One-career Family versus Two-Career Family

            “One-career Family” is “where only the husband or only the wife is committed to the pursuit of a career” (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). On the other hand, in a “two-career family”, “both the husband and the wife are committed to the pursuit of a career” (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.).

            This paper intends to show, as well as, provide an explanation with regards to the similarities and differences between a “One-career Family” and “Two-career Family”. Both

“One-career Family” and “Two-career Family” are similar in terms of: 1) choice; and 2) risk of getting into a divorce (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). They differ however, when it comes to: 1) the reasons for engaging in such; 2) the attitude of their children; and 3) dependence (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.).

            In a “One-career Family”, it is the husband or the wife’s choice or both their choice that only one of them will oblige themselves into developing a career (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). It is their decision if the wife will be the one to leave the house to work and build up her career while the husband stays home and attend to the household chores or vice versa (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). The same is true with the case of the “Two-career Family” (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). It is their choice whether to engage in a “Two-career Family” setting or not (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.).

            Another similarity of “One-career Family” and “Two-career Family” lies in the risk of getting into a divorce (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). In the “One-career Family”, the one who is not engaged into developing a career may later feel insecurity caused by the absence of growth and monotonous activities, i.e. household chores that will lead to frequent fights that may eventually break up the marriage (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). The same is true with the “Two-career Family” wherein the same thing may occur because of inadequacy of time and communication with each other (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). Explaining further, if the husband and the wife are too busy expanding their careers, then it may be possible that they will not have for each other anymore which may in turn actually lead to a rocky marriage as well (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p).

            The two differs in reasons of engaging in such a setting though (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). In a “One-career Family”, the most probable reason for such is because of “personal fulfillment”, either the husband or the wife (depending on who is developing his or her career) wants to achieve something in terms of career (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). He or she may just be doing it so that he or she will feel gratified (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). However, in a “Two-career Family”, the most probable motivation for such is because of “monetary reasons”; the family may need more in terms of financial aspect that is why both the husband and the wife had to go to work and develop their careers (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.).

            In addition to that, in a “One-career Family”, it is more possible to have kids that are well-disciplined because there is at least one parent exclusively attending to their negative behaviors (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). As compared with the “Two-career Family”, both parents may be to busy with their flourishing careers that they no longer have time to guide their children and so they tend to exhibit and possess negative behaviors (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.).

            In addition to that, in terms of dependence, in a “One-career Family”, the one who is not working tends to become overly dependent on the one who has a job and a career to expand; while, in a “Two-career Family”, one is not bound to depend on the other; in fact, they may both turn independent (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.). Also because of such an example, their children will also tend to become more independent (Divorce Source, Inc. n.p.).

Work Cited

Divorce Source, Inc. n.d. n.a. 3 March 2008.

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