Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Dual-Earner Families
Today, I was reading Chapter 9 in the textbook, which is about families and income. There was a large section regarding dual-earner families, since they are becoming more common today. The text mentioned numerous times that these families often have less time to spend with their, which can cause other struggles. This reminded me of our discussions in class about single-parent families, and the difference between structure and function. It is true that spending time together is one of the qualities of strong families; however, it does not have to look the same for each family. I think that when I work with families of any kind in the future, I would like to help them figure out how they can make their time work best for them, their schedules, and their interests. Everyone has the same amount of time in the day, but it is up to each family to figure out how to use that to best fit their needs.
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This reminds me of a course I took, families in the economy. In this course we talked a lot about family income and the impact it has on a family's functioning. One required text we read was about dual earner families and the idea that this actually sets family's up for a financial trap. A family becomes so accustomed to having a larger income that they are not prepared when a crisis happens, such as one of the individuals providing that economic support looses his/her job. When this crisis occurs, the family will spiral downward and struggle to make financial needs, all based on the fact that they did not prepare their family for an event such as this to occur and as a result find themselves in a financial crisis.
It's interesting to think about a dual earner family from this perspective, because I know that I never thought of a dual income family having so much risk to it. With many people living in dual income families it is important to remember this key point and prepare your family in advance so that you don't find your family falling into the same financial trap.
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