Rainmakers and Homemakers
My transition from being the top rainmaker in our household into a full-time homemaker is an adjustment. For the past 25 years, I have been the top rainmaker in our household. I prefer rainmaker to breadwinner. I first heard the term “rainmaker” when my dad used it to refer to my grandfather’s role at his law firm. However, I think you can apply it to the household as easily as you can apply it to bringing $$ into a law firm. And it’s just more fun than breadwinner.:)
My career has been in HR and project management, so I can’t help but apply organizational design to the key functions in my household. I think about the roles in the household as FTEs (full time equivalents, for those who have not worked in a corporate setting). Generally, if someone in the U.S. works 40 or 37.5 hours per week, they are considered 1 whole FTE. A 20 hour worker would be .5 FTE. So when doing workforce planning and thinking about positions versus bodies (aka headcount), you would map out the ideal and minimum number of FTEs.
I proffer that most households benefit from having at least 1 rainmaker FTE and 1 homemaker FTE. For homemaking, I would include tasks such as parenting (playing with kids, pick up and drop off from school, lunch prep, feeding, homework, etc.), cleaning, shopping, cooking, financial management, household repairs, etc.; whereas rainmaking is bringing in household income.
If you have households with extended family, you can potentially have an abundance of FTEs in both the homemaking and/or rainmaking function — though the increased tasks related to higher numbers of kids and/or cleaning after more people probably require more than 2 FTEs. Whereas a one person household might function well with only .5 FTE homemaker and .5 FTE rainmaker (or some other split to add up to 1). Finally, the quantity of rain (not getting into rain quantity with my basic equation) could allow for outsourcing the FTEs (e.g., nannies or cleaning people). You get the idea.
My household has 2 adults and one child, so I see us functioning well with 1 FTE rainmaking and 1 FTE homemaking. I would calculate that before I quit my career, we were at 2 rainmakers, and .80 homemakers (time spent on those tasks outside of the 40 hour work week). I would also say I was performing the work of 1.60 FTEs, whereas my husband was 1.20. In a nutshell, we were overstaffed on rainmaking, and understaffed on homemaking, as determined by our household happiness quotient.
Based on my self evaluation, I am killing it at the homemaker role — a function which has been woefully understaffed since we adopted my son 9 years ago (at the time of his birth). My husband has been in the homemaker role during brief periods of unemployment before my son was born. He was never performing at 1 FTE homemaker. But we didn’t have parenting tasks then, and only a condo, so we didn’t need more than .25 homemaker. He met the need at the time. Now, our homemaking needs are 1 FTE. And I am doing it.
When my son was 2, I wanted to reduce the deficiency in our household on the homemaker side. Obviously we had increased need due to parenting tasks, but we had also moved from a condo to a four bedroom house. I requested to reduce my pay and hours by 20%. It was a huge improvement in our household happiness quotient, and kept me at my workplace for 11 years.
Earlier this year, I left that job for a full-time role with a much loftier title and massive responsibility at a very small environmental org. But the role was not allowing me to use my top strengths and was taking a toll on my mental health. The job had also been a pay cut and did not provide a health insurance subsidy for dependents, so my husband had to cover himself and our son on his insurance. Since I was making less (though still more than my husband) and not carrying the benefits, it was easier to decide to walk away. Leaving me at home. Horray, we now fully staffed on the homemaker front!
In spite of this happiness-inducing realignment, I have guilt for not bearing a portion of the rainmaker role. It is also very hard to see my two decades of work experience and two higher education degrees — which are really only useful for making the rain — go to waste. This causes me to check job postings intermittently and occasionally put in an application. I really want to allow myself to lean into the homemaker role. But knowing what I do about the recruiting process, leaving a job and having a resume gap will always lead to questions.
I’ve rehearsed different things I could say about it and haven’t landed on the way to put it yet — at least, not in any way that would result in a standard recruiter passing me through their screening process. I certainly can’t rant about capitalism or the ills of mainstream society. I don’t want to cast doubts on my mental health. And I don’t want to seem lazy (running and doing puzzles doesn’t impress a recruiter). And most people in the workforce don’t respect the homemaker role — basically, because it isn’t rainmaking.
Time spent writing this article gets into other household functions I won’t elaborate on related to the happiness quotient. I am sure I could really build out this model, but not sure that would increase the happiness score. Now, if it could evolve into some sort of side hustle that puts me back into the rainmaker space. Hmmm, food for thought, I suppose.
