single income family/ SAHM major disadvantage

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m a SAHM to law partner husband.

The thing is, my DH and I also both believed in both partners contributing financially and domestically (and we met when we were teens). But by the time he was making 3M+ a year, my 200K income was not contributing. It just wasn’t. So it’s a weird thing, to feel like I ought to be contributing financially, and I’m educated and accomplished, but I literally can’t.

My career became more like a hobby - and one I frankly didn’t like all that much. I still dabble part time so I can pick things up when the kids are older, but no question the only way for me to feel like contribute was to devote more of my time to family tasks. If I contributed 200K a year I wouldn’t be stopping us from being “dependent” on one income. If his income changes drastically, our lifestyle will change drastically (though we’d be ok).

Anyway just throwing that out there. Sometimes not working, even with school aged kids, IS the best way to contribute.

Just to be clear, you ARE working. You just aren’t getting paid for it. Anytime you feel otherwise, go over to the parenting forum and read the posts inquiring how much you should pay a live in nanny who, in addition to taking care of the kids, also: cooks, cleans, takes care of the house etc etc etc. You’ll find that you’re actually a unicorn who should be getting paid $200k.

Roll your eyes all you want. That number came from working moms on this very forum pricing out what this work would cost if you hired someone else to do it. Rolling your eyes just makes you look defensive or like you can’t afford it.

Some before and after care, a house cleaner, and sahp quality meals would not in any way equal to 200k.

It’s close. We are pretty frugal but with summer time and kids not starting school until 5 yo, and needing before and after care you are looking at a full time nanny really for at least ten years to replicate what a sahm does- around DC that’s around 60K. Not to mention maternity leave, daily cleaning with laundry, and fresh dinner weekday delivery would be looking another 50-60k.

I work only part time so we outsource some but not all of that. It’s actually less efficient and more expensive (-45K) because it’s harder to find part time child care than full time and you cycle through more providers which takes a lot of management time. I’m lucky I have telework or it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. I also like spending after school time with my kids and their friends’ parents so I actually have some idea of what their life at school is like.

The number of dual income families spending 200k on childcare and cleaning etc is extremely small. Very few people have a household team and a budget of 200k for household staff. Thinking that if you worked, it would take 200K to replace you is a whole other level of delusional!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Ehh, young men these days are all about "being a provider" so women can "be in their feminine" but they still expect you to work and pay 50%. It's a bizarre facade.

Sure is. My daughter wants to marry a doctor.. but is worried because a lot of doctors want to marry doctors/similar She graduated with an Engineering degree from Yale and makes good money, but wants to be a SAHM and raise a lot of kids, but there aren’t a lot of guys happy about that.

Bigger issue is that 55% of med school students are women...and that keeps trending higher every year. I assume the med school women are also interested in marrying doctors.

Does your daughter bring a ton of family money to the table? I know people with Ivy degrees that become SAHMs but only after it's clear their spouse has basically made it (made MD at an IBank or law firm partner or equivalent).

Should she be aiming for med students or complete doctors? She'll be 24 in March.

Wanting to marry specifically a doctor is naive and seems immature/fantasy driven. Doctors actually often make bad spouses and have high rates of divorce. If she wants a steady, reliable, high earning provider she should probably be looking at an engineer or accounting type and build wealth together by investing early in real estate. It’s great that she has a strong vision for her life but the truth is every family unit goes through lots of challenges and she should look more for shared values like hard work, ability to delay gratification and make sacrifices, financial carefulness, extended family closeness, values etc, none of which a ‘doctor’ is necessarily a proxy for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a SAHM to law partner husband.

The thing is, my DH and I also both believed in both partners contributing financially and domestically (and we met when we were teens). But by the time he was making 3M+ a year, my 200K income was not contributing. It just wasn’t. So it’s a weird thing, to feel like I ought to be contributing financially, and I’m educated and accomplished, but I literally can’t.

My career became more like a hobby - and one I frankly didn’t like all that much. I still dabble part time so I can pick things up when the kids are older, but no question the only way for me to feel like contribute was to devote more of my time to family tasks. If I contributed 200K a year I wouldn’t be stopping us from being “dependent” on one income. If his income changes drastically, our lifestyle will change drastically (though we’d be ok).

Anyway just throwing that out there. Sometimes not working, even with school aged kids, IS the best way to contribute.

Just to be clear, you ARE working. You just aren’t getting paid for it. Anytime you feel otherwise, go over to the parenting forum and read the posts inquiring how much you should pay a live in nanny who, in addition to taking care of the kids, also: cooks, cleans, takes care of the house etc etc etc. You’ll find that you’re actually a unicorn who should be getting paid $200k.

Roll your eyes all you want. That number came from working moms on this very forum pricing out what this work would cost if you hired someone else to do it. Rolling your eyes just makes you look defensive or like you can’t afford it.

Some before and after care, a house cleaner, and sahp quality meals would not in any way equal to 200k.

It’s close. We are pretty frugal but with summer time and kids not starting school until 5 yo, and needing before and after care you are looking at a full time nanny really for at least ten years to replicate what a sahm does- around DC that’s around 60K. Not to mention maternity leave, daily cleaning with laundry, and fresh dinner weekday delivery would be looking another 50-60k.

I work only part time so we outsource some but not all of that. It’s actually less efficient and more expensive (-45K) because it’s harder to find part time child care than full time and you cycle through more providers which takes a lot of management time. I’m lucky I have telework or it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. I also like spending after school time with my kids and their friends’ parents so I actually have some idea of what their life at school is like.

The number of dual income families spending 200k on childcare and cleaning etc is extremely small. Very few people have a household team and a budget of 200k for household staff. Thinking that if you worked, it would take 200K to replace you is a whole other level of delusional!

But the question was how do you replace the value of a SAHM. That value is obviously beyond institutional day care or Nannie’s wouldn’t be able to charge so much. Or eating chicken nuggets and pizza for dinner every weeknight which many dual working families have to resort to due to commute schedules. Obviously it’s closer to having a nanny + personal house manager. I would put that at 120k. But there’s lots of other factors like pressure on the single earner and keeping your foot in a professional world which have to be factored for each family. Plus some people go crazy staying at home all day with young kids or meal planning, so it’s a very individual decision.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Even in well paying jobs, I’ve noticed that the men with SAHMs notice the men with the same jobs but who have wives who work have less pressure and more income and are envious especially if the spouse has good enough hours they do a lot of the SAHM duties.

Being the sole breadwinner is quite stressful. Makes sense.

But it's much easier to advance at work and much less stressful if you never have to worry about the kids or anything at the house. You go further than the guy who has to take the day off for sick kids or leave MWF at 5:30pm to do daycare pickup

Men don't do any of that shit anyways. Let's stop pretending that the SAHM is the "Reason" for a mans success. That's just imaginary flattery to content yourself for sitting at home all day. Do you think working moms don't pick up their kids?

It most certainly is much easier for anyone to advance when they don't have to worry about much outside of work, and can relax and not stress about any of that. You obviously don't have a partner who manages it all for you, so you don't recognize it.

I think pps point is that men don't stress about that in general. So it's not actually relieving anything. It's just patting yourself on the back for a made up benefit.

Maybe in your household. But in mine if I was working we split things 50/50. Spouse had potential to advance further in job (same background, I just didn't want to be an exec, I liked the technical work and was damn good at it). So we decided that once we had kids it would be better to have someone to focus on the kids and the household. I wanted to do that--was all set up to send first kid to daycare, then they arrived and I decided nope I wanted to be with them for at least first 2 years then realized I enjoyed it and for us having an at home parent was better. Spouses job required traveling as well and so had mine. So it was what was best for the family.
But I also knew i married a great man who would always take care of us. In the event of a divorce i would have gotten my fair share (happily married 30+ years )

So in a good relationship it is relieving stress and responsibilities because my husband had those 50/50 when I was in a paid job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You assume a lot about people’s lives that doesn’t bear out statistically or even if you knew them well....

This has always been a rampant issue on this site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Even in well paying jobs, I’ve noticed that the men with SAHMs notice the men with the same jobs but who have wives who work have less pressure and more income and are envious especially if the spouse has good enough hours they do a lot of the SAHM duties.

Being the sole breadwinner is quite stressful. Makes sense.

But it's much easier to advance at work and much less stressful if you never have to worry about the kids or anything at the house. You go further than the guy who has to take the day off for sick kids or leave MWF at 5:30pm to do daycare pickup

Men don't do any of that shit anyways. Let's stop pretending that the SAHM is the "Reason" for a mans success. That's just imaginary flattery to content yourself for sitting at home all day. Do you think working moms don't pick up their kids?

It's moms who do most of the work, whether they are stay at home or working. And especially at the higher levels men don't.
Let me check the c suite at three companies where my spouse has been (ceo at all 3)
All of the men with kids had sahm, most of the women with kids had a husband who handled the kids or was stay at home when kids were younger, and the rest of the women execs don't have kids and don't plan to.

But literally no females with kids who didn't have a spouse who took the role of "parent first".

Money solves everything. I have a good friend who has a very well funded family trust that pays her around $1MM per year and she stands to inherit around $100MM. She works, actually a fairly high powered job, as does her husband.

Guess what...she never has to worry about anything at home. She has multiple nannies, including one that's live-in...if she has to get on a plane in an hour and travel somewhere, she goes and does it. No worries about picking kids up from school or really anything...she lets the nanny and her husband know, and off she goes.

Well yes if you are at the financial level of a live in, 24/7 nanny then money does solve a lot of problems.

For us though we figured why have kids if we both were going to be in high powered jobs that meant long hours and travel? Is it fair to kids to be raised by a nanny? Not talking people who use daycare but people who both work 10-12 hour days and are traveling frequently. It's a serious question of why do that, when money is not the reason

I mean you can but some of us prefer a different quality of life

[Anonymous]

I find it very hard to believe that so many of you in the professional world don't know any men who have stress. That they all just float through life on the backs of women, completley unaware of anything going on in their own homes. Such a bizarre take on life and so foreign to me.

Everyone I know is stressed out for some reason or another and the men are just as stressed out as women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even in well paying jobs, I’ve noticed that the men with SAHMs notice the men with the same jobs but who have wives who work have less pressure and more income and are envious especially if the spouse has good enough hours they do a lot of the SAHM duties.

Being the sole breadwinner is quite stressful. Makes sense.

But it's much easier to advance at work and much less stressful if you never have to worry about the kids or anything at the house. You go further than the guy who has to take the day off for sick kids or leave MWF at 5:30pm to do daycare pickup

Men don't do any of that shit anyways. Let's stop pretending that the SAHM is the "Reason" for a mans success. That's just imaginary flattery to content yourself for sitting at home all day. Do you think working moms don't pick up their kids?

It's moms who do most of the work, whether they are stay at home or working. And especially at the higher levels men don't.
Let me check the c suite at three companies where my spouse has been (ceo at all 3)
All of the men with kids had sahm, most of the women with kids had a husband who handled the kids or was stay at home when kids were younger, and the rest of the women execs don't have kids and don't plan to.

But literally no females with kids who didn't have a spouse who took the role of "parent first".

Money solves everything. I have a good friend who has a very well funded family trust that pays her around $1MM per year and she stands to inherit around $100MM. She works, actually a fairly high powered job, as does her husband.

Guess what...she never has to worry about anything at home. She has multiple nannies, including one that's live-in...if she has to get on a plane in an hour and travel somewhere, she goes and does it. No worries about picking kids up from school or really anything...she lets the nanny and her husband know, and off she goes.

Well yes if you are at the financial level of a live in, 24/7 nanny then money does solve a lot of problems.

For us though we figured why have kids if we both were going to be in high powered jobs that meant long hours and travel? Is it fair to kids to be raised by a nanny? Not talking people who use daycare but people who both work 10-12 hour days and are traveling frequently. It's a serious question of why do that, when money is not the reason

I mean you can but some of us prefer a different quality of life

That's a different point...the previous point is that you need one spouse to be SAH in order for the other to achieve such incredible career results such that they never have to worry about anything pertaining to the household.

I was just pointing out the obvious...that's not a true statement because money solves all problems.

[Anonymous]

I always laugh at all the sahms who think having high salary good jobs consumes so much of life that you have no time for your kids or ability to attend to the home life.

This is either a delusion you tell yourself to justify not working, or if you're basing this on your husband working crazy hours, then your husband is either terrible at his job or he hates his family since he's choosing to spend all his time at work. All the men and women i know in the best, highest paying careers have pretty flexible lives. It's the people in low and middle class jobs that have the crappy life and no flexibility. But most men and women with high paying successful careers who want to carve out time for their families absolutely can. If your husband "needed" you to stay home to succeed at his job, sounds like he's not very good at his job.

Interestingly, the exception to the above is... doctors, who often are required to work very long hours, depending on specialty. And for that reason, make absolutely lousy uninvolved husbands and fathers. My friends married to doctors are all miserable, or alternatively, have little to do with their husbands in order to stay happy. Yuck. Good luck to the OP's daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always laugh at all the sahms who think having high salary good jobs consumes so much of life that you have no time for your kids or ability to attend to the home life.

This is either a delusion you tell yourself to justify not working, or if you're basing this on your husband working crazy hours, then your husband is either terrible at his job or he hates his family since he's choosing to spend all his time at work. All the men and women i know in the best, highest paying careers have pretty flexible lives. It's the people in low and middle class jobs that have the crappy life and no flexibility. But most men and women with high paying successful careers who want to carve out time for their families absolutely can. If your husband "needed" you to stay home to succeed at his job, sounds like he's not very good at his job.

Interestingly, the exception to the above is... doctors, who often are required to work very long hours, depending on specialty. And for that reason, make absolutely lousy uninvolved husbands and fathers. My friends married to doctors are all miserable, or alternatively, have little to do with their husbands in order to stay happy. Yuck. Good luck to the OP's daughter.

It's why the law firm partner husbands somehow can make every kid's baseball game at 3:30pm during the workday...but they are "too busy" to make a parent-teacher conference or take a kid to the doctor or whatever. It's simply because they don't want to do those things, but they always can make time for anything they want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always laugh at all the sahms who think having high salary good jobs consumes so much of life that you have no time for your kids or ability to attend to the home life.

This is either a delusion you tell yourself to justify not working, or if you're basing this on your husband working crazy hours, then your husband is either terrible at his job or he hates his family since he's choosing to spend all his time at work. All the men and women i know in the best, highest paying careers have pretty flexible lives. It's the people in low and middle class jobs that have the crappy life and no flexibility. But most men and women with high paying successful careers who want to carve out time for their families absolutely can. If your husband "needed" you to stay home to succeed at his job, sounds like he's not very good at his job.

Interestingly, the exception to the above is... doctors, who often are required to work very long hours, depending on specialty. And for that reason, make absolutely lousy uninvolved husbands and fathers. My friends married to doctors are all miserable, or alternatively, have little to do with their husbands in order to stay happy. Yuck. Good luck to the OP's daughter.

It's why the law firm partner husbands somehow can make every kid's baseball game at 3:30pm during the workday...but they are "too busy" to make a parent-teacher conference or take a kid to the doctor or whatever. It's simply because they don't want to do those things, but they always can make time for anything they want to do.

Look at all these salty people who aren’t married to high earning spouses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always laugh at all the sahms who think having high salary good jobs consumes so much of life that you have no time for your kids or ability to attend to the home life.

This is either a delusion you tell yourself to justify not working, or if you're basing this on your husband working crazy hours, then your husband is either terrible at his job or he hates his family since he's choosing to spend all his time at work. All the men and women i know in the best, highest paying careers have pretty flexible lives. It's the people in low and middle class jobs that have the crappy life and no flexibility. But most men and women with high paying successful careers who want to carve out time for their families absolutely can. If your husband "needed" you to stay home to succeed at his job, sounds like he's not very good at his job.

Interestingly, the exception to the above is... doctors, who often are required to work very long hours, depending on specialty. And for that reason, make absolutely lousy uninvolved husbands and fathers. My friends married to doctors are all miserable, or alternatively, have little to do with their husbands in order to stay happy. Yuck. Good luck to the OP's daughter.

It's why the law firm partner husbands somehow can make every kid's baseball game at 3:30pm during the workday...but they are "too busy" to make a parent-teacher conference or take a kid to the doctor or whatever. It's simply because they don't want to do those things, but they always can make time for anything they want to do.

Look at all these salty people who aren’t married to high earning spouses.

I'm married to a high earning spouse. I'm also a high earning spouse (equity biglaw partner). I just had midday s*x because we both work from home. I'm now going to pick up my son from the bus to take him to tutoring. And then i'll come home and either DH or I is making a lovely dinner of salmon and broccoli. DH is going to have a nap while I'm at tutoring.

But yes, please keep convincing yourself that your DH needs to work 12 hours a day and have no relationship with you and you're adding $$$$ value to the household.

[Anonymous]

Why do so many of you have such crappy husbands? These are relationship issues.

[Anonymous]

I think it's difficult for a married couple to have 2 big jobs like being a surgeon and a law firm partner--your kids likely.miss out on a lot of family time and you need to outsource much of your life. I think it can be done if one of the jobs sounds big but is actually flexible.
A high HHI doesn't mean easy street or good parenting if they jobs are all consuming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It cuts both way. I have a HYP classmate who chose to be a stay at home mom her whole life and dedicated her time to tiger parenting her kids. Now her kids both go to ivies and because her husband is a government worker, I assume they don’t pay a penny in tuition because their HHI is under 200k unlike rich parents who will pay 90k/year.

FYI we are single earner (now retired) gov't couple, and pay $90k tuition. So once again, don't assume.