Reply to SAHM vs. WOHM, the cost difference is $16,500 help me decide

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Reply to "SAHM vs. WOHM, the cost difference is $16,500 help me decide"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I seriously do not mean to be snarky but I feel very strongly that child care costs should not be "charged" or "counted" against the mom's salary.  I assume you have a career that you have worked on and are proud of.  (You work at a company that provides a 401k match, which is pretty rare these days).

You cannot just look at the costs right now.  What about the years in lost seniority, lost retirement, hit to your career?

Of course, if you want to SAH, you should make that choice.  But don't do any false calculations of "cost of daycare" vs "my take-home pay right now."

Never in our conversations have DH and I "counted" daycare against my salary.  It's a household cost, same as the mortgage and whatever other joint expenses.[/quote]

I do not get this argument.  Or perhaps you misunderstand.  I suppose it sounds pejorative to "charge" daycare costs against the mother's salary, but that's not what it's about.  The question here is whether OP (presumably the mother) should work.  There does not seem to be an issue on the table regarding whether the dad works, so that's not relevant to this discussion.  If the mom keeps working, that triggers daycare expenses.  If the mom stays home, the daycare expenses do not exist.   Put another way, let's say the dad and mom each take home $80K, and daycare expenses are $20K.  If the mom stays home, there will be no daycare expense, and the family's take-home pay will be $80K.  If the mom works, the family's take-home pay will be reduced by the amount of the daycare expense -- thus, effectively, the mom's take-home pay will be $60K.

This is not a sexist approach -- it would be the exact same equation if the family was evaluating whether the dad would work or stay home.  It's just that, from a financial standpoint, the salary of the parent whose decision to work triggers the daycare expense must be evaluated in light of the amount of that expense.

In terms of economic analysis, all expenses triggered by one parent's employment should be "counted against" that employment when weighing the pros and cons of that employment.  If I take a job that pays $60K but will cost $10K in commuting expenses, that effectively means my take-home pay will be $50K.  It does not affect my husband's take-home pay, because it is my employment that triggers the expense.

Not sure how else to explain this.  It's a clear dollars-and-cents calculation.  I really can't understand how people make this into an issue of sexism.  Obviously, there are other intangible costs and benefits to working vs staying home, but from a financial standpoint, of course it makes sense to "charge" the daycare costs against the parent who is considering staying home.  [/quote]

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