I feel like the “marriage” is an entity into itself that might need to be considered, much like a corporation. The whole deal with a “breadwinner + homemaker” arrangement (increasingly difficult to achieve in America) is that the “breadwinner” can focus more on their career, presumably advancing farther, making more money, etc. because the homemaker is taking care of basically everything outside of that effort.
That’s all an investment, not a one time thing. There’s a reasonable expectation of a “return” on that homemakers investment.
I feel like there must be a fair way to recognize that in a divorce, and I don’t think it’s “once the breadwinner decides to retire, the homemaker is cut off.” People share in retirement, too.
Perhaps the alimony should change to a reasonable share of the retiree’s retirement income instead of whatever the pre retirement along was? Like based on how long the marriage was or something.
You raise a great point of view here on investment on behalf of the homemaker. Stay at home spouses pursue this avenue over a career under the assumption that they will be financially provided for for the rest of their lives, including at retirement age. Homemakers wouldn’t opt to do this for 20+ years if there was the guarantee that they will be dumped and abandoned in their twilight years, and there goes the financial plans and security as well. Even when you talk to young adults about all the “What if…?” scenarios that are anything other than both spouses dying peacefully side by side in their sleep at age 95, the socialization in favor of “family values” creates such a deep resistance to believing it could ever happen to me.
I also have been very intentional to stay as gender neutral in this discussion as possible because I think there is a slowly rising tide of stay at home husbands/dads in American society that are also opting out of a career in order to be homemakers, and they could eventually be harmed by the erosion of ex-spousal rights. I don’t think anyone is really talking about the implications on this dynamic. For a connection to history, the first gender-discrimination case Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued before the Supreme Court was Moritz to expand a tax refund program “for care takers” to include men because it is discriminatory to assume that only women are caretakers and deny access to federal rights to men because of it.
This is something that I’ve been putting more thought into which has previously been a generalized “the patriarchy hurts men, too” concern. But this Florida law in specific could have surprising consequences for a demographic in society (men) who haven’t historically accepted being screwed over by the system this damn badly.
This is a really good analysis, thank you.
I feel like the “marriage” is an entity into itself that might need to be considered, much like a corporation. The whole deal with a “breadwinner + homemaker” arrangement (increasingly difficult to achieve in America) is that the “breadwinner” can focus more on their career, presumably advancing farther, making more money, etc. because the homemaker is taking care of basically everything outside of that effort.
That’s all an investment, not a one time thing. There’s a reasonable expectation of a “return” on that homemakers investment.
I feel like there must be a fair way to recognize that in a divorce, and I don’t think it’s “once the breadwinner decides to retire, the homemaker is cut off.” People share in retirement, too.
Perhaps the alimony should change to a reasonable share of the retiree’s retirement income instead of whatever the pre retirement along was? Like based on how long the marriage was or something.
You raise a great point of view here on investment on behalf of the homemaker. Stay at home spouses pursue this avenue over a career under the assumption that they will be financially provided for for the rest of their lives, including at retirement age. Homemakers wouldn’t opt to do this for 20+ years if there was the guarantee that they will be dumped and abandoned in their twilight years, and there goes the financial plans and security as well. Even when you talk to young adults about all the “What if…?” scenarios that are anything other than both spouses dying peacefully side by side in their sleep at age 95, the socialization in favor of “family values” creates such a deep resistance to believing it could ever happen to me.
I also have been very intentional to stay as gender neutral in this discussion as possible because I think there is a slowly rising tide of stay at home husbands/dads in American society that are also opting out of a career in order to be homemakers, and they could eventually be harmed by the erosion of ex-spousal rights. I don’t think anyone is really talking about the implications on this dynamic. For a connection to history, the first gender-discrimination case Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued before the Supreme Court was Moritz to expand a tax refund program “for care takers” to include men because it is discriminatory to assume that only women are caretakers and deny access to federal rights to men because of it.
This is something that I’ve been putting more thought into which has previously been a generalized “the patriarchy hurts men, too” concern. But this Florida law in specific could have surprising consequences for a demographic in society (men) who haven’t historically accepted being screwed over by the system this damn badly.