Poor Guy: Conan O’Brien is Stepford Wives Organization’s Dad of the Month, looking out for his family and staff after NBC unfairly served him his walking papers

Recent events in the media had me thinking about financial security. Actually the past two years would have anyone thinking about it. Laura Doyle’s book The Surrendered Wife advises women to let their men take charge of the finances. While I think much of the advice in the book is sound (especially the part about never letting your hubby know you are making the conscious effort to become a surrendered wife), the surrendering of financial details to a man – any man -raised my eyebrows. I understand it’s a metaphorical surrender, a surrendering to your man, announcing that you have fate in him and your marriage. But let’s face it, I have known men who were not that good at managing money. What’s a woman to do? One can’t wish a collection agency away once things get run into the ground. An ugly situation, but sadly, often realistic.

In this modern day and age, financial security is the core survival item. You can still have your health, but we always hear of so many relationships failing on the point of money. Nobody ever breaks up because of poor health. They usually stick together. The truth is, when you put the finances in one person’s hands, you are putting your life and future there too. It’s fine if he’s an able number cruncher and a sensible spender. But that still doesn’t prevent unforeseen changes. Take the case of Terry Hekker, who wrote Ever Since Adam and Eve in the seventies. Married to her husband for over 30 years, her book regaled the joys of womanhood and homemaking. On their 40th together, he ran off with a younger girl and filed for divorce The result is a second book by the author, Disregard First Book. Deadpan and witty as the title may be, Hekker’s situation shows us that we always need, at the very least, to put ourselves in scenarios where we consider what safety nets we have available to us. Who or what do we look to in such times of emergency?

Feminists may clamor, “See, I told you so! You Stepford Wives put too much faith in your marriage! You should always pull your own weight.” The doubt I have about putting financial responsibility on any man’s hands aside, I say the present climate of employment in the business world hold no more security than a contract to enter into marriage. Just as a man can walk out on us, an employer can terminate a businesswoman’s position with short notice. Look at Conan O’Brien and the Tonight Show? He’s getting a monetary settlement, but I imagine the psychic toll on failing a prestigious post must be heartbreaking. There’s probably a lot of turmoil we are not seeing, given Mr. O’Brien’s entire family, his staff and their entire families relocating across the country. 7 months, that’s all the poor fella had to prove himself. And this is after decades of loyal service to NBC (Conan used to be a writer for Saturday Night Live). There’s no guarantees these days, whether it be marital security or job security.

None of us like to think about things going wrong. The key is to be prepared and not take anything for granted. We can’t control infidelity, and we certainly can’t control the economy, but just as employees in these tough times are going the extra mile to impress their bosses and give them no reason to consider serving a pink slip, we may want to go the extra mile, and impress our bosses, and give them no reason to consider giving us the slip.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.