on the welfare roles and taking full advantage of free services.</p>
<p>The loafers portrayed in this article are not typical, thank God. There is really no such thing as a job Americans won’t do, regardless of what GWB says. But someone without a conscience can quickly do the math & see our generous safety net often makes it easier to loaf & be on the dole than hold a menial job.</p>
<p>ariesathena: I still think a SAHM who refused to enter the job market, even out of necessity at the lowest level, would be frowned upon if her family was tetering on the edge of solvency.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree at all. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, for many families with young kids, it doesn’t make any financial sense for a woman to enter the workforce. The family might end up paying a day care provider as much or more than she would earn working, after taxes. If you’re talking about kids who are too young to be in school, I don’t think it would be frowned upon. Why pay $10/hour for day care and make $6/hour working? </p>
<p>Older kids, of course I agree with you. There are many people who think that SAHMs should work if their families receive financial aid from colleges. </p>
<p>My point is that there seem to be more legitimate reasons for women to stay at home, so that, except in extreme situations, they are all treated as having a legitimate occupation. The men in the article don’t seem like they are spending their time changing diapers, which is why they receive more scorn than non-working women.</p>