What Does He Have To Offer?

“Never stay in a relationship with someone who doesn’t bring anything to the table and just eats off of you.”

I saw this tweet the other day and it got me to thinking. My goal has always been to find a hard-working man to settle down with. Since I am a career minded woman, I was never the type of chick that wanted a man to take care of me. As luck would have it, I have run across a handful of guys that wanted me to take care of them. I mean they would seem really promising in the beginning and me being the kind-hearted (dumb) person I can be sometimes, I helped a brother out. Of course eventually I got sick of it and told son he had to roll.

My nearly four years as a mother has put me in the mindset that I don’t want to take care of a male unless it’s my son. (Okay, I may drop my dad a few bucks every once in a while but that’s it.) As I mentioned before, I’m a career minded woman, but I do get the fleeting desire to want to be a stay at home mom. Then I remember that I am a single mom and I don’t think I would be satisfied with public assistance. I have tried to come up with a number of business ideas that I could possibly make a decent some of money from but not only am I an impatient person (I want my money and I need it now.); I also have a short attention span. Therefore, unless I change my mindset, I would never make any money working from home.

Then a thought occurred to me, if I had the money to hire a nanny that would be cool. Here’s the problem with that. First of all, I don’t have that kind of money. Second of all, I would feel funny having some chick living in my house, watching my son, and doing my housework. (I mean I would love the housework and kid watching part but the first one, not so much.) Third of all, if I hired a dude to be my nanny, I would be trying to make him my boo because he would be doing all of these great things for me and my son.

Of course this brought on another thought. What about a stay at home dad? Not my dad, but a dad for Don. I mean I would do background checks, credit checks and whatever other kind of checks I can think of. But what if I met a guy that I really liked, who was great with kids and cooking and housework (and bedroom work), but sucked in the business world. I don’t mean sucked, let me rephrase that. A guy that would be better suited as a house husband aka stay at home dad. Then it occurred to me, I would hate that.

That all goes back to my first point, I don’t want to take care of a man. Despite the fact that he would be contributing his TIME to the household, I need something monetary. Even if he works part time or if he has the discipline to work from home (unlike me) that would be a good deal. But just sitting around the house, waiting for me to come home, I just wouldn’t feel right about that. My upbringing was by no means traditional but my folks still taught me that the man should be the head of the household. And to me that also implies that he is the main provider.

Now, I wouldn’t be able to let a guy that didn’t work tell me how to spend my money. I mean, why would he have a say so? If I was the one at home, I would let him make the final decision on things and I would support him whether I completely agreed or not. That may sound dumb to some women, but if I know that he is the kind of guy that won’t be quick to make a crazy decision that would have a negative impact on our family, I wouldn’t be afraid to…submit (shudder).

I couldn’t be with a guy that didn’t contribute financially to the household, but if you have a big pot of gold and wouldn’t mind your man/husband staying home, I say, “Do you”.