Another Inconvenient Truth

Last week, Marissa Mayer accepted the post of CEO at Yahoo, and that was exactly what women everywhere said --- "Yahoo!"   We don't often see women in such positions of leadership and importance, especially in tech companies, so this is a big deal.  However, a lot of the cheering stopped when word got out that the brilliant young Google exec was also 6 months pregnant with her first child.  Passionate discussions instantly erupted all around about whether she could do it, whether she should do it, whether the board should have chosen her for the job at this moment (or at all), and what this means for women everywhere.  Was she setting a dangerous precedent by announcing that she would be back on the job within a couple of weeks of giving birth?  Should she model a long maternity leave to normalize that idea in corporate culture?  Will exhaustion and mommy-brain-fog take over and render her less capable of steering Yahoo effectively?  Mayer will be Yahoo's fifth CEO in the last 5 years, and the task of redefining and turning around this dot com ancestor, whose stock price has flatlined over the last 4 years, seems particularly gargantuan, but by all accounts, if anyone has it in her to pull this off, it's the ever impressive Marissa Mayer.  

Also this month, The Atlantic published Anne-Marie Slaughter's essay called "Why Women Still Can't Have it All", which describes at great length how she herself, and other highly educated women in top professional positions are finding that despite what they had previously believed, even with high pay and lots of nannies,  there are some jobs that just don't go so well with raising kids.  Getting away from the so called "mommy wars" (you know, that's where the working and stay-at-home mothers condemn each other's choices), let's explore the range of options available to women:

A) Don't have kids. (A.K.A. "The world is crowded enough.")

Pros:  Nice furniture.  High quality sleep.  Less embarrassing cocktail party conversation.  Make more money.  Spend it all on yourself.

Cons:  No one to guilt into taking care of you when you're old.  No one for whom to model your professional success.  No heirs to the fortune you amass. Depriving humanity of your exceptional offspring.

B) Have kids. (A.K.A. "Express biological imperative.")   

Pros:  Love.  Joy.  Fulfillment.

Cons:  Lots of laundry, whining, expenses, fatigue, inconvenience, distraction….well, you get the picture.  Oh, also constant vigilance and perpetual worry.

And if (despite the "cons") you choose to go ahead and have kids, then what do the options look like?

A) Don't work at all.  (A.K.A "Get your June Cleaver on.")

Pros: More time for friends/gym/naps. Not missing time with your children.  Lots of baking.  

Cons:  Poverty.  Feeling of wasted talents.  Betraying women's movement, and disappointing friends who expected more of you.  All that baking may necessitate more time at the gym.  Higher expectations of school volunteering.  Hearing "mommymommymommymommymommy" all day.  Every day.

B) Work constantly. (A.K.A. "Outsource parenting".)  

Pros:  Earn lots of money. 

Cons: Spend it all on nannies and helpers.  Questionable parenting decisions by said nannies and helpers.  Lack of familiarity with spouse and offspring.

I think the goal is to find choice "C":

C) Work less than constantly. Find work that has some flexibility. (A.K.A. "The Holy Grail").

Pros:  A feeling that your life isn't spinning out of control.  Love, joy, fulfillment AND adequate income to sustain everyone at a marginally acceptable level.  

Cons: Your house may still look like Romper Room, sleep will be compromised, and your career may be slightly less glorious.

Will Marissa Mayer find the middle path?  Who knows.  Perhaps being a middle path kinda gal doesn't get you to the C-Suite, and with the salary they're paying her, she won't have to make some of the difficult choices the rest of us have had to make.  And If she fails to turn this company into a screaming success, will she prove that women can't do it all?  No pressure or anything.  

Unlike most women, Ms. Mayer can view work as a choice, rather than an economic necessity, but just like the rest of us, she will have to make tricky choices about how she allocates her time, and just like the rest of us, she will be subject to judgement and criticism.  Speaking for myself, as a mother of three, I have struggled to find my personal middle path.  Finding a way to have an income, and a meaningful professional life that is flexible enough to accommodate the need to be a good mother, who provides for her kids emotionally as well as materially, has really become the goal, rather than merely an inconvenience. 

So Yahoo, Marissa Mayer!  I wish you the best, and I think a little baby swing might look nice in your new office.  And maybe, as the boss, you can just instate a mandatory nap time for everybody (including yourself).

You Deserve to Argue Like the Rich

Two interesting polls came out this week:

1) A Prudential poll showed that 53% of women are now primary breadwinners.

2) An SEI poll showed that in millionaire households where the woman was the breadwinner, the wife reported that her husband felt "stressed" by their financial roles.

Are wealthy women destroying their marriages by earning more than their husbands? A look behind the numbers reveals something very different.  Take the Prudential study.  Sure, it tells us that 53% of breadwinners are now women, but it turns out that's because 40% of the women who responded to the survey were single or divorced.  Among the married couples, the number was more like 22%.  Maybe numbers don't lie, but they don't always tell you the whole story, either.  In the SEI study, they surveyed millionaire couples and asked the wives who out-earned their husbands how they think their husbands felt about being out-earned.  No one asked the husbands how they actually felt about it, mind you, so no one really knows if they are bothered by it at all, or if they're perfectly happy with the arrangement, and their wives are just projecting.  

Sometimes it's all about what exactly was the question being asked. "Do you think your husband is stressed?" is very different from "how would you describe your husband's feeling about your roles: a) thrilled, b) stressed, c) despondent".  I'm just wondering how exactly the question was phrased. This study cites the sources of this alleged tension being "spending decisions, savings decisions and investment decisions", with the top sources of tension in all wealthy households being "kids and money, along with control and charitable giving".  Perhaps stress over which charities to support isn't keeping anyone up at night in your household, but isn't it great to know that even if you aren't wealthy, you and your spouse are probably arguing about the same things as much richer couples?    

An investment company generally doesn't survey people outside their target market, because people with no money to invest are not really of interest to them, but I have a feeling this data is not just applicable to the wealthy.  If they asked a woman making $30k/yr how her husband felt about earning $20k/yr, and I think it's quite possible she would also answer that he felt "stressed". This idea of being stressed about earnings isn't really unique to millionaires, they just happen to have only asked millionaires.  And altogether, women are very empathic.  Don't women at all income levels tend to worry about their husband's stress? I'll bet that a lot of women who stay at home raising kids, and don't simultaneously produce any income at all probably also think their husbands feel "stressed" by being in the role of the sole breadwinner.  I'm really wondering what useful information this study was intended to produce.  

Where do these studies come from and why do they exist? Well, investment companies spend a lot of money hiring researchers to give them some new information which they can then use to make more money.  So the Prudential poll result says "market more to women because they control more wealth. Except if they're married."  And the SEI study results can be summed up as, "Millionaire women feel bad about making more than their husbands."  And how can an investment company use this information to better market to those with guilt issues?  Here are some possible new advertising ideas for them:

"Let us manage your investments so that you don't have to worry about your husband being "stressed" about that too".

Or "Since your husband earns less than you, you should let us manage your investments so your husband won't underachieve there too".

If you're feeling a little poor these days, try picking a fight with your wife about charitable giving.  It will make you feel richer.  Expect to win the argument if your wife makes more money than you, because she feels just awful about that and so she'll probably let you win to assuage her guilt.  Or maybe ask her if wining an argument with you makes her feel: a) triumphant, b) superior or c) stressed, and reported this totally scientific data back to us here at this blog.

Oh, and also, keep in mind that these polls are often complete rubbish.

Getting Old Rocks

My husband turned 50 today.  This week he was slightly horrified to receive an AARP card in the mail, because we can say 50 is the new 40 all we want, but carrying around a card certifying your membership in the American Association of Retired Persons conjures thoughts of eating dinner at 4 in your white track suit on a cruise somewhere, hoping your dentures don't come lose.  I'm pretty happy that I'm not the one getting the AARP card, but I'm also just giddy with thoughts of AARP discounts!  For just $16 a year (less if you join for several years) you are entitled to a cornucopia of fabulous discounts not available to the younger set.  10-20% off at all the major hotel chains, discounts on flights, and yes, cruises.  Also car rental discounts, free donuts (thank you Randy, for the 411 on Dunkin), 20% off a check at Denny's (even if you eat there after 4 pm). You also qualify for some nice discounts on all different types of insurance, and there are TONS of shopping discounts!  

And WHY are all these retailers and hotels chains offering such attractive discounts to AARP members?  Because older people supposedly have more money to spend.  Because by 50, you're supposedly retired and your children have all grown up and moved on, and you're just sitting in that rocker, playing Words With Friends all day, right?  Um…. really?  I wonder how many Americans are retired at 50.  Turns out the U.S. Census doesn't keep statistics on retired people.  I know a lot of 50 year olds who would love to be retired, but according to recent polling, most Americans now believe they will work until they are 80.  And for those of us who got around to having babies in our 30's and 40's, let's just say we're nowhere near done paying for the care, feeding and education of those little darlings by 50.  So maybe 80 is the new 50?

Apparently, AARP no longer stands for American Association for Retired Persons.  It's just AARP.  You can't become a full member if you're retired but not 50 (because I'm sure lot's of retired people in their 30's are trying to join).  It's considered to be one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington.  Of it's over $1 billion in annual revenue, it spends about $25 mil on lobbying.  This leads to a lot of criticism, because AARP is supposedly just advocating for seniors rights, but it actually stands to make a lot of money from these lobbying efforts.  You see, besides being a charity organization, AARP lends it's name out to insurers to brand their products, and then receives commissions from sales.  AARP earns more money selling insurance to it's 38 million members than from membership dues.

So even though my husband and I won't be retiring anytime soon, I'm already scheming about how we can use those AARP discounts to bring down the cost of our next vacation with the kids.  And even though I now know they will be using our membership dollars to lobby congress to pass laws that enable them to make more money off selling us insurance, I'm still going to start crunching numbers to see where we might benefit from buying their insurance offerings.  But I think I'm still going to get my husband a white track suit today.  Because I'm mean.