I’m Our Family’s Primary Earner, So Why Do I Feel Guilty Working?

My wife could easily make more money than me and would if it weren’t for an all-too-common sacrifice she made: She took a job with a fairly substantial pay decrease to allow her more time and flexibility to raise our children. In other words, she sacrificed her career for her family. Sound familiar?

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In addition to the required healing from pregnancy and childbirth, moms sacrificing for their families is nothing new. But we can’t ignore the dad’s role in these decisions. From deep-rooted desires to cultural norms and expectations, men—specifically men with families—have always felt the need to provide, which primarily means to earn money, which necessarily requires work. Ultimately, I’m our family’s primary earner, and I feel the dad guilt that comes with it.

Times Have Changed (Sort Of)

I grew up seeing my dad out-earn my mom, who saw the same with his dad, and so on up the family tree. The times, they have—changed, but old habits die hard.

Women are more empowered to make a living now than ever before; in fact, 45 percent of husband-and-wife households now are either roughly “equal share” (earning roughly the same income) or have a “breadwinner wife,” according to Pew Research Center. And yet, according to the same set of Pew polling, men continue to spend more time at work. Why?

For one thing, men continue to be expected to earn more than their partners. According to the study, a majority of Americans say that society values men’s contributions at work more than their contributions at home.

In the same study from Pew, women continue to dominate household chores and childcare in exactly the same ways as before. They’re working more, earning more, and still, they can’t quite leave their (culturally ascribed) “traditional” roles behind.

It’s frustrating being tricked by the very progress we value. But it’s clear: Our societal expectations aren’t keeping pace with our economic progress.

Some men are reacting to this conflict by simply opting out. By not starting families. Even by not working at all. In a surprising trend, men are leaving the workforce and higher education in droves, enabling currently the largest discrepancy in higher education between the sexes in our country’s history. Even their reasoning is feeling increasingly listless: 34 percent of men polled claimed “Just didn’t want to” as a major reason to not finish the four-year degree they started, proving just how disenchanted they are with the prospect and promise of work.

So, it seems that women are overburdened, and men feel lost.

And personally, I find it pretty easy to empathize. I graduated college with over $70,000 in student loan debt. To pay it back, I had to climb from job to job for the increased salary, taking whatever was available with little regard for my personal satisfaction, growth, or any sense of career design. I didn’t contribute to my 401k for years, saved nothing, and racked up thousands in credit card debt in the process. So starting a family was deferred, and deferred, and deferred. And all I did was work, and work, and work.

My story is not unique. Scott Galloway, author of The Algebra of Wealth, agrees. He’s been on the book tour trail explaining just how insidious this process is, calling it the United States’ “war on young people.” And he’s got the facts to back it up: 30-year-olds just a few decades ago were almost guaranteed to earn as much as their parents did at 30. Now, the odds are nothing more than a coin flip. And it’s all about where you start. Starting a career with so much debt, so few options, and a salary that simply isn’t enough… means we’re playing catch-up from day one in the workforce.

Dads Today Want Something Different

My wife’s decision to bring balance to our lives, while helpful, also comes with a cost: the pressure I feel to keep up, to out-earn myself year after year, and bring a sense of peace to our current and future lives. But while staving off economic insecurity is top of mind for me and many other parents, there’s another factor complicating how we feel about work and our duty to provide.

It’s about how we define “a life well lived.” It’s about what we’ve learned from our parents and how we wish to be different. It’s about what technology and innovation enable. And it’s about, after enduring the first truly global pandemic in a century, what—and who—really matters.

“While staving off economic insecurity is top of mind for me and many other parents, there’s another factor complicating how we feel about work and our duty to provide… It’s about how we define ‘a life well lived.'”

My parents partitioned their work in the same ways their parents did: Dad provided, mom nurtured. They were comfortable in these roles knowing they were doing their duty. And this duty wasn’t just assigned; it was felt, internalized, handed down.

This simply isn’t how many millennials and younger parents think anymore. We want something different from life. The economic landscape has forced us into “different,” anyway. So, why not lean into it? The challenges we face are also a gift; we’ve opened our eyes and minds to possible alternatives to work, asking where its place should be in an ideal life.

You can hear it in the way we talk about work. Quiet quitting. Toxic productivity. The Great Resignation. Surely, you’ve heard at least one of these workplace-related buzzwords used recently. Each one hints at a question: Why work hard for an uncertain future? Why spend so much time doing things I hate?

I ask myself these questions frequently. And my answer is often unsatisfactory, cold, and true: Because I have to.

What Is Dad Guilt, Anyway?

“Lifestyle creep” is insidious. But it’s misunderstood. It refers to the idea that people believe that since they expect to earn more in the future, they’ll save more, too. Only to find out that their expenses grew roughly in lockstep with their income.

But it doesn’t apply today the same way it used to. When your “creep” is simply getting married, buying a reasonable house, or starting or growing a family, it’s no longer a question about your poor choices. It’s instead a call to action based on necessity.

My wife and I chose to have kids. When we did, we also chose to keep ourselves chained indefinitely to full-time employment. We’re living examples of the data cited above, with my wife working, but working less than I do. And with me raising our kids, but less than my wife does.

“Dad guilt” occurs in both cases. But in both cases, the offender is “work.” Simplistically, “dad guilt” refers to dads who feel like they should spend more time with their kids. It connotes the working dad becoming aware that the people he’s providing security for he barely knows; he’s missing out, and he doesn’t like it.

“‘Dad guilt’ refers to dads who feel like they should spend more time with their kids. It connotes the working dad becoming aware that the people he’s providing security for he barely knows; he’s missing out, and he doesn’t like it.”

But guilt is hardly simple. Search for “dad guilt” online, and you’ll find dozens of arguments for and against its very existence. I can assure you, being a dad myself, I feel this guilt. But I don’t feel it simply due to my overworking. I feel it when I skimp on work, too. Yes, I feel guilty sometimes when I’m spending time with my family.

At some point, dad guilt is just guilt. Traditional duties are assumed in the definition of “dad guilt,” but people contain multitudes; we feel guilt about things and people we care for, for feeling like we’re not doing enough for them or following through on what they expect of us.

Whether you’re a mom or dad or other caretaker, there’s a good chance that work will, at some point, feel not worth the time you’re spending at it. There’s also a good chance that avoiding working for an easier life in the future will eat at you if you stray too far from your goals.

For many of us, not working simply isn’t an option. When that’s the case, it can be easier to recognize what work affords you… and it also makes it much, much easier to resent it.

Guilt Is the Problem… and the Solution

Our roles as mom or dad are as interchangeable as ever, from the home to the office. Our expectations are shifting beneath our feet, but we can’t quite break free from the ideals of the past. Confusion takes hold. We feel lost. We feel pressured. Our identities are shallow. Our expectations are unfair.

So, what should we do? How do we choose when to work, when to play? Which role should we focus on today?

I’ve come to believe that work is not the necessary evil it’s often described as. Work is quite literally a human instinct. But it can certainly feel unimportant at times. Knowing what’s “right,” when it’s the right time to fulfill obligations versus forget about the future and insert yourself into your kids’ lives, is about perspective; it requires personal, individual definition. What do you want? What do you care about?

Our parents were fully aware of the sacrifices they were making. They simplified matters. They had defined for themselves their life well lived. 

But I’ve seen what happens when we view our measure of success myopically. I witnessed my dad serve his duty well and lose his life too early. He lived a meaningful life, and, were he here today, he would probably also say a full one. It’s simple. It’s meaningful. But, in my view, it’s incomplete. I never got to know my dad the way I would’ve wanted to. And I’ve vowed to not let that happen with my kids. 

I love being the primary earner in my family. My work brings with it a sense of importance beyond the actual work, which, if I’m doing it right, also serves a purpose I care about. But I’ll never be comfortable solely working for my legacy.

And that’s why I believe guilt is useful. It orients me toward something meaningful when I need a nudge. If I burrow my head too deeply in my work, I’ll eventually feel a nagging sense of that incompleteness. I’ll take the next week or month or sometimes more and restore balance. And when I go too far in that direction, when I’m avoiding work and notice the years going by, college and wedding costs and our retirement creeping closer, I’ll switch back and fulfill my parental duty.

With each turn, discomfort reigns. It can feel disorienting. Until and unless I follow what it tells me. I know I’ll never be able to sacrifice too much for too long. Parenting is about prioritizing. It’s all important. Earning, setting examples, listening, playing, educating, loving. What matters is knowing when to focus on what. And when your life gets too far out of balance.

“Earning, setting examples, listening, playing, educating, loving. What matters is knowing when to focus on what. And when your life gets too far out of balance.”

I would work even if I weren’t paid. Work fills me with confidence as well as pride. It can feel restorative until it doesn’t. The same goes for family life; it comes with all the same tradeoffs. You can be too engaged and burn out easily. The trick is to transfer the confidence and joy you get from one to the other. From work to home, from family back to work.

To Other Fathers Feeling “Dad Guilt”

So, use the guilt. Provide and protect. Play and work. Do your chores and relax. Do it all, and remind yourself that what you do will often feel insufficient. Because it will be; time will always run out. I might never earn the life for my family I’m envisioning. I will never get enough time with my daughter, my wife, or my newborn son. When my time runs out, I simply want to feel like I put everything I could into everything that was worth it. And the only way to achieve this, I believe, is to follow my emotions; in the end, they’ll tell me what I need to know.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew R. O’Brien, Contributing Writer

Matt is a freelance writer who spends the majority of his working days producing software for NASA’s Earth Science Data Systems Program, and is a husband and dad to two. Ever the multipotentialite, Matt’s interests vary widely, from watching and playing almost every sport or physical activity imaginable, to reading philosophy, self-help, and fantasy books, to even honing his set at DC area stand-up comedy clubs. Matt loves to nerd out on language, having studied linguistics and English grammar in college, and has parlayed this passion into a part-time writing consulting company called Matterwords.

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