Being That You Brought Her, I Trust You Shall Be So Kind As To Pelham Manor

Oh my goodness. Did you know that some unemployed high-powered executive-type males have had to (GASP) STAY HOME AND CARE FOR THE CHILDREN??? The New York Times confirms it is true. At least in Pelham Manor, New York. Pelham Manor? Really? Your whole rich people suburb is one manor? How does that work? Was "Fancypants Acres" taken? Hold on while I add this to the list of things I hate and fear. Okay.

Titans of industry are losing their jobs left and right in ye olde Pelham Manor, so some of these unfortunate fellows have had to stay home with the kids while their wives work. What is this world coming to, when men who were once paid way too much to buy and sell things that are not real must stay home and raise little humans while their helpless, delicate wives go out and earn the money? The men have to cook dinner and pick kids up from school, while the women are presumably being preyed upon by wolves and mustache-twirling villains in the forest outside the village. The whole natural order of things is upset! Pelham Manor, I feel like I don't even know you any more!

Things are looking especially rough for unemployed dad Jerry Levy. He's had trouble fitting in at PTA meetings because he "tends to tackle matters with a bluntness honed in the financial industry" (translation: "is an asshole").* But Jerry has a lot of money saved up, and has taken over many of his wife's chores. Oh yeah, his wife? Doesn't have to work either. And they have a nanny. So, you know, pretty typical American family. Except for the shame--THE SHAME!--of being a stay-at-home dad.

...Mr. Levy said, one uncomfortable aspect of his new life is a certain loss of power. “At work, you are used to everyone listening to you — assistants, accounting, the middle office, sales coverage and outside vendors,” he said. “But try to get your four children to listen to you.”

OH AH HA HA HA HA HA CHILDY ANECDOTES! SOMEONE FETCH ME RAYMOND WHOM EVERYBODY LOVES FORTHWITH, FOR HE WOULD TRULY DELIGHT IN THIS JAPERY. Do you like how he had to list everyone he used to order around? What in hell is a middle office? Do I really need to translate again, when it's clear "everyone listening to you" means "everyone hating me, Jerry Levy"?

Here's the thing. Unless everyone in Pelham Manor is like Lady Levy (and hell, for all I know, they are, but I am trying to operate from a place of optimism), I highly doubt these stay-at-home dads' wives were full-time moms who suddenly went back to work when their husbands got laid off. I bet most of them were already working full-time, or close to it. Those Dutch Colonial homes with negro jockey statues in front aren't going to pay for themselves. I double-or-nothing bet these women were doing the bulk of the child-raising while working, while their financey husbands were crowing about how busy they were doing business and weren't lifting a goddamned finger around the house. Where's their tickertape parade?

More men than women have suffered layoffs in these tough economic times, and it sucks when anyone gets laid off, but that's really just a minor bummer compared to the fact that women are still paid less than men, as has been the case since, oh, the Industrial Revolution and the invention of wage labor. Is it better to get laid off and get unemployment, or continue being marginally employed at a job only because your boss can get away with paying you less than the dude in the next cubicle? The consistent undervaluing of women's labor, paid and unpaid, is the real story here.

Luckily for you, I'm too lazy to get into that story and would much rather just keep making up alternative names for Pelham Manor. Entitlementon. Blancho Villa. Simpleton Keep. George Foreman Jr. Knickerbocker Estates. Schloss Neidstein.



*Also: honing does not result in bluntness. It sort of results in the opposite, sharpness. Nice writing, New York Times.