Reply to I seemed to have missed the memo to "marry rich"

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Reply to "I seemed to have missed the memo to "marry rich""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So many people responding defensively because while they may have married for love, they also married folks who were ambitious, hard-working, etc and don’t mention that they first knew that through proxies like educational background or employment. So you were looking for markers of financial success. And don’t mention the people you dated, the point is you made a choice to marry someone likely to be financially successful. It’s completely delusional to pretend you didn’t screen for proxies of wealth.

Also ridiculous that everyone thinks their success is due to their own hard work, not the opportunities they had that were about the family they were born into.

I work FT and make $200K, married to a big law partner, and would absolutely tell my three girls to care about the potential earning power of their future partners. [b]Because women, even women like me who went to better school and have better pedigrees and initially out earned their partners, have their careers and earning power suffer when they have children. If that is likely going to happen, you should at least marry someone who can make the kind of $$ you would have made without kids.[/b]
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Neither my DH nor I make anything close to what you and your spouse do, and I have a similar mindset. It's not that I would encourage my daughter to "marry rich". But I would absolutely encourage her to to think critically about finances as she contemplates marriage with someone, especially if they want kids. My parents didn't prepare me for this at all and we had to scramble a bit when we had kids because my DH is not and will never be a really high earner (he has a technical career in government and there is no private sector equivalent so his income is pretty capped). I worked in the private sector and always out earned him. None of this was a problem until we had a kid and I realized what it was like to be the partner who had to do pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and be "the mom". I had egalitarian ideals but the reality of actually having kids forced me to realize that you can't split everything down the middle and there are some things your husband cannot do. Plus I learned that I really loved being a mom and didn't want to be the primary breadwinner -- getting to spend time with my kid was like a reward for going through the challenges of pregnancy and childbirth, and if my husband was the SAHP or primary parent, it made me feel like I was just a baby making machine.

I didn't get any of this before having kids and we struggled for a bit financially when we made the collective decision for me to step back at work a bit so that I could enjoy motherhood more. I would not have made a different choice in husband if I'd known before, but I would have arranged my life a bit differently, and I think my DH and I might have made some different choices before we had kids in terms of where we live, in particular. I don't want my daughter to be blindsided by these realities.[/quote]

Well said. [/quote]

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