- Good evening and welcome to a Feminist Perspective. I'm Linda Jones, Assistant Dean of women substituting as moderator this evening for Dr. Emily Taylor, the Dean of women who cannot be with us tonight. A Feminist Perspective is a weekly radio broadcast sponsored by the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center, a program and information service of the Dean of women's office, 222 Strong Hall. Tonight's broadcast is two career marriage. This evening we have three men with us who will be talking about their views of a two career marriage, as the second part in this series. Last week their wives appeared on the program and you may have heard their discussion then. A Feminist Perspective provides a forum for women themselves to speak publicly on issues of concern to them and helps inform other women and men of the movement, which is remaking the shape and substance of women's and men's lives. The Women's Resource and Career Planning Center contains large amounts of information, news clippings, government documents, magazine articles, research studies, and books pertaining to the many aspects of the women's movement. We would like to invite you to come in and browse or take advantage of the materials and services which we provide. That's in 222 Strong Hall at the University of Kansas. Well, good evening, gentlemen. Tonight we have with us three men who are one half each of a two career marriage. We have Dr. Walter Smith, who is a university administrator, as is his wife, Caryl Smith, also a PhD. We have Rex Crick whose wife Golda was on the program. And Dr. Paul Gilles, whose wife, Dr.Hellen Gilles was on the program last week. Would each of you tell us a little bit about what you do here at the university, as well as what kind of a career or involvement your wives have? Walter. - Well, I'm an Associate Dean of women. And in that capacity, I worked primarily with the residence halls and in academic advising through Pearson College and with the commission on the status of women primarily with the careers committee of the commission. My wife is also an Associate Dean of women and work. So we're some of the same kind of programs, residence halls, commission, and so forth. And I should have mentioned here that I didn't hear last week's tape. So my answers are not pre-rehearsed or supposed to necessarily agree with what my wife said last week. - That was my first question. If you'd heard the tapes or not. Rex, would you like to tell us what you do? - Yes, I'm a graduate student in geology. I'm a Research Assistant at the Kansas Geological Survey. And Golda as you know is a PhD student in curriculum and development education, and she also administers the Liberal Art Curriculum Library. - And did you listen to the program last week? - No. But Golda did bring home some questions. And we went over that briefly. - Okay. And Paul, what about you? - I'm a chemist. I participate in the teaching activities, the freshmen, seniors, graduate students, and postdoctoral research associates in the department. Our research activities are in high temperature chemistry and the use of small digital computers not as calculators, but rather as parts of experimental apparatus. My wife Hellen is a pediatrician. She is currently president of the school board, United School District 497. - Okay. And did you listen to the program last Monday night? - No, I did not. - Well, we have three people whose ideas will be their own without the direct influence in knowing what their wives have said. First of all, do you have any general comments about your wives' reactions to the program or anything that they shared with you? - Not really. I was pretty careful to try not to talk about it so that we wouldn't be biased. - Okay. Well, we'll go right on from there. One of the main things I think in having a two career marriage, being part of a two career family, would be how you came to that decision in terms of if this was a conscious thing when you first realized that you were interested in getting married, or, you know, if it evolved. And I'd like to hear a little bit from each of you on how you came to find both of yourselves involved in separate careers. - Well, perhaps I can go back and give a little history. I guess when I was in about high school, I assumed that whoever I married would stay at home and take care of the kids up until, oh, the kids were in high school maybe. And by the time I was an undergraduate, I thought, well, maybe she could go back to work about, oh, by the time the kids go to school. And then when I got married, I married a woman who was my boss, so to speak. She was a director of a residence hall, and I was a resident assistant in that hall. So I certainly knew very much that she had worked professionally and planned to work professionally. So at that point, at the time of the decision to get married, I was if not a conscious talked out decision that both of us would be working and we're certainly both aware that we were professional people. - Okay. Rex. - Well, I had always intended on being a professional, but I realized Golda has her own career, she's an individual. And there was never really any question, if never really any discussion which is more or less assumed, then she didn't get out of school. And she taught for awhile in elementary school in Lawrence. But I think the level at which he was educated and then being around at university stimulated her to go back to school and it has greatly helped understanding. And also from the point of studying, I mean, she now has studies to deal with. Before she didn't, she'd wanna do things, and I wanted to study. But now I fit much into that area. - Okay. Paul. - I was educated as a chemist, my wife was educated as a physician. It was quite natural that both of us would continue in professional activities. My own mother taught essentially for her entire lifetime. So I was not raised with a prejudice against the working woman. - Okay. What about the other of you two? Did you have parents who worked or came from more what we tend to think of as traditional backgrounds where the mother did not and stayed at home? - I think that's pretty important influence because my mom was a nurse until the time that I was in about junior high school, she didn't work. And then about that time, she went back to work and perhaps that's why when I was in high school, I thought, well, that was a fairly nice pattern to fit into. My wife's parents are both professors at Kan State. Then, of course, she had a different kind of role model. - And it was just the opposite. In my case, my mother was always a housewife and my father was, and that's what he would say, the breadwinner of the family. But it just seems that today there's just, and that's kind of a negative thing. It's not as bad to be a housewife, it's just that there's so much other things to do. I, myself, if I was home and I couldn't say staying around the house all day and cleaning and watching the television program. I think I would go totally out of my mind by doing it. - So you didn't expect that of her? - Oh, no. Not at all. - Okay. - Well, I think I disagree here a little bit. I don't think necessarily that it's a negative approach to life for a woman not to work. One of the features of education is that it gives each person a wider choice of what that person can do. And if a girl wishes her education, and then wishes to use it only in the home and in volunteer activities, that seems to me as a choice she's perfectly free to make and she ought to do what she wishes to do. - Okay. I agree with you in that respect. But what I mean is, you know, she's gonna have other outside activities, like you say, volunteer organizations and things like these. As far as our marriage, it was just assumed that this, you know, we both have our own professional careers. - Well, I think the important thing here is what you said in choice, and that she be free to make the decision to what she would like to do with her life whether it be a career, whether it be to stay at home, or whether it be a combination of both as either part-time job or working for a while, and then not working or maybe going to work or never going to work. Yeah, I think what you're saying is that it's okay with you, whatever she wants to do and that you think each woman should be able to do that. - That's right. - Well, I certainly agree with you on that point. And one thing in talking about home and working or staying at home, whatever, since all of you have wives who do work, have full-time commitments in terms of, you know, the professional realm, how did you work out handling the household? Did you sit down or how were the decisions made about who was gonna do what involved with just keeping up the household? Walter, you're laughing - Well, I was just thinking of when we come home at night, I'm usually the hungrier of the two. And so I was always pretty interested in getting supper on the table. And I don't know if that's exactly how it happened, but somewhere there I ended up doing most of the evening cooking at home, now at least during the week. So at least in that respect, it wasn't a conscious decision. It was just that I'm hungrier. - So you didn't sit down and say, all right, I'm going to do the cooking and you Caryl will do the laundry. It wasn't one of something like that? - No. And also, I think that we're talking about the role model before and in my own family's case, well, my mom was being a nurse, and my dad was a school teacher and school administrator. He would often get home earlier than my mother would and would do the cooking. So it seemed pretty natural to me. - Were some other parts of running the household for you something that you kind of both do, like maybe one week you'll do the vacuuming and the next week Caryl will, or does it work out that you have given yourselves specific tasks that are yours? - No, I don't think there's any drain off like that. When it comes time to do cleaning, we usually do it together. When we do the laundry, we usually do it together. I really dislike ironing and I haven't done that at all. Usually, I like to work with fingers a little more, so I keep the checkbook pretty much. - Well, how do you think this arrangement has worked out for you? You think it's an even share of the work for both of you? - Oh, I think so. I haven't added up the number of hours that each of us put in and that sort of thing. But, you know, some weeks she's busier than I am and vice versa. So I'm just trying to balance things out. - Okay. Rex, what about you? How's it worked out? - Well, I don't know. It just evolved. There was never any, except for Golda does, I would say at least 90% of the cooking, because she is a very good cook, and I haven't developed those skills. The cleaning, things like that, it's just whoever gets to it first. I mean, if I happen to be home and I have some free time, and it needs to be done, I do it, or I do the washing. It seems like whoever gets to it. And if it's more or it's like heavier type thing, like maybe forging and scrubbing the floor out, I would do that instead of her. - What about something like grocery shopping? - We do it together. Usually, always we do it together. It's just a thing we do together. It's not necessary, but we just, because if you make someone to carry the groceries at the car or whatever repair, man, but we just generally do it together. - Okay. And how do you think this has worked out for you? Do you think it's improving? - I'm probably profit more about it, because she also takes care of the finances, and at least me, even for her to concentrate on school or whatever I'm doing. So I would say that I probably profit by it more than she does. - Do you think she feels that way or have you talked about it? - We've discussed it and I don't think she feels that way. She likes to do it and it's just like I take care of the automobiles and things like that. And I enjoy doing that. So I think she enjoys doing the financial stuff, and she enjoys cooking. So I think on that basis, it's probably an even drain off. - Okay. What about you? - Our situation is different, of course. Ever since we moved from sunny side, we've had help in the home always on a part-time basis. The people whom we hire do much of the cleaning. They formerly did much of the dishes, but now we have a dishwasher that takes care of that. Currently, my wife's mother is with us, though she's now 91 or 92. She demands her place in the kitchen to take care of the cleaning up after the meals. And that's a very great help. And it relieves both of us from that kind of activity. I suppose if we did put it rather brutally, my wife does the cooking, and I bring in the newspapers. As far as shopping is concerned, my wife normally does that. But I can push a cart really very effectively, matter of fact, I enjoy going grocery shopping with her. She usually does most of the grocery shopping on her way home from the office. I take care of most of the automobile problems, and as Rex has indicated he does. - I see. And do you think that this is an even drain off or does it work for you? - I'll be glad to answer the question if you'll tell me what you mean by an even drain off? - Well, I think what I'm trying to say by that is that, you feel that by the things that you do, you give her enough free time to do the things that she would like, and in the same, even drain off then, that what she does gives you enough time to do some extra things that you enjoy. - Oh, I think I can answer yes to that. The way we work it out, most of the household chores are accomplished by my wife. She enjoys cooking. She does a splendid job of it. I know how to wash dishes. I learned that at home. I have done for my mother. I have not done very much of it in our home. From my point of view, it's very satisfactory. - Well, that's good to hear. Sounds like all of you seem satisfied. - What did she say in response to this? - We have the tape, we can play it back right afterwards. - I think I'll let you ask her. No, I think everyone pretty much agreed on that. Now in the home, we've talked about lots of different things. We haven't mentioned one small item that being children. For some of the listeners who might not have been listening last Monday night, I'd like you to say, if you do have children and how that happened in terms of did you come to the decision to have children at a specific time in your careers? Or, you know, how did the whole thing evolve? - Well, we have one son who's five years old now, and he attends Hilltop Daycare Center here on campus, which I think is just an excellent thing for him. We were talking before about whether the wife should be working and that sort of thing. It seems to me that from Hilltop and other kinds of daycare situations that perhaps he's had a better learning experience in his preschool years than what he might have had had he been at home. But that isn't really answering your question. You wanna know how we happened to come to this decision. Well, I can't say that we sat down and decided, well, now is the time to have kids. We had been using the birth control methods and certainly we made a decision not to use them. And, of course, then we realized that that made it possible for us to have kids then. So I can't say that we had decided that this was the time to have a child, but we certainly decided that we're getting kind of that at that point in our life. And yes, there was a very conscious decision about children. It wasn't just by accident or anything like that. - Okay. What about you, Rex? - Well, I think we don't have any children. And the reason is, I think, mainly we'd like to finish our careers first or maybe plan it. But we will have a child just prior to leaving Lawrence and it's purely a professional decision in contact with her professional girl. We feel that we just don't have the time right now to devote to a child. - And we went in a very similar situation. We went through most of our graduate training and then went to Cincinnati and only got there. Caryl worked for awhile, and then we decided, well, now it is time to start having a family. - Have you discussed the possibility of children in the future? - No, definitely. - And have you planned to have children? - Oh, certainly, yeah. And we feel it wouldn't be in the child's best interest right now with school and pressure and things like these, like kind of influence both our professional growth and the child's development. - Okay. What about you? - Nothing would have upset our plan so much as to have a child when I was a graduate student and my wife was a medical school student or an intern or a resident. When we wanted children, we planned them and it worked. Now my wife has not worked full time, all the time that we've been in Lawrence. And only recently has she been working full time. I think in connection with the care of the children, thought it be pointed out that the quality of care and the quality of time that is expended with the children may well be much more important than the quantity of time. And for my wife, working professionally as she does, she finds herself in a position in which she has emotional outlet in her work, she has emotional outlet at home, she's a much more contented person when she's at home than she would be where she now working. So from the point of view of quality experience for our children, it's a great thing that my wife works. - Okay. That brings up an interesting point in that I've heard many people say, well, when you have a baby, the wife should really stay home for at least a couple of years because so much of the influence of those early years will shape the life of that child than exposing him or her to daycare centers, into a variety of people, will only confuse a child or be detrimental to the shaping of the child's character, whatever. And obviously you disagree with this. I wonder what some of the rest of you think about that? - Well, I certainly don't have any pat answer to that. My wife was at home with our son for about the first year and a half of his life. And I think that that was a very good situation. And I think she enjoyed the opportunity not to work for awhile too and enjoyed the kind of things that she was doing around the home. On the other hand, I think that the daycare situation is very good. In our case we have only one child. I think he's had just an awful lot of opportunity to be with other kids and learn how to interact with other people that he wouldn't have had had he been at home by himself. - Okay. How did you come to the decision or what happened where your wife stayed home for 18 months after the baby was born? - I have a facetious answer to that. First part of our marriage, Caryl was the primary breadwinner and I wasn't, and that was kind of time to even things up. And in order to do that, she had to get out of the job market for awhile. Oh, it just seemed sort of natural to us. I was teaching and we could afford to live with that one income. So it seemed very possible for her to stay at home and the last thing to do. - And she wanted to. - Well, I think so. - I think there's another aspect of this. It's worthwhile pointing out. If the wife is working then the husband has a better opportunity to be a real part of the life of the children. - I think that's a very interesting point. I'm a single person, but from what experience I've seen with friends who are married and have two career marriages, I certainly agree with it. You know, I've seen evidence to support it, that the child tends to know both parents better, and, you know, spends like you say more quality time with them. Yeah. That's my view on it. To change the subject a little bit. What effect do you feel being a part of a two career marriage has had on your own individual career? In terms of thinking traditionally, your wife is not playing that traditional role of being at home and being able to be the social host this full time as well as to be the main support for you and having that as the only thing or the most important thing in her life. And what do you think this has done to your career? If you were not married, would you perhaps be elsewhere or doing something different than you are? - I think there are two aspects on the positive side and perhaps one on the negative side. For a woman who is engaged in a career, a considerable amount of her energy goes into that. And hence she makes less demands on her husband, I think, for extraneous activities, and hence he can devote more of his efforts to his professional life. The second aspect in our own case is that my wife's activities and medicine have given me an opportunity to see a much broader range of life than I possibly could in my own activities. That is what has kept me out of the ivory tower. In a sense, the negative aspect is that if both people are working, the mobility of the family is substantially diminished. Because if both wished to continue to work, then they both need to find occupations in the same location. - Do you feel that that has hindered your career? - No. Not at all. - How was the decision made to come back to Lawrence? - Oh, that was easy. - Who was offered the job or, you know, how did it happen? - My wife's notion was that she was going into private practice, a physician didn't go into private practice in many places. The opportunity to come to the University of Kansas came to me. We considered it carefully. We knew that our children then yet unborn, we thought at least they would be raised in a more wholesome environment in Kansas than in Berkeley where we then were. So everything fit together nicely and we returned to Lawrence. - Okay. Rex, do you have some comment on that, on how it's affected your career? - I think for myself being a graduate student has probably hindered me, but not in a negative, you know, hinder is a bad word, but I'm trying to say that I would spend more time in the lab. I'd probably spend more time in the library. However, it might've been counterproductive. I mean, it might've been to that point. It's made me in aware more whole person, I think. Cause I get her views on things and her outlooks. So in a way, I don't develop things to the point I'd like to maybe in school, but I still attain the level that's desired. It's just I feel like I put more into it than I do, but that's just because I like what I do. It's just like anything, you know. You take a kid to the candy store, he'll always want more than one piece of candy even though he doesn't really need it. - Walter, what about you? - Well, I'm sure it has an effect on our career. Certainly, I'm not gonna have the opportunity now or whenever I'd want to take the opportunity to say, well, Caryl, we're gonna go to X town or X university now because I have a job there. I can't just order her around like that. We both have to be thinking about what our career possibilities are. So as we go through these kinds of decisions, it was difficult when we were looking for jobs a couple of years ago and came to the University of Kansas and if we would be looking for jobs again in the future, I'm sure that that'll be a difficult thing. On the other hand, it is nice to have the economic security that I'm not the only breadwinner in the family. And if anything would happen to me, she could continue on with the economic support of our family. So that's a nice insurance policy, so to speak. - We have just very few moments remaining, but I did want to check and see if any of you feel that the aspects of the two careers have had any effect on you maintaining your own individuality, both as people in your profession and as human individuals as men. - Positive, in fact. - That's good. - I think so. I guess, like I said, it even makes me more aware individual. It has no adverse effects at all. - I would say that the effects are positive. I'm almost sure that I would be doing something a little bit different if I weren't married right now because of the kind of considerations that my wife and I have had to take into account in order to both of us pursue professional lines of endeavor. So it has had an effect on us. - Okay. Well, this evening we've talked about a two career marriage from the point of view of the husband. And we've covered lots of different areas and topics, and I'm sure that our three participants are going to go home and now double check with their wives and see what they said. There were very many similarities, a couple of differences. - But I notice this says that's not what Caryl said. - A couple of differences. So I think we've talked about lots of important things, among them the decision-making process, and how people got to be in this situation of being part of a two career marriage. And talking about the home, it seems to be that just the maintenance of a household somehow comes out so that each of the individuals does compensatory work for the other so that both parties seem to feel pretty secure and pretty satisfied with that arrangement. In terms of thinking about children, this also seems to be an area where careful thought and consideration has been given, and where the parents seem to feel that what they have chosen in terms of their career will have a positive effect on the lifestyle. We would like to thank you for joining us, each of you three for a Feminist Perspective, as well as to the listening audience and encourage you to tune in next Monday night, when we will, again, broadcast a Feminist Perspective. Good evening. - It was played by That just about does it for our short edition of bluegrass. For tonight, we have a basketball game coming up very shortly here on K&U. And because of that, we'll be getting out of here now and inviting you to join me next week at seven o'clock on K&U and bluegrass will return. Until that time, this is Dan Curry, saying have a good week and remind me next week to tell you about some very exciting things in the way of bluegrass music that are going to be happening here at the University of Kansas. I'll try to remember to do that. And we have plenty of time for me to remind you of it so you won't miss it. So we'll try to get that done next week and listen to some more bluegrass music as well. Until next week at seven o'clock, this is Dan Curry saying, so well.