Making SAHM get job to pay for private school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I agree the word "make" her get a job is poor choice of language.

Some good advice here and to answer some questions: she has a good degree fromm an expensive private school (as do most of her friends who are SAH mom's) so she could go back to what she was doing before SAH and probably make 75-100k full time which after taxes would basically just lay for school.

The reason I mention that is because I wonder if she would still think private is worth it if she literally had to endure a year of all the nonsense they work brings just for the joy of saying out kids are in private school.

As others have pointed out, it's just as much about that I see private school as pointless. In fact, I probably have a bit of a chip about it since I started at my company with a dozen others, almost all of them from Ivy or southern Ivy (Duke, Candy) and I surpassed all of them. Most aren't even in the field anymore. Point being, where you go to college doesn't matter as much as people think unless you are in a super rare field that needs a pedigree (like a Supreme Court lawyer). Where you go to high school matters less and middle school?

If this was a cheap expense, then it wouldn't be a hill to die on but it's an enormous expense. Can I afford it? For sure. Does it mean I will work at least 3 more years over this, for sure.

I suppose it just comes down to a philosophical difference as to whether private is an actual benefit vs a country club status thing.

Advice on a productive conversation? Am I allowed to anonymously sneer that my wife's very expensive private school pedigree didn't exactly lead to a good ROI?

If she she gets a job, what are you going to add to you home duties? What are your current away from home hours?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She probably wants to go private because as the sahm with your income, that’s what all her friends do. She’s screwed either way. If you send your kids to public her friends will look down on her and she’ll probably lose her friends as they grow closer with other parents at the private school. If you make her work, she will lose her sahm mom friends and it’s super hard to make new mom friends as a Jr high or HS mom. Mom friendships are forged when kids are young and need the moms to coordinate activities, camps, rides, etc.

You left off the option where she can manipulate him into paying for private, while still staying home against his reservations.

I didn’t leave it off. I fully expect that is what will happen. Having a spouse work when you make $500k is stupid. Having a sah spouse is a luxury that makes life much more convenient for the high earner.

Private school is a luxury as well. This women seems to want all of the luxuries without having to bust her a** to afford them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I agree the word "make" her get a job is poor choice of language.

Some good advice here and to answer some questions: she has a good degree fromm an expensive private school (as do most of her friends who are SAH mom's) so she could go back to what she was doing before SAH and probably make 75-100k full time which after taxes would basically just lay for school.

The reason I mention that is because I wonder if she would still think private is worth it if she literally had to endure a year of all the nonsense they work brings just for the joy of saying out kids are in private school.

As others have pointed out, it's just as much about that I see private school as pointless. In fact, I probably have a bit of a chip about it since I started at my company with a dozen others, almost all of them from Ivy or southern Ivy (Duke, Candy) and I surpassed all of them. Most aren't even in the field anymore. Point being, where you go to college doesn't matter as much as people think unless you are in a super rare field that needs a pedigree (like a Supreme Court lawyer). Where you go to high school matters less and middle school?

If this was a cheap expense, then it wouldn't be a hill to die on but it's an enormous expense. Can I afford it? For sure. Does it mean I will work at least 3 more years over this, for sure.

I suppose it just comes down to a philosophical difference as to whether private is an actual benefit vs a country club status thing.

Advice on a productive conversation? Am I allowed to anonymously sneer that my wife's very expensive private school pedigree didn't exactly lead to a good ROI?

OP, my DH and I share some similarities to your situation insofar that DH really wants to send our kids to public school for K-12, whereas I can confidently say that I would prefer private school for at least 7-12 (we are zoned for an excellent public elementary, fortunately, where all of our friends' kids are happy and thriving). We've discussed this issue ad nauseum and haven't been able to come to an agreement, though I do think we both respect the other's position to some degree. Ultimately, having this discussion helped me realize that I really needed to leave my dead-end, low paying gov't job for the private sector, and I now make well over double what I did in gov't and our HHI is substantially higher. While we could have paid for private school for our kids on our old combined HHI (around 600k), it just made sense to me that increasing my income to pay for things like private school (which is clearly a want, not a need, because like you, we have perfectly good public schools in our city) rather than cutting our expenses, having DH work longer, or moving to a smaller house made the most sense. Obviously I'm not a SAHM so it's not precisely the same, but I think it's totally reasonable to have a mature conversation about this and explain to your DW that it is simply not worth the financial tradeoff in terms of you working longer. Who knows, maybe she will bring up wanting to work herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

If she goes back to work are you prepared to be the default parent for the next few years as she builds up her career and has very little vacation time to take? That means being home to do the after school and dinner duties. She gets to the be the one who drops off if necessary. It means grocery shopping and cooking. If means figuring out how the house gets clean and how the lawn gets mowed. It means scheduling and going to the doctors appointments. It means staying home when they are sick…

Give me a freaking break.

This post is ridiculous. Newsflash most women work

So many women on this forum just want to be taken care of and don’t want to work while calling all the shots.

Op you make the money so you have the final say.

Way to miss the point. OP will have some major changes to his life and freedom if his wife returns to work. Are you suggesting that the wife will be able to return to work after years out of the workforce with ample vacation and sick leave? Because it seems unlikely that she will.

I’m a working mom and can definitely see how OP could get used to a SAHM and not realize what he will be giving up with her returning to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

+1.

I predict that we’re going to see more threads like this as inflations gets worse and the upper middle class begins to drown.

This private school obsession that so many non wealthy families have is ridiculous.

Being a breadwinner on a w2 income is hard at in this day and age.

Oh, yeah, lots of tears for the UMC. I can tell this is OP, and his resentment for being the sole earner is sad. Surprised he can out the door to work with that huge chip on his shoulder.

Huh?? You’re responding to a woman.

Also, why are people calling this man wealthy. Wealth and income are not the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I agree the word "make" her get a job is poor choice of language.

Some good advice here and to answer some questions: she has a good degree fromm an expensive private school (as do most of her friends who are SAH mom's) so she could go back to what she was doing before SAH and probably make 75-100k full time which after taxes would basically just lay for school.

The reason I mention that is because I wonder if she would still think private is worth it if she literally had to endure a year of all the nonsense they work brings just for the joy of saying out kids are in private school.

As others have pointed out, it's just as much about that I see private school as pointless. In fact, I probably have a bit of a chip about it since I started at my company with a dozen others, almost all of them from Ivy or southern Ivy (Duke, Candy) and I surpassed all of them. Most aren't even in the field anymore. Point being, where you go to college doesn't matter as much as people think unless you are in a super rare field that needs a pedigree (like a Supreme Court lawyer). Where you go to high school matters less and middle school?

If this was a cheap expense, then it wouldn't be a hill to die on but it's an enormous expense. Can I afford it? For sure. Does it mean I will work at least 3 more years over this, for sure.

I suppose it just comes down to a philosophical difference as to whether private is an actual benefit vs a country club status thing.

Advice on a productive conversation? Am I allowed to anonymously sneer that my wife's very expensive private school pedigree didn't exactly lead to a good ROI?

OP, my DH and I share some similarities to your situation insofar that DH really wants to send our kids to public school for K-12, whereas I can confidently say that I would prefer private school for at least 7-12 (we are zoned for an excellent public elementary, fortunately, where all of our friends' kids are happy and thriving). We've discussed this issue ad nauseum and haven't been able to come to an agreement, though I do think we both respect the other's position to some degree. Ultimately, having this discussion helped me realize that I really needed to leave my dead-end, low paying gov't job for the private sector, and I now make well over double what I did in gov't and our HHI is substantially higher. While we could have paid for private school for our kids on our old combined HHI (around 600k), it just made sense to me that increasing my income to pay for things like private school (which is clearly a want, not a need, because like you, we have perfectly good public schools in our city) rather than cutting our expenses, having DH work longer, or moving to a smaller house made the most sense. Obviously I'm not a SAHM so it's not precisely the same, but I think it's totally reasonable to have a mature conversation about this and explain to your DW that it is simply not worth the financial tradeoff in terms of you working longer. Who knows, maybe she will bring up wanting to work herself.

If you want to send your kids to private school. Earn the money yourself!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She probably wants to go private because as the sahm with your income, that’s what all her friends do. She’s screwed either way. If you send your kids to public her friends will look down on her and she’ll probably lose her friends as they grow closer with other parents at the private school. If you make her work, she will lose her sahm mom friends and it’s super hard to make new mom friends as a Jr high or HS mom. Mom friendships are forged when kids are young and need the moms to coordinate activities, camps, rides, etc.

You left off the option where she can manipulate him into paying for private, while still staying home against his reservations.

I didn’t leave it off. I fully expect that is what will happen. Having a spouse work when you make $500k is stupid. Having a sah spouse is a luxury that makes life much more convenient for the high earner.

Private school is a luxury as well. This women seems to want all of the luxuries without having to bust her a** to afford them.

Exactly. This is the best comment in this thread.

A lot of women on this forum are delusional af.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

If she goes back to work are you prepared to be the default parent for the next few years as she builds up her career and has very little vacation time to take? That means being home to do the after school and dinner duties. She gets to the be the one who drops off if necessary. It means grocery shopping and cooking. If means figuring out how the house gets clean and how the lawn gets mowed. It means scheduling and going to the doctors appointments. It means staying home when they are sick…

Give me a freaking break.

This post is ridiculous. Newsflash most women work

So many women on this forum just want to be taken care of and don’t want to work while calling all the shots.

Op you make the money so you have the final say.

+1 who do you think does this stuff in a household where both parents work? It’s like SAHMs wonder how every other family exists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She probably wants to go private because as the sahm with your income, that’s what all her friends do. She’s screwed either way. If you send your kids to public her friends will look down on her and she’ll probably lose her friends as they grow closer with other parents at the private school. If you make her work, she will lose her sahm mom friends and it’s super hard to make new mom friends as a Jr high or HS mom. Mom friendships are forged when kids are young and need the moms to coordinate activities, camps, rides, etc.

You left off the option where she can manipulate him into paying for private, while still staying home against his reservations.

I didn’t leave it off. I fully expect that is what will happen. Having a spouse work when you make $500k is stupid. Having a sah spouse is a luxury that makes life much more convenient for the high earner.

Private school is a luxury as well. This women seems to want all of the luxuries without having to bust her a** to afford them.

Exactly. This is the best comment in this thread.

A lot of women on this forum are delusional af.

The majority of higher earning UMC men don’t make their wives work. They just don’t. It’s a cultural thing. Parents fully pay for college, the bride’s parents pay for the wedding, marriage happens before kids and the wife isn’t expect to return to work at 6-8 weeks post childbirth. Some do, but many don’t.

It’s not remotely delusional to want to send your kid to private school and consider it on a 500k HHI. Also we don’t even know where OP lives. He may not be in a HCOL city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I agree the word "make" her get a job is poor choice of language.

Some good advice here and to answer some questions: she has a good degree fromm an expensive private school (as do most of her friends who are SAH mom's) so she could go back to what she was doing before SAH and probably make 75-100k full time which after taxes would basically just lay for school.

The reason I mention that is because I wonder if she would still think private is worth it if she literally had to endure a year of all the nonsense they work brings just for the joy of saying out kids are in private school.

As others have pointed out, it's just as much about that I see private school as pointless. In fact, I probably have a bit of a chip about it since I started at my company with a dozen others, almost all of them from Ivy or southern Ivy (Duke, Candy) and I surpassed all of them. Most aren't even in the field anymore. Point being, where you go to college doesn't matter as much as people think unless you are in a super rare field that needs a pedigree (like a Supreme Court lawyer). Where you go to high school matters less and middle school?

If this was a cheap expense, then it wouldn't be a hill to die on but it's an enormous expense. Can I afford it? For sure. Does it mean I will work at least 3 more years over this, for sure.

I suppose it just comes down to a philosophical difference as to whether private is an actual benefit vs a country club status thing.

Advice on a productive conversation? Am I allowed to anonymously sneer that my wife's very expensive private school pedigree didn't exactly lead to a good ROI?

Op, I went to both public and private. I’m now watching my step kids go to one of the best public high schools in suburban DC. I really wish their parents could afford private high school. It kills me to know what they’re missing out on. You don’t know what private school kids get in comparison to what you got. Smaller classes, better writing instruction, nice teachers, bathrooms and cafeterias that can actually use rather than fear. There are so many administration snafus that wind up screwing the kids over.

You don’t see the value in a private school education. It’s not just a status symbol if it’s a good school. It confers a lot of benefits to your kids that are lifelong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

If she goes back to work are you prepared to be the default parent for the next few years as she builds up her career and has very little vacation time to take? That means being home to do the after school and dinner duties. She gets to the be the one who drops off if necessary. It means grocery shopping and cooking. If means figuring out how the house gets clean and how the lawn gets mowed. It means scheduling and going to the doctors appointments. It means staying home when they are sick…

Give me a freaking break.

This post is ridiculous. Newsflash most women work

So many women on this forum just want to be taken care of and don’t want to work while calling all the shots.

Op you make the money so you have the final say.

+1 who do you think does this stuff in a household where both parents work? It’s like SAHMs wonder how every other family exists.

I’m a DW who works. My husband and I both share responsibilities almost 50-50. But if I were to step out of the workforce I would imagine I would do most household work while my husband focused on his career.

I stayed home for 6 months paid maternity leave and practically had to train my husband before I returned to work. OP is likely clueless and doesn’t understand he will need to cover sick days, pick ups, administrative duties etc. Is it worth it on his 500k HHI to live a frazzled existence so his wife pays for school? Is his wife willing to work badly enough to pay for it?

I haven’t seen any responses from OP where he acknowledges the lifestyle changes he will need to make for his wife to work. He will likely need to pick either the AM or PM shift in terms of getting kids to/from school, lunches packed, dinner ready etc. Which one do you want oP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She probably wants to go private because as the sahm with your income, that’s what all her friends do. She’s screwed either way. If you send your kids to public her friends will look down on her and she’ll probably lose her friends as they grow closer with other parents at the private school. If you make her work, she will lose her sahm mom friends and it’s super hard to make new mom friends as a Jr high or HS mom. Mom friendships are forged when kids are young and need the moms to coordinate activities, camps, rides, etc.

You left off the option where she can manipulate him into paying for private, while still staying home against his reservations.

I didn’t leave it off. I fully expect that is what will happen. Having a spouse work when you make $500k is stupid. Having a sah spouse is a luxury that makes life much more convenient for the high earner.

Private school is a luxury as well. This women seems to want all of the luxuries without having to bust her a** to afford them.

Exactly. This is the best comment in this thread.

A lot of women on this forum are delusional af.

The majority of higher earning UMC men don’t make their wives work. They just don’t. It’s a cultural thing. Parents fully pay for college, the bride’s parents pay for the wedding, marriage happens before kids and the wife isn’t expect to return to work at 6-8 weeks post childbirth. Some do, but many don’t.

It’s not remotely delusional to want to send your kid to private school and consider it on a 500k HHI. Also we don’t even know where OP lives. He may not be in a HCOL city.

Upper middle class is not what it used to be. That’s the problem with so many Americans. Americans are struggling to accept their money doesn’t go as far as before. And just because someone has an upper middle class income does not mean they also have parents who were umc as well.
How do you know Op isn’t first generation umc??

Why can’t the wife’s parents pay for private school??

Upper middle class people biggest mistakes continues to be conflating themselves with the actual wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She probably wants to go private because as the sahm with your income, that’s what all her friends do. She’s screwed either way. If you send your kids to public her friends will look down on her and she’ll probably lose her friends as they grow closer with other parents at the private school. If you make her work, she will lose her sahm mom friends and it’s super hard to make new mom friends as a Jr high or HS mom. Mom friendships are forged when kids are young and need the moms to coordinate activities, camps, rides, etc.

You left off the option where she can manipulate him into paying for private, while still staying home against his reservations.

I didn’t leave it off. I fully expect that is what will happen. Having a spouse work when you make $500k is stupid. Having a sah spouse is a luxury that makes life much more convenient for the high earner.

Private school is a luxury as well. This women seems to want all of the luxuries without having to bust her a** to afford them.

Exactly. This is the best comment in this thread.

A lot of women on this forum are delusional af.

The majority of higher earning UMC men don’t make their wives work. They just don’t. It’s a cultural thing. Parents fully pay for college, the bride’s parents pay for the wedding, marriage happens before kids and the wife isn’t expect to return to work at 6-8 weeks post childbirth. Some do, but many don’t.

It’s not remotely delusional to want to send your kid to private school and consider it on a 500k HHI. Also we don’t even know where OP lives. He may not be in a HCOL city.

It is ridiculous if we’re taking about 500k before taxes!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You must have some budget assumptions upon which you are saying that to afford $60K/yr of tuition you need a HHI of $700K. Do you and your DW agree on your annual budget? Or does your DW think that there's somewhere in your current spending that you can cut back?

There are plenty of people who pay for private school and college with a HHI of $500K, so it's not a matter literally not having enough money...it's a matter of priorities. You and your DW probably aren't aligned on other areas of spending either...and that's what you need to address instead of jumping to, "You need to find a job in order to educate our kids the way you think makes sense."

Also, you should try to understand her reasons for wanting private over public. They might be good ones. Your personal experience doesn't apply, even if you live in the same school district you grew up in since kids are different and schools change.

FWIW, I went to private growing up and DH went to only publics. When we were first thinking about schools, he had the attitude that "public was good enough for me, so it's fine". We both did a lot of research, and we ended up exploring both publics and privates. Our kids ended up in public for now, but we may reconsider. Importantly, though, we are having discussions about these things on the merits of the decisions for our kids...not on just wanting our kids to have the same experiences we did.

The 700k is how much school would cost for two kids for that many years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in school all day, so what is she doing all day?

There is plenty to do..and it doesn't include watching tv all day.