Dead Man Blogging

News Channel 10 - Employment - Working Wives Lower Divorce Chances

Marital unhappiness frequently drives wives into the workplace, said Dr. Robert Schoen, a sociology professor. Whether it be unhappy wives, husbands or both, unhappiness can play an important role in wives taking on full-time employment.

This story is interesting. It seems that when a man or woman gets unhappy in a marriage, it greatly increases the chances that the woman will enter the workforce. If a couple is happy, odds that the wife will go to work are lower.

“We see no consequences of wives’ full-time employment for marital happiness, but wives’ full-time employment decreases the risk of subsequent marital disruption,” Schoen explained.

I suspect that in these unhappy couples, the working husband does not respect his wife’s role as homemaker. When she goes to work, her self-esteem probably improves because she has been conditioned to think of her self-worth in purely economic and career terms. The husband’s opinion of her probably increses as well.

It’s also possible that a second income resolves most financial issues, which is a big source of conflict in marriages.

Another possibility that comes to mind is that co-workers provide emotional support and needed relationships that a homemaker is not getting from her family.

Maybe it’s none of those. Maybe a combination of some. I dunno.

Another interesting quote:

The researchers also found that having a child reduced the likelihood of wives’ employment by 55 percent. Women with one child were also less likely to work full-time than wives with two or more children and wives with no children.

I guess moms want to stay home with the first baby, but by the time number 2 comes along they want to get away!

Here’s some particularly bad (Java) code I came across at work. Note the use of “FirstTime”.

public void addship(String value1, String value2 , String value3, String value4, String value5)
{
    /* this line just concatenates all the values together as a
        specially formatted string - Robert (comment not in original code)
    */
    String row = setRow(value1, value2 , value3, value4, value5);
    System.out.println("row = " +row + "    " +i);
    list.insertElementAt(row,i);
    checkBoxValue.trim();
    value5.trim();
    if(FirstTime.equals("Yes")){
        temp_row1 = value5;
        FirstTime = "No";
        checkBoxValue = value5;
    }else{
        if(checkBoxValue.equals(value5)){
        }else
            {
                if(FirstTime.equals("No")){
                    String temp_row2 = temp_row1 + "   " + 1 + "   " + i + "   ";
                    BoxRow.insertElementAt(temp_row2,BoxRowCount);
                    FirstTime = "DoNot";
                    BoxRowCount = BoxRowCount + 1;
                    start = i;
                }else{
                    String temp_row = checkBoxValue + "   " + start + "   " + i + "   ";
                    BoxRow.insertElementAt(temp_row,BoxRowCount);
                    BoxRowCount = BoxRowCount + 1;
                    start = i;
                }
            }
        checkBoxValue = value5;
    }
    i = i + 1;
    last_row = checkBoxValue + "   " + start + "   " + i + "   ";
}

Homefeeding Children: Threat or Menace? — 06/12/2002

This is hilarious satire!

homefeeding is relatively unregulated, giving carte blanch to parents to feed their children virtually any food under the sun; meat, milk, cookies, butter, pie - anything goes.

This story describes some drills the military is conducting to help deal with future hijackings.

Fighter jets from the North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled to respond to the simulated hijackings and were to run through several scenarios, including one that involved shooting down the planes.

“We’re prepared to do it, trained to do it and ready to do it, but we’d much rather it be the source of last resort,” said Marine Maj. Mike Snyder, a NORAD spokesman. “But make no mistake, we’re ready to do it.”

Why are we willing to shoot down passenger jets, killing everyone onboard, but we are not willing to arm pilots? How can it be a better plan to shoot the planes down? Why isn’t it an acceptable risk to just arm the pilots?