What happens in your head and your heart when the husband on whom you've learned to depend finds his job so bad that he feels he must leave it, suddenly and without any plan?
We are, by today's ideas, an old-fashioned (传统的) family: four children, a house, one of two cars paid for. Like many women with children, I want to raise my children in person. I do photography, and sometimes make some money to add to the money my husband, Jack, makes. I like this way of doing things. Not long ago, however, I had to take a new and uncomfortable look at the way I've lived my married life.
I knew that Jack was unhappy at work. But I didn't know that he'd take such a big step without saying anything first. I could hardly believe it when he came home that day and told me, quietly, that he had left his job.
Jack had worked in the same office for more than 10 years. He had gone on to become a manager. With time, we'd achieved more and more money and security(安全感). Now, without his job, all security, everything we'd planned on for the future, was gone. Now, without a chance to say anything, I was cut off from my future, too. What had been our money and security was gone. It had never been ours, really, it had been Jack's. If I said that before, Jack always corrected me. "Ours," he said. But time proved him wrong.
I became angry, for my time had been spent just as his. I'd spent many hours finding the best prices(价格), so as to save money. Jack may have worked to make his salary(工资), but I worked to make that salary work for us.
But my money and security all came from my husband. I had no control over them. Why had this never worried me before? Perhaps because I'd never had to think about it before. I should point out that I'm not just thinking about myself. Our children would, in fact, be the losers if some big problem should happen during the time Jack is between jobs. And they're the reason that I worry about our security.
But I don't think that I'll ever forget what I've learned in the days since Jack left his job: that, in many ways, I and millions of other women don't realize the truth. Our working conditions and hours on the job can't be changed. We always take our work home with us. And if we look closely at our economic future, we see only someone else's face.
After 15 years of doing housework, I've only now come to understand this truth. Now I better understand my younger sisters who question the idea of giving control of their economic futures to someone else. It's a dangerous thing to do.
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A Woman Looks at the Future
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