Just Because I'm a Wife Doesn't Mean My Money is Funny

Recently, we had the misfortune of getting into a car accident – one day before my birthday.

Imagine my ire that it was caused by the total carelessness of a driver hailing from the most expensive, ritzy county in our area, who had decided to cross from the rightmost lane to traverse three lanes of traffic, just to turn into a gas station he had already passed. In the process, he struck my beloved BMW X3, which was traveling slightly behind him in the same direction, in the neighboring lane.

My car sustained significant front-end damage. Because the car was still drivable, I initially speculated that the extent of the damage would be primarily cosmetic. However, as the car was dismantled for the adjusters to assess the losses and calculate the repair costs, it became clear that it was awash. My long-paid-off vehicle was no more, and the insurance company cut us a check for its market value.

The X3 was fabulous. We had a great relationship.

So my husband and I embarked on the quest to find a replacement. My X3 was beginning to show the challenges of its compact size; my daughters' lengthening limbs were beginning to cram for space and comfort. So we wanted something bigger and child-friendly, with high marks for safety and a good warranty, but that certainly was not a minivan.

We decided on a Lincoln MKT with the EcoBoost engine, whose performance and kick have been praised and given high marks in car trades. We traveled out of state to get it, as the only one in our area had been clearly owned by a smoker; it stunk of cigarettes and had a grungy, shadowy cast on all of the interior. At the dealership, we were greeted warmly by the salesman, as we had spoken to him several times on the phone already.

 Lincoln MKT 

When we test drove it, I was handed the keys first, and the salesman sat in the passenger's seat beside me. When we were done trying it out, he asked what I thought of it and seemed interested in my feedback. However, imagine my chagrin once we were in the sales office, ready to make a deal, and the tables started to turn.

I began to fade into the background, like nondescript wallpaper. All of the important questions were pointed to my husband. Questions about warranties and details about what being a certified vehicle were explained to him, eye-to-eye, with only a cursory glance at me. Even when we both filled out financing paperwork, which clearly showed what I was bringing to the table, my husband by default was listed as the primary applicant, without the salesperson ever asking us what we wanted or intended. (In fact, if I recall correctly, I was actually listed as the primary applicant!).

Later, when we got home and I started reviewing the mountains of paperwork, I saw that my name had been omitted from key documents, including but not limited to the authorization to register the vehicle in our state! So my money was good enough to garner them a profit and help them meet monthly quotas, but not enough to be treated as an adult, capable of making decisions and bringing resources to the table for a major transaction?

This is not the first time this has occurred. In every house purchase we've made together (three to date – yes, we've moved a bit), a very similar scenario has played out. Here I am, an educated professional woman who just happens to be married, and I am implicitly undermined in the process. My profession, my income and my credit becomes treated like an ancillary grab bag, when in fact, they've all been pertinent to our ability to acquire or access the transaction we were making.

As insulting as I find this, I have to wonder if such antiquated treatment, seemingly instituted into the process of making major financial transactions, is encoded with the gender norms people instinctively feel should be at play? For example, today's workplaces are still structured as though all women are home in aprons, nursing babies and baking cookies. But the reality is that most mothers are in the workplace, especially once the children are school-aged.

Moreover, is there the ethos of presumed male providership in these transactions? Culturally, are financial institutions and their exponents hardwired to assume a man – a husband, especially – is the autonomous monetary provider in a household? How does this bode for the current realities that are much more different, in a world and time when more and more wives earnmore and have more formal education than their husbands? Or when more husbands and wives are full partners, not adhering to the traditional gender script?

I don't know, really.

But I do know that the next time it happens, I'll speak up and walk out, finding someone with a more progressive approach to such dealings. 

Exhibit C: The Demise of Pensions

I've been working for the past 20 years, since I was 15 years old and had my first real gig as a part-time sales associate at Lady Footlocker.

In my two decades of working for pay, I've never, ever had the luxury of being at an employer that gave me any sense of built-in security or financial protection for the long haul. And I've had some pretty nice jobs at some well-revered employers.

However, through the years, on multiple occasions, my father has made references to "getting a good job with a pension." He's doled out these words of widsom as advice, common sense and part of any thinking person's plan for the future. As a now-retired Baby Boomer and the up-and-coming beneficiary of all sorts of entitlements that may not be around when I qualify for them (such as Social Security and Medicare), I've taken his utterances in this vein with little more than a grain of salt.

Why?

Because pensions have gone the way of acid-washed jeans, jelly shoes and big teased and sprayed bangs.

But what is a pension? It is a defined benefit in which an employer promises to pay a specified monetary amount upon retirement that is calculated based on the employee's earnings, tenure on the job, age and other potential factors.

Let's juxtapose this with the 401(k), which many of us are probably familiar with and participate in on our jobs. The 401(k) is a defined contribution (note: not benefit) plan that working employees may contribute pre-tax dollars to, up to IRS-defined limits each year. Sometimes the employer matches employee contributions up to a certain amount, typically from 2-5 percent of the employee's annual salary. This is known as the employer match, though many companies offer 401(k) plans without matching at all.

People like my father may be among the last generation to receive pensions. According to Bankrate.com, in 1984, 24.2 million individuals were enrolled in a traditional pension. Today, that number has been sliced by more than half to fewer than 11 million these days, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Around the early-mid-2000s, the pension debacle began getting more attention. For example, more companies began seeking relief from their pension-promising responsibilities. United Airlines was one of them: "Imagine being with a woman for 31 years and having that relationship shattered one day to find out you've been lied to and cheated," said Jedynak, a customer service agent at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport since 1974. "You're going to ask yourself, were you a fool? Why didn't I see it coming?"

Such employees have found their planned pension dollars being converted to typical 401(k) plans. And companies aren't the only ones seeking relief from pension promises - the unfunded pension liailities of government at the local, state and federal levels have been written about extensively. Every state in the Union is in the hole when it comes to fulfilling their pension promises to its employees.

What has become an unsustainable situation for government and corporations has become an equally tenuous one for workers who 1) thought they would be able to count on their pensions and 2) believed they would one day be able to get a job with a pension or believed that 401(k)s were an apt replacement for a pension.

There have been a number of critiques written about 401(k)s. They rely heavily on the investment options available within a particular plan; they count on the ability of laypersons who are not well-versed in finance to make very serious decisions about their contributed dollars; any gains or losses are at the mercy of the market; an employer may choose to discontinue employer matching at will; and there are shadowy fees (not transparently disclosed) tied to 401(k)s.

And it takes a lot of scrimping, saving and sacrificing to make a 401(k) have any hope of performing like a pension. Take this from The Finance Buff: "It takes about 15-20% of your pay to get to the level a typical pension plan once paid. If you want to achieve the same level of retirement income, you will need to target the contributions at 15-20% of your pay, counting your employer match.
The Vanguard report says that including employer match, employees with an income between $50k and $100k should save at least 12% of income; 15% of income if the income is over $100k. Given the uncertainty over Social Security and salary growth, I would bump these numbers up by a few percentage points."

So, the truth is that there are no certainties or assurances in married working mothers working full-time anymore. And if some would argue otherwise, I guess we could all agree that there are certainly fewer, at least. So we assume not only the tax burden, but also the sole responsibility of paying for current living expenses while saving for a not-so distant retirement 30-40 years away. All this in the midst of a workplace culture that is unfriendly, if not toxic, to modern families (limited to no flexibility; stereotypes about women, especially mothers; and much more).

I have started to think that the best ways to save for the future are:

1) Get out of debt.
2) Buy property (and rent them out as the value increases).
3) Be entrepreneurial.

What do you think?

Exhibit B: Social Security

For years, one of the arguments made in favor of working full-time after becoming a married mother was, "You gotta work to earn Social Security."

And I bought it - hook, line and sinker.

Who wants to be destitute and elderly? Who wants to depend on the charity of their grown children, with their own priorities and obligations, in advancing age? Who is willing to live without a safety net?

After all, it only made sense. You earn Social Security based on your work history and the longevity of it, right? So any delay or interruption or all-out abandonment of it would render one completely ineligible for it, correct?

Wrong!

Imagine what went through my mind when I learned that wives who have been married to their husbands for 10 years or more are eligible for Social Security benefits based on their spouses. That can qualify wives for up to half of their husband's benefits. So, for example, if your husband is due to receive $1,500 a month in Social Security, then you could reasonably anticipate $750 a month in your own name, once the spouse has filed for benefits.

This is true for wives who have always worked, like me, and for those who never have, or who stopped doing so. That said, working married mommas such as myself are helping to foot the Social Security benefits for stay-at-home married mothers who may one day realize 50 percent of their husband's projected Social Security dollars. In other words, stay-at-home mothers are able to benefit from retirement Social Security funds without having contributed to it.

I am not being a naysayer or a hater, but this is a seldom disclosed fact that had never been made plain to me!

As an aside, this is one of the benefits/entitlements of marriage that should have women in long-term relationships with men who won't marry them re-thinking the value of "that little piece of paper." If you're cohabitating with some dude for 10 years and not married, you don't earn Social Security. If you're married to your husband for 10 years, whether you work or not, and even if you divorce and don't re-marry, you are eligible for half of his. Think about that.

On the other hand, a working wife cannot collect her own earned Social Security benefits plus one-half of her husband's, based on what I've found.

You can learn more on Social Security Benefits as a Spouse from the Social Security Administration.

Exhibit A: The Marriage Penalty

We working married mothers, particularly those of us in the professional realm, are generally well aquainted with the litany of reasons why working full-time after having children is beneficial.

For starters, we're not "wasting" our education - all that time spent in college reading books, taking tests and doing internships. Secondly, we're preserving our autonomy; if our husbands ever get out of hand and we need to leave, or if he loses his job unexpectedly, our paychecks become an invaluable relief valve. Thirdly, we can live better with more financial resources before us. After all, bringing in a second income, for some of us, makes the difference in which neighborhoods we can afford to live in; being able to take our families on vacations; and, certainly, putting aside a little extra for general savings and, hopefully, retirement. Fourthly, working full-time supposedly does something for our self-esteem and emotional state, as working mothers are reportedly less depressed and healthier than our stay-at-home counterparts.

So, in light of all this, why might it not make as much sense to spend about 20 years (and that's if you're just raising one or two children close in age) exhausted, burning both ends at the candle and trying to make lemons into lemonade?

Well, my friends, let me introduce to you the marriage penalty. The essence of the marriage penalty is this: It's not technically, legally, a penalty levied discriminatorily on married couples. Instead, it's a combination of the weighty tax burdens forced upon two-earner households, which commonly consist of a married husband and wife who both work.

I had heard of the marriage penalty for years, but I didn't really have an understanding of what it meant or how it worked. As written in "Women and Taxes" by Edward J. McCaffery, it goes something like this: "When a wife enters the labor market, even if she earns only the minimum wage, she is automatically in her husband's tax bracket. . . . Combine a 28 percent federal income tax with an 8.5 percent state and local income tax, then add a 7.65 Social Security (FICA) payroll tax, and the marginal tax rate of the second earner in the average household is more than 44 percent!" (emphasis and exclamation point mine).

After accounting for this tax burden, then adding the usual expenses associating with working - lunches, office-appropriate attire, gas, transportation and automotive costs, child care, ordering takeout (because you're too damed tired or it's too late to cook), then the average married working woman is actually seeing just about a third of her wages, according to McCafferty. And, additionally, some women, especially those at the lower end of the pay scale, actually lose money by working.

McCaffery goes on to make it plain. He explains why these economic burdens and realities are the reasons why many women at the upper reaches of the economic ladder (those married to high-paid men and who, by themselves, make high salaries, too) tend to opt out and stop working once the children come. He also says that these economic burdens make marriage an unattractive option for low-income mothers, since tying the knot would mean that they, too, would face the marriage penalty and lose their ability to qualify for all the programs and perks single mothers can receive (WIC, special college grants, Section 8 housing, and other types of public assistance).

You really must read the McCaffery paper to understand the full context of the issue and how nefarious it can be for married working mothers. Of course, it does not mean that working is not economically beneficial at all to some married working mothers. After all, even if close to half of your perceived salary is consumed by assorted taxes and work-associated expenses, that's still half of what you earn coming into the household. For me, after I read this paper and did some other research and number-crunching, I realized that I actually benefit from about 60 percent of what I thought I was making and contributing.

I am not saying that figure is inconsequential and meaningless. My income certainly provides the necessities and benefits, plus some, of what I outlined at the start of this entry. However, if I had known eight years ago what I just figured out a few months ago, I probably would have made some different choices. In retrospect, I see how little of what I thought I was making actually came into our household. And when I think about all the stress, arguments, fatigue and sadness I faced while in the earliest trenches of motherhood, I do not think it was worth it. This especially likely would have been true back then when I was earning significantly less than I do now. (Research and studies go on to say at what income level it might not make a lot of economic sense of a married mother to work; I believe it was if she earns under $40K, on average.)

So what now? For me, I'm still not exactly sure. I've got about 13-14 years of active parenting ahead of me, and I don't really plan to spend it the way I have.

Next we'll look at other reasons it might not make sense to keeping working, hustling and striving like a Hebrew slave.

Squeezed into Submission: Making a Lifestyle Out of a "Tightstyle"

Our trusty Merriam-Webster Dictonary defines "purpose" as:

a: something set up as an object or end to be attained: intention

Even a cursory look at the backlog of previous blog entries on this site will show that I've spent a lot of time, for a long time, writing about my purpose. A more incisive look will reveal that I've spent a good deal of time complaining about my feelings of purposelessness through the filter of analyses, studies and published reports, precisely as they pertain to working motherhood.

Of course, it hasn't been and is not the case that I don't truly care about the battles mothers who work outside the home wage each day; it has been, however, that the inequities, encumbrances and obstacles faced by women in this situation have monopolized my mind, to some extent, because this very condition is what has hindered the achievement of purpose for me.

I knew it was all coming to a head when I wrote a poem titled "Where Did the Time Go?" about a woman who was trying to remember what had been going on in her life for, say, the past 12 years. And memories of workplace meetings and artificial, robotic greetings by the community coffee pot pervaded her mind. When the woman in the poem realizes what's been lost - and at what cost - she ultimately wonders if it's too late to change anything in any sort of effectual way.

Of course, all sorts of cultural cues will let us know that black women dare not think in this vein. Hell, if our grandmomma and great-grandmomma did this, then it must be okay! (Insert sarcasm.)

I feel like I've been an online bot for years now, spidering and crawling my way around life in two primary spheres: work and home. Just like bots simulate human activity, I now realize I've been giving off the impression that this soul-sucking duality is okay. In fact, with all I've accomplished, it appears to have been expedient. In reality, it's been injurious in a host of ways.

• Would you believe that for the past nine years, I've been promising myself I'd escape to a local coffee shop, buckle down and spend an afternoon writing or reading?

• Can you believe that even if you live near relatives, getting a baby sitter you trust is damn near impossible, and your personal time with your husband is just as imbalanced as it would be if you lived 500 miles away? Plus, you've got too many meetings for lunch dates anyway.

• What would you do if you spent an extra hour or three a day, several days a week, on top of working 8-10 hours a day, just to keep your house looking like it doesn't belong on an episode of Hoarders?

• What do you think of, according to Salary.com, that the administrative blocking and tackling work that most working moms do (clean, cook and counsel, among them) would add more than $85,000 to her current annual salary?

• How do you respond when something deep inside you feels that something fundamentally plain is totally wrong and lop-sided?

• Have you realized that according to the Pew Research Center, only 37 percent of working mothers would prefer to actually work full-time?

• And, finally, what do you do when you try to navigate the waters as best you can, take a deep breath, and actually present a feasible alternative, on a trial basis, to your place of employment - only to have it rejected by Baby Boomers with stay-at-home wives?

The net effect of this lifestyle is that it isn't much of one. Instead, I'll call it a tightstyle. Why? Because the chokehold of its grip intensifies throughout the day, over the course of weeks, months and years until . . . some women just can't do it anymore.

Take for example the lady who started Working Moms Break, a blog for mothers who "do it all but wonder why they should." She damn near had a nervous breakdown before her husband got the message. Then there's been the highly publicized story about the D.C. lawyer penning a detailed and entertaining memo before departing for more sane and tranquil pastures. There's also MommyFriend, who let it all go after feeling a way that's very familiar to me. And conversations about this would be remiss without a mention of Mocha Moms, the organization for mothers who've left full-time employment for more meaningful modes of living.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't alone a complaint about working or needing to work or wanting to generate income or even liking the professional world of agendas, meetings and sensible 2.5-inch pumps. It's not about longing for the days of my daughters' infancy or pining for periods of early maternity I will never be able to recapture or rekindle.It's not about staying home baking apple pies from scratch or knitting scarves for the Little Ladies instead of heading to Target to buy them instead.

It's that this incredibly normal American tightstyle is fundamentally skewed, unhealthy and ridiculous. I don't like this New Normal. And our workplaces aren't helping much, either. And governmental policies and laws leave much to be desired.

So, I've reached the point where I am willing to make reasonable sacrifices - ones I've been heretofore unwilling to make - so that I can breathe and that we all can live a little better. In coming blogs, I'll share with you some of the salient facts and figures that have made it all the more clear.

  

Back to the Middle

(my cut locks)

"Needing to protect your self now that is just a part of life
If you let your fears keep you from flying, you will never reach your height
To get to the top you must come back to the middle
When will we learn, to come back to the middle . . . "

("Back to the Middle," India Arie)

I'm back. Are you willing to have me?

My last post on Black Married Momma was in March 2011. That means more than a year has gone by since I actively posted to my blog. So what happened?

1. No, I was not suffering from blogger fatigue. In fact, my blog was my respite from the ridiculousness of my everyday, super-paced life. It was an outlet for me to not only think (cause my mind is running all the time), but to actually articulate just a few of the many thoughts pervading my mind. It also gave me a platform to speak about true passions of mine: black marriage, the black family, black people, black history, black present and black future.

2. I was not kidnapped. Of course, if I had been, you probably wouldn't have heard about it. After all, I am a black woman, and the media still doesn't cover missing sisters like they do white children and blonde white women.

3. I did not get divorced. Getting divorced, of course, would have ruined the brand of my blog and perhaps my very ability to write about the many married-oriented topics I address here. So, trust, my marriage is still intact and, in fact, I dare say thriving.

4. I did not lose my kids. I am still a mother. No, I didn't move to Nebraska and decide to abandon my children under the "Safe Haven" law. My girls are still fabulous and, sadly, growing up all too fast.

5. I did not stop caring about parenting, marriage, relationships and black culture. If anything, having taken a break, I have much more to say and write about. So much has continued to happen in pop culture, modern America and the sub-culture of our community that begs commentary, analysis and study.

In my time away, I have had a few new experiences and accomplished several things that have led me to think, re-think, think some more, and re-think again about a variety of things. One physically major thing I did was cut my locks off to my shoulders and then unravel what was left!

But hair aside, I've been contemplating some pretty heavy stuff. How I want to spend my time. What I am doing with my life. How much time I have left, should I reach my medically projected life span. If I am living purposefully, with meaning and intent. Whether I am just going with the flow, or proactively redirecting the water to new, parched vistas of opportunity and need.

I'll share more in the days and weeks to come. Will you rejoin me? I hope so.

Who Are Your Celebrity Lookalikes?

Do you have a celebrity lookalike? I have a couple whose names have popped up time and time again over the years during those rare moments when people associate my face with someone in the limelight. Who are they?

Well, first, there is Chaka Khan. In fact, just last night, I was told by several people that I look like a "young Chaka Khan," so much so that I should book a trip to L.A. if I ever hear they're filming a movie based on her life story. Here's an image of Miss Chaka from WAY back in the day.

Even when trying to look at her objectively, I must say that I understand why some people think I look like her. In fact, I have had moments when I thought the same thing, without provocation.

My other lesser known celeb twin is Cedella Marley, one of reggae legend Bob Marley's daughters. She's now a clothing designer and recording artist in her own right (even after being part of the Melody Makers). Here's a snapshot of her.

When I look at myself and when I hear other people tell me I look like either of these women or someone else entirely, I think about my ancestry - and my ancestors. I mull over the many genes and DNA strands that have come together to create the individual I see in the mirror. When I see Nigerians (especially since I learned that my ancestral paternal line hearkens back to the Yoruba of Nigeria), many of whom I have noticed have narrow, almond-shaped eyes, I wonder if that's where mine came from. But also knowing that I have some Native American contributions flowing through my gene pool, I also wonder if that characteristic may come from them. I have the same hypothesis about my rather prominent cheekbones. I wonder who - or which people - gave me what. I wonder who these people were, what they endured, how they measured success in life, if they were content or happy, even amid the challenges and assaults on their humanity that they doubtless encountered.

I think ... damn ... I must be among the strongest of the strong, from a spiritual and historical perspective, as I represent those who descended from millennia of existing civilizations before being stolen via the western shores of The Continent, and who survived months in inhumane conditions, among the urine, feces, bodily fluids, vomit, disease and stench of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, who endured being "seasoned" (made to appear healthy once on shore) and who dealt with being stripped away from all people and things familiar in the process of being sold and moved - no telling how many times - as commerce. Moreover, I am the descendant of those who, after being bondswomen and bondsmen, lived through another 100 years of de facto racism, wholly supported and maintained by these United States.

Oh, and if I go down the Native American line, I am even that much stronger.

While I am sure the 15 percent of European genes that science says I have in my veins must somehow present themselves, I tend to minimize and negate those potential qualities unconsciously. It's like, yo, that's not even on my radar, son. :-)

Anyway, who do you look like? What do you see when you look in the mirror? For you, is it just visual, or does it produce a visceral response in your spirit and mind?