当男人失去工作以后...

夜神◕_̯͡◕

If you've been laid out and laid off by the downturn and your spouse is still working, how much do y 0 If you've been laid out and laid off by the downturn and your spouse is still working, how much do you rearrange your family life? Do you assume the hit you've taken is temporary and leave all the old roles in place? Or do you concede semipermanence and take on more household duties, never mind what went before or what it all means?


如果你因为目前的经济低迷而被老板放了长假而你的另一半却仍在工作，你会如何安培你的家庭生活？这是暂时的，你想，所以一切都按老规矩。还是你不情愿的承认事实然后更多承担起家务，也不会在乎以前什么样和这些变化意味着什么？

夜神◕_̯͡◕

That's a question more couples are facing because the layoffs, so far, are largely affecting men. I put out a call a couple of weeks ago asking for their stories. I wanted to know, specifically, how couples handling a husband or wife's unemployment are also handling what's called the second shift—the work we do at either end of the day to keep our kids and our homes running. The responses suggest that, possibly, the interplay between this recession and "who does what" in the house may be more complex than past data about the behavior of unemployed men suggest.
这是被炒鱿鱼后打部分夫妻都会遇到的问题，对于男人影响尤为重大。数周前，我电话采访了几对夫妇。我想知道的是，夫妻之间会如何处理另一半失业的情况，以及对待孩子和家务的态度。这些反馈表明，经济衰退与家务职责之间的影响远比这篇文章《past data about the behavior of unemployed men》中所说的更为复杂。

夜神◕_̯͡◕

This is all anecdotal, so it's way too early to know for sure. But what I've heard matches the instincts of Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College and author of books on marriage and relationships. She is one of my favorite family experts, because she likes to question the premises that everyone else takes for granted. This time, it's the assumption—based, in all fairness, on time-use studies from the 1990s—that men who lose their jobs do no more and often less housework and child care than they did before, while women in that position do significantly more
这些都是街言巷语，也许并不会对发现事实有什么帮助。但是我所听到的却符号Stephanie Cootz的直觉，它是Evergreen State大学历史和家庭研究方面的教授同时也是婚姻和关系这一类书的作者。她是我最喜欢的家庭专家之一，因为她有质疑所有人认为理所当然的东西的勇气。这一次，它基于的假设是，通常情况下，从20实际90年代的研究可以看出失去工作的男人并没有因此而承担起更多的家务，甚至更少，而处于这种情况的女人则会很明显的承当更多家务。

夜神◕_̯͡◕

Coontz is skeptical that the old numbers apply to the new downturn because they're old and because they don't distinguish between men who are chronically unemployed and those who lose their jobs for a spell. She is sifting through the data to look for overlooked patterns that might relate more directly to our current collective state. I'll report back on what she finds. In the meantime, she says that her hunch is that a "sizable minority" of laid-off men are pitching in at home far more than they did before.

Coontz怀疑这些数字并不能代表这次新的经济危机下的情形，因为它并没有区分那些长期失业者和只因工作一时疏忽而被解雇的人。Coontz正在查找研究这些数据以便找出符合目前这一清醒的模式。我会将她的发现报道出来。同时她也说她直觉现在失业的男人比以前更愿意呆在家里。

夜神◕_̯͡◕

That's the kind of story I heard from Penny, a registered nurse who lives in Seattle. She says that she and her husband both used to have "flexible jobs—mine part-time, his full-time—and split the child care/house duties accordingly." Sometimes Penny felt as if she was doing more than her share, and she said so, "mostly because I HATE HATE housework," she writes. Her husband lost his job in October. Penny was pregnant with their second child. They had a "reality check talk," she says, about how "there's no chance for him to get another job in his field." Instead, she would go to work full-time, and her husband would be a stay-at-home dad. In other words, they decided to treat his layoff as semipermanent and plan accordingly. They could weather the change financially because Penny is the higher earner.

我们来听听Penny的故事，她是一个注册护士，现居住在西雅图。她说她和她丈夫以前都有工作，“我的是那种兼职工作，灵活性很高的那种，而我丈夫则是全职工作，我们据此安排好我们的家庭分工”有时候Penny觉得她做的比她分配的多，她这样说”大部分情况下，我非常讨厌做家务“。她的丈夫在10月份丢掉了工作，而Penny那时正由身孕- 他们的第二个孩子。他们俩之间进行了一个直面交流，她说如果他在他所擅长的领域内如果找不到工作的话。那么她应该去做全职工作，而他应该做家庭妇男。换一句话说，他们决定把他的事业作为半永久性的而且据此做出相应的计划。他们会更具财务情况来更改这些，因为现在Penny收入更高。

夜神◕_̯͡◕

That's the kind of story I heard from Penny, a registered nurse who lives in Seattle. She says that she and her husband both used to have "flexible jobs—mine part-time, his full-time—and split the child care/house duties accordingly." Sometimes Penny felt as if she was doing more than her share, and she said so, "mostly because I HATE HATE housework," she writes. Her husband lost his job in October. Penny was pregnant with their second child. They had a "reality check talk," she says, about how "there's no chance for him to get another job in his field." Instead, she would go to work full-time, and her husband would be a stay-at-home dad. In other words, they decided to treat his layoff as semipermanent and plan accordingly. They could weather the change financially because Penny is the higher earner.

我们来听听Penny的故事，她是一个注册护士，现居住在西雅图。她说她和她丈夫以前都有工作，“我的是那种兼职工作，灵活性很高的那种，而我丈夫则是全职工作，我们据此安排好我们的家庭分工”有时候Penny觉得她做的比她分配的多，她这样说”大部分情况下，我非常讨厌做家务“。她的丈夫在10月份丢掉了工作，而Penny那时正由身孕- 他们的第二个孩子。他们俩之间进行了一个直面交流，她说如果他在他所擅长的领域内如果找不到工作的话。那么她应该去做全职工作，而他应该做家庭妇男。换一句话说，他们决定把他的事业作为半永久性的而且据此做出相应的计划。他们会更具财务情况来更改这些，因为现在Penny收入更高。

夜神◕_̯͡◕

And at home? Penny was worried about her husband's state of mind. But so far, so good. "I've spent some sleepless mornings (I work night shift) thinking, what if he's not happy? What if he misses his job (which he loved)? When I've asked how he feels about it, he says that it's been a paradigm shift and taken some getting used to, but so far he likes it." Penny says her husband hasn't quite picked up the cooking and housework. "But he's figuring it out, and I'm sitting back and letting him."

当然，Penny会担心老公的思想状况。但是目前为止还好。”我度过了好几个无眠的早上（我做夜班），他不高兴怎么办？他想念他的工作怎么办？我问他感觉如何，他说这真是和以前太不一样了他得慢慢适应，但是目前为止他还是挺喜欢的“，Penny说老公目前并没有熟悉家务与做饭。”但是他也明白，我现在不做这些了得有他做了。“

夜神◕_̯͡◕

Parity, flexibility—who says the unemployed man of 2009 can't put the old couch-bum rap to rest? Robert, who lives in North Dallas, says recession-era partnership is all about planning. He and his wife saw a layoff for him coming last fall, and though she had been home since their kids were born (they are 3 and 1, with another on the way), she went to work in November. In the end, Robert didn't lose his job. For a few months, he and his wife both worked full-time. But "I was looking forward to spending more time with my kids anyway," he says, and so he scaled back to part-time. When I caught him by phone, he'd just picked the kids up from school. He juggled giving them a snack with talking to me. And, yes, they got fed.

协调，灵活，谁说2009的事业男下不了厨房？Robert，居住在达拉斯北部，认为经济衰退时要做好计划。他和他老婆预感到了他将要被炒，虽然自从他的孩子出生以来她就一直待在家里（3岁，1岁，另外一个崽还在路上哩），但是她也在11月份选择了工作。最后，Robert并没有丢掉工作。曾经有几个月他们都处在全职状态。”但是我想化更多的时间来陪我的孩子“，他说，所以他选择了兼职工作。当我打电话给他的时候，他正在从学校接孩子。他一边和我说话一边逗孩子。哦，当然，孩子们已经吃过了。

夜神◕_̯͡◕

Robert says he and his wife are now dividing the chores "pretty evenly." He does the day-to-day "maintenance around the house, like dishes and picking up. She still does all the grocery shopping, and she usually does the laundry." They still have a twice-a-week housekeeper—a boon to domestic peace if you can afford it. Robert's wife still cooks. But he's learning. And, he says, "starting next month my primary project will be potty training my oldest." I like the "primary project" phrasing, which treats toilet training as the serious mission that it is.

Robert说他现在和妻子分工均匀。他做每天的维护工作，房子的检查，洗盘子，收拾周围的杂物等。他妻子则负责购物，洗衣服等。Robert的妻子仍旧负责做饭。但是他也在学，他说下个月起我的首要任务主要是教他的大儿子上厕所。“我喜欢“首要任务”这个说法，因为这让教小孩子上厕所这种事听起来也有了严肃的味道。”

夜神◕_̯͡◕

Lest you think that all the responses I got were about men who are better adjusted than the ones you know, a woman named Jesse wrote in despair about her boyfriend. They've been together four years. He calls her "The Stuff-Doer," and when they were both working, she says, "most of the second shift naturally fell to me." It still does. Just more so. Jesse's boyfriend lost his job at the end of September, and now "he wakes up at 1 or 2 p.m., plays computer games, generally doesn't eat anything until I come home, [then] he resumes playing his game, I work out, go to bed, and he finally comes to bed around 4 or 5 a.m." She does the shopping, the cooking, the laundry, and all the bills, "even those in his name." She thinks that even if he finds another job, her boyfriend isn't going to kick in more help. And because he's had past episodes of depression, "I'm very hesitant about asking him to do his share fearing it will just add to the burden and push him back into the terrible state where he doesn't even make eye contact with me for days." But she's getting resentful. "I suppose I need to frame it as me asking for his support and being careful not to shame him, but even that makes me angry." That sounds like settling into a new reality—but miserably.

你也许会想这里我的反馈中的这些男人都比你所知道的要好的多，Jesse女士曾在她的来信中描述令她绝望的男友。他们在一起已经4年了。他称她为“The Stuff-Doer”,在他们都有工作的时候，她说，“所有的家务琐事都有我来做”。而现在仍旧如此，或者更甚。Jesse的男友在9月末丢点了工作，现在他“每天下午1，2才起床，然后玩电脑游戏，饭也不吃直到我回来，吃完后继续玩游戏，我忙完后上床休息，他大约早上4，5点钟才去睡觉”，她购物，做饭，洗衣服，还得支付所有的账单，“尽管这些账单都是在他的名下。”她想继续他找到了另一份工作，男友也不有更多的帮助。因为他已经过了那段沮丧的阶段， “我在犹豫要不要开口让他承担他该承担的那一份，我害怕那会加重他的负担，让他又回到从前糟糕的状态，那时候他好几天都不和我正面眼神接触。”但是她仍然十分不满，“我假设以一种寻求帮助的语气来现行他并且尽量不伤害到他的自尊，但即使那样仍然让我很恼火。”那听起来好像是另外一种说话，但其实挺可悲的。