The effects of Dual Income Homes

I have seen society have many opinions on the matter if mothers would be providers of the family along with the father.

There are different opinions because we have people who strongly believe the mother should stay in the home caring for the family, not because she shouldn’t work in a financially paying job, but because she should work with the family in the home while one parent is away from the family for a certain number of hours in the day.

On the other hand, we have people who believe that the women should not be obligated to stay in the home and she should provide financially for the family as well.

And I am not suggesting that either opinion is correct, but I would like to share some information that has helped me see that it does make a significant difference in the home if you choose to go either way.

I am not suggesting either that these are the only two opinions that are possible to have, but these are the two opinions we discussed in class so I will only give certain information from these given opinions.

Starting with Fatherhood, Fathers have a significant place in his family. There has been countless of research done that show how crimes between male teens correlate with fatherless homes. Even in the animal kingdom, there was a study that observed a heard of elephants. And teen elephants that grow up without an elephant father, the elephant teen become rebellious within the heard. However, when the team of researchers introduced a couple of adult male elephants to the herd, the teen elephants were able to seek those new male elephants as a father figure, and then stopped or decreased in rebellious behavior.

So there is significant evidence that the Father has a significant influence in the home that the mother alone cannot provide. And this is vice versa, the mother has specific qualities that she alone can bring to her family that the father cannot naturally provide. This is why we discussed weeks ago on how different males and females are, but those differences help with diversity and equal amount of help that each parent can provide for their family.

And there was something that was shared in class that caught my attention. The Government has been helping society take the responsibility of fathers within families who rely on welfare. You are guaranteed government help if you are in a qualified fatherless home, to be able to receive around $63,000 of benefits in a year. And if you get married, the benefits go down. So people rather live without a husband in order to keep on receiving those benefits that they have learned to live with. And even though the numbers may not be completely correct, this opinion has some truth into it. There have been couples who decide to never get married because they rather receive the most amount of government help. But in return they are not putting much responsibility to provide for their family. They are just expecting to be helped.

On the other side, we have families who have decided to have a dual income home, where both Father and Mother decide to work to financially provide for their family. However, do we really need those two incomes?

The common challenge that everyone faces at some point, is that they decide that if there was dual incomes, we could be alright. And some of the effects that these have is that it raises the standard of living for the family, and it takes the mothers influence away from the home.

It raises the standard of living for the family because it makes the family more prone to rely on their bank account amount to decide if they are spending or not vs relying on a financial budget.

“There is money, so we can spend our own money how we would like” mentality can come into play and therefore can deny the blessing of working together, strengthening the relationship in a bigger way as you both decide what you can spend your money on for the family’s sake.

The other thing that happens is that, the mothers influence is taken away from the home and children are taken with caregivers or daycares where they spend more time instead of spending time with a family member. The consumer idea that we cannot change our work schedule for a child because that is not bringing in money that I can visually see is sad to have.

But in reality, are dual income homes bringing in more money?

There was a dual income family who was brought in by a financial worker to see how much the family really brought in the home. The father had a $40,000 yearly salary, and the mother had a part time $22,000 yearly salary. Together, you would think that both would bring $62,000. But after the financial worker added in their expenses of childcare, transportation to the work place, fast food because there was no time to make a home cooked meal, clothing that the mother had to have for her specific job, the annual income for the home ended up being $37,500.

And after these numbers were shown to the couple, they were amazed and sad at the results. The mother was heartbroken when she realized that she could’ve been with her children instead of working. The dual income was costing more that what the father alone could provide the family with.

So that is something to think about. It is possible that the father can provide financially, the mother can provide home safety and love while the father is away, and then both work together to help in the family home when they are both home.

The power of finances and making a budget can really help with living within or means and being fine with family closeness instead of money consumer ideas that children suck up money and time. They bring so much more into one’s life than you can think.