Guardian (UK) Banking Blog: Banker's Wife, "I knew what I was getting into"

[Fergasun]

Guardian (UK) Banking Blog: Banker's Wife, "I knew what I was getting into"

People in finance work incredibly long hours. What's it like being married to such a person? In an earlier post here, a banker's ex-girlfriend spoke of her failed attempts to make her relationship work. Her story made you wonder how other partners of bankers feel. There must be many who are happy with the lifestyle? Then a wife of an investment banker at a major American bank got in touch via email, responding to this post about the Occupy movement. She agreed to sit for an interview, after warning: "I have no extravagant stories to share". We meet for lunch at a restaurant on Threadneedle in the heart of the City. She is a highly educated woman in her early 30s.

Interesting read on what it's like to be "married to the 1%". My wive and I were eating with another couple (with our kids running around), and we were talking about how we wonder how the 1% lives. He's done IT work for people in the Hollywood area, and said that when he goes to their houses only the housekeeper is home... sounds kind've like these folks.

Not that I have *much* sympathy... as in it seems like you could make quite a bit of money into late 30s, early 40s and "retire" into a less demanding job.

[GibbsFactor]

They don't retire though. They keep working, keep busting out the long hours even though they are already set for life. They have a drive to succeed and it's all they know. You must respect that. I think a lot of that is what makes them feel angered that they make too much and need to give some of it back. Many of them feel they succeeded where the rest of the world failed. How is it their fault that they won? Most didn't have it handed to them. They made it happen.

[AsburySkinsFan]

They don't retire though. They keep working, keep busting out the long hours even though they are already set for life. They have a drive to succeed and it's all they know. You must respect that.

No I don't, neglecting their families for work. Most of them sound like addicts than success stories.

[Prosperity]

No I don't, neglecting their families for work. Most of them sound like addicts than success stories.

They are part of a structural defect in society, i.e. whorish materialism and ignorance of core human virtues.

The problem is the game, not the players, so I have a hard time blaming individuals.

The motto is "greed is good because it produces more stuff in the long run" it's a shameful idea of "success"

[Harwich Hog]

Post deleted.

[Stadium-Armory]

A house in the Hamptons won't be worth a hill of beans when I'm lying on my death bed, if it comes at the expense of time with my wife and kids. No regrets.

[AsburySkinsFan]

They are part of a structural defect in society, i.e. whorish materialism and ignorance of core human virtues.

The problem is the game, not the players, so I have a hard time blaming individuals.

The motto is "greed is good because it produces more stuff in the long run" it's a shameful idea of "success"

I'm reminded of the rich man who on his once in a decade vacation he went to a Mexican beach, and while he was sitting with his feet in the sand enjoying the sunrise over the water he saw a local with fishing rod in hand sit at the shore and fish for awhile. After catching three or four fish the local packed up his stuff and turned to head home at which point the rich man seeing the local's error lept to his feet and rushed to the local. "Where are you going?!" said the rich man. "I'm going home I got what I needed."

"But," interrupted the rich man, "it is still early. If you stayed and caught more fish you could sell some at the market, then with the extra money you could buy a boat and catch more fish to sell, then with that extra money you could buy more boats and hire others to do the fishing for you."

"Then what would I do?" asked the local.

"Well, then you could come down here and sit on the beach enjoying the sunrise."

"But that's what I do now." said the local.

[Stadium-Armory]

The local also won't have any savings for retirement and will have to rely on family and friends to feed him when he can no longer fish.

Balance is the key.

[Prosperity]

The local also won't have any savings for retirement and will have to rely on family and friends to feed him when he can no longer fish.

Balance is the key.

yes but he invests his extra time into those relationships

aka building, and supporting a loving family

[AsburySkinsFan]

The local also won't have any savings for retirement and will have to rely on family and friends to feed him when he can no longer fish.

Balance is the key.

It is amazing that people think that this is a new idea that the children should take care of their elderly parents.

The commandment that says, "Honor your mother and father" has more to do with adult children taking care of their parents than it does kids listening to mommy and daddy.

---------- Post added January-1st-2012 at 03:02 PM ----------

yes but he invests his extra time into those relationships

aka building, and supporting a loving family

Exactly!! It is so amazing to me that we Americans have convinced ourselves that it is best to do it all on your own. We have a lot to learn from those third world poor people we love to pity...it is amazing how many times they pity us.

[Stadium-Armory]

Maybe so, I don't know.

To me, there's something to be said for someone who can not only take care of them selves in retirement, but can also leave something for the next generation. I work hard every day so that I can. I also work from home, see my kids off to school every day, attend every school function and conference, and am there when they come home every day. If I need them, they'll be there for me, but I am not planning to rely on my kids so that I can sit on the beach and fish all day. Balance.

[Hubbs]

It is amazing that people think that this is a new idea that the children should take care of their elderly parents.

The commandment that says, "Honor your mother and father" has more to do with adult children taking care of their parents than it does kids listening to mommy and daddy.

---------- Post added January-1st-2012 at 03:02 PM ----------

Exactly!! It is so amazing to me that we Americans have convinced ourselves that it is best to do it all on your own. We have a lot to learn from those third world poor people we love to pity...it is amazing how many times they pity us.

Eh, I don't know that it's the expectation that kids shouldn't support their parents in any way so much as the desire to not lean on your kids in your old age. When I have kids, I'm sure that I'll want to have enough savings to allow them to be truly independent when they're starting/running families of their own.

Maybe so, I don't know.

To me, there's something to be said for someone who can not only take care of them selves in retirement, but can also leave something for the next generation. I work hard every day so that I can. I also work from home, see my kids off to school every day, attend every school function and conference, and am there when they come home every day. If I need them, they'll be there for me, but I am not planning to rely on my kids so that I can sit on the beach and fish all day. Balance.

Yeah, this.

[CurseReversed]

They are part of a structural defect in society, i.e. whorish materialism and ignorance of core human virtues.

The problem is the game, not the players, so I have a hard time blaming individuals.

The motto is "greed is good because it produces more stuff in the long run" it's a shameful idea of "success"

What is a good idea of success for you? You can teach virtues, but its hard to legislate them. What do you think is the cure for this whorish materialism?

[Prosperity]

What is a good idea of success for you? You can teach virtues, but its hard to legislate them. What do you think is the cure for this whorish materialism?

1. A virtuous life is a happy life, honesty, working with love and devotion, teaching others and having friends who will do the same. Fulfilling your role in society.

2. Proper education, civil service, and lower income inequality. We also need to slow everything down, there is too much growth too fast, people change careers too quickly, move around the country to quickly, we do not develop roots. Only some of this requires legislation. The most difficult aspects require cultural change. But I'm not holding my breath, I've resigned myself to holding my nose, and just trying to help out the bubble around me. I am fairly sure our society is headed to collapse. Which is fine, maybe the next one can do a better job.

I'm basically plagiarizing all this stuff from Plato (yes Plato recognized that social discord can stem from socioeconomic rifts, way back in 300 whatever BC)

[alexey]

No judgements - it all makes sense.

They are working hard. This does not strike me as productive work, however... so maybe we need to redistribute some of their income towards having more and better teachers.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Eh, I don't know that it's the expectation that kids shouldn't support their parents in any way so much as the desire to not lean on your kids in your old age. When I have kids, I'm sure that I'll want to have enough savings to allow them to be truly independent when they're starting/running families of their own.

Both of which are entirely modern inventions, independence from one's family has only been seen as a good thing in about the last 50-100 years of Western civilization, and what's interesting is that we even created places to store our elderly until they die so they won't be a burden to us. I have been independent of strong family support all of my life and now as an adult I am realizing just how much that has robbed my life of quality. The elderly used to be revered, and used to stand as the head's households, now they are considered quaint relics of times gone by, and the new heads if families are the middle generations.

[CurseReversed]

1. A virtuous life is a happy life, honesty, working with love and devotion, teaching others and having friends who will do the same. Fulfilling your role in society.

2. Proper education, civil service, and lower income inequality. We also need to slow everything down, there is too much growth too fast, people change careers too quickly, move around the country to quickly, we do not develop roots. Only some of this requires legislation. The most difficult aspects require cultural change. But I'm not holding my breath, I've resigned myself to holding my nose, and just trying to help out the bubble around me. I am fairly sure our society is headed to collapse. Which is fine, maybe the next one can do a better job.

I'm basically plagiarizing all this stuff from Plato (yes Plato recognized that social discord can stem from socioeconomic rifts, way back in 300 whatever BC)

I agree with all those virtues in general, its hard not too, but I hope they occur naturally. I wouldnt presume to know how to manipulate virtues into a society. Its such a relative thing.

Sounds like a sure recipe for some dystopian future like in demolition man.... "Be well" and all that. Its only in a place where one can be free to whore for money where someone can be free to worship virtue. The two seem inseperable to me. How can you have true pursuit of happiness without liberty? How can you have liberty without the freedom to pursue ends of lesser virtue?

[chipwhich]

To some of the posts in this thread...

Yeah because the blue collar man is inherently better than the banker man. Give me a break. It also implies blue collar workers don't work long hours.

I have seen my fair share of poor people who don't give a rats ass about there kid. Instead of living in a nice home, they are living in a trailer, or in a broken home.

The 1% don't live any differently than everyone else. You have bad parents, alcoholics, wife beaters, divorces, etc in all walks of life. My buddy works for a cable company running underground cable 7 days a week trying to make a living and support his 3 kids. Money just allows their kids a better education and a nicer roof over their heads.

[Hubbs]

Both of which are entirely modern inventions, independence from one's family has only been seen as a good thing in about the last 50-100 years of Western civilization, and what's interesting is that we even created places to store our elderly until they die so they won't be a burden to us. I have been independent of strong family support all of my life and now as an adult I am realizing just how much that has robbed my life of quality. The elderly used to be revered, and used to stand as the head's households, now they are considered quaint relics of times gone by, and the new heads if families are the middle generations.

Erm... I'm gonna go ahead and say that I appreciate both the modern development that my parents will not be living with me when I'm 40 and the modern development that my kids won't be having sex in bedrooms 20 feet away from mine when they're 40. And your glorification of the old days is way over the top. You know why nursing homes weren't around in 1870? It's not because most households were governed by the glorious, revered seniors of the era, as you're implying. Most households were still run by today's "middle generation." That's because most of the people who make up the "elder generation" of today would have made up the most recent dead generation of those times. To live to nursing-home age back then was a tremendous accomplishment. There wasn't a lot of demand for a place with the sole purpose of taking care of the extremely elderly, because there were hardly any extremely elderly people. It's nice to dream of revering society's elders so much that we'd all give them the attention they need when they reach the point at which they need to be in a nursing home, but the simple fact is that it would be quite difficult to merely hold a job and provide that level of attention, nevermind raising kids. If I've got a 9-to-5 job that's really 8-to-6 because of traffic, who exactly should I expect to help my parents with the basic tasks of everyday life if they live long enough to require that help?

You're inventing a fantasy in your own head. The difference between the past century and every century that came before it isn't that children loved their parents so much more. The difference is medicine. Plain and simple. Waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" is almost always as much of an illusion as the eternal belief that the current young generation, in any period, has lost its values and will be the end of society.

[Elessar78]

Erm... I'm gonna go ahead and say that I appreciate both the modern development that my parents will not be living with me when I'm 40 and the modern development that my kids won't be having sex in bedrooms 20 feet away from mine when they're 40. And your glorification of the old days is way over the top. You know why nursing homes weren't around in 1870? It's not because most households were governed by the glorious, revered seniors of the era, as you're implying. Most households were still run by today's "middle generation." That's because most of the people who make up the "elder generation" of today would have made up the most recent dead generation of those times. To live to nursing-home age back then was a tremendous accomplishment. There wasn't a lot of demand for a place with the sole purpose of taking care of the extremely elderly, because there were hardly any extremely elderly people. It's nice to dream of revering society's elders so much that we'd all give them the attention they need when they reach the point at which they need to be in a nursing home, but the simple fact is that it would be quite difficult to merely hold a job and provide that level of attention, nevermind raising kids. If I've got a 9-to-5 job that's really 8-to-6 because of traffic, who exactly should I expect to help my parents with the basic tasks of everyday life if they live long enough to require that help?

You're inventing a fantasy in your own head. The difference between the past century and every century that came before it isn't that children loved their parents so much more. The difference is medicine. Plain and simple. Waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" is almost always as much of an illusion as the eternal belief that the current young generation, in any period, has lost its values and will be the end of society.

Ah spoken like someone who hasn't lived in another generation or somewhere else in the world. It's perfectly common to have elderly parents live you to this day in many parts of the world (even the developed world) and not so long ago in America.

Who should take care of your parents if it comes to that? No one would've asked that question in previous generations. People lived in close proximitiy to not just immediate family but close relatives. I'm not talking about pre-industrial America either. If you even leave any of the major metropolitan cities you'd find this to still be the case.

[chipwhich]

Erm... I'm gonna go ahead and say that I appreciate both the modern development that my parents will not be living with me when I'm 40 and the modern development that my kids won't be having sex in bedrooms 20 feet away from mine when they're 40. And your glorification of the old days is way over the top. You know why nursing homes weren't around in 1870? It's not because most households were governed by the glorious, revered seniors of the era, as you're implying. Most households were still run by today's "middle generation." That's because most of the people who make up the "elder generation" of today would have made up the most recent dead generation of those times. To live to nursing-home age back then was a tremendous accomplishment. There wasn't a lot of demand for a place with the sole purpose of taking care of the extremely elderly, because there were hardly any extremely elderly people. It's nice to dream of revering society's elders so much that we'd all give them the attention they need when they reach the point at which they need to be in a nursing home, but the simple fact is that it would be quite difficult to merely hold a job and provide that level of attention, nevermind raising kids. If I've got a 9-to-5 job that's really 8-to-6 because of traffic, who exactly should I expect to help my parents with the basic tasks of everyday life if they live long enough to require that help?

You're inventing a fantasy in your own head. The difference between the past century and every century that came before it isn't that children loved their parents so much more. The difference is medicine. Plain and simple. Waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" is almost always as much of an illusion as the eternal belief that the current young generation, in any period, has lost its values and will be the end of society.

While I don't fully agree with Asbury, and I realize you are only 25 and don't know what your relationship with your family is...

But don't trivialize dropping your parents off at Sunset Acres and saying have a nice life. You don't know what their financial situation is, your situation, or what it means to be in a nursing home.

It's not like taking your dog to be put down.

[Prosperity]

Your money won't get you independence. When your body starts failing, you think the money will make you feel whole again? It may help, but one way or another you will die, probably slowly. You may have enough money for a nursing home, and in that nursing home you may be lucky enough to not get raped or otherwise abused, but let's not call that independence. You'll either depend on your family, depend on an employee, or die quickly, those are the options. If you don't realize this now, you'll realize this when you reach "nursing-home" age.

To some of the posts in this thread...

Yeah because the blue collar man is inherently better than the banker man. Give me a break. It also implies blue collar workers don't work long hours.

I have seen my fair share of poor people who don't give a rats ass about there kid. Instead of living in a nice home, they are living in a trailer, or in a broken home.

The 1% don't live any differently than everyone else. You have bad parents, alcoholics, wife beaters, divorces, etc in all walks of life. My buddy works for a cable company running underground cable 7 days a week trying to make a living and support his 3 kids. Money just allows their kids a better education and a nicer roof over their heads.

Yup. Like I said, structural problems.

[Thiebear]

Can we name a time when it hasn't been "this' way?

I'd kill to be put into the sunrise retirement home now while i can still enjoy it.

[Koolblue13]

I moved down to the islands with only a few grand to get me started. Sold, donated, gave away or paid to have removed everything I own, that didn't fit into my navy sea bag, grabbed my puppy and just showed up with a few references. I've been sleeping in a room, with nothing but an air mattress no bigger than a raft for over two weeks, no tv and the internet barely works. I don't know anybody am almost out of money, have had two friends back home die this week, the girl I was dating tell me she's moving to Colorado to live with her childhood sweetheart and I only occasionally have hot water for a shower and no gas to cook with. I'm bare bones in every sense of the word.

That said, I woke up today to a great breeze and reggae playing outside. Grabbed a banana from the rasta guy on the corner and went swimming in the Caribbean ocean this morning, came home, waited for an iguana to move, so I could cut down the ripe plantains in my yard. Saw a hummingbird that almost glowed blueish green hover a foot in front of my face. I don't need socks anymore. I'm making friends and everybody is super nice and understanding and helpful. I got a job and have started to make some cash and I'm going to save it so I can learn to sail, buy a boat to live on and go anywhere, anytime I feel like it. I hang out at a sustainable farming institute in a subtropical rain forest. I'm moving into an apartment on a mountain side with a view you should have to pay for and the water changes colors everyday.

I have everything and nothing at the same time and I should have made this decision sooner. I don't miss tv, big box stores, keeping up with the jones, having stuff, none of it. I miss family and friends, but I can talk to them and I'm making some incredible new ones everyday. Money and things don't cause happiness, that comes from inside. If you're selling out your family, for paper and junk, you're losing at life IMO.

Think your things have value? Have a yard sale and put some important things out. It's like we create an illusion of comfort and success.

[Stadium-Armory]

Good for you.

Happiness for me is a balanced life. Time enough to enjoy family, friends, and the sunset. And time to work hard and save for the future (I want to put my kids through college).

Why can't we have both? There is a place in between the banker and the fisherman.