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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]End of gen x here (younger end) and I do think we are the last gen of the stay at home mom. With flex work it just makes no sense to minimize income that will affect kids financially down the line. [/quote]

I admit that I’m jealous and wish my job allowed flex work. A lot of people don’t have that option in their line of work![/quote]

Yes this is especially an issue in teaching which is dominated by women. 20 years ago teaching was viewed as a great job for  moms because you could have the same schedule as your kids and potentially even have your kids in the same school as you at some point which would ease childcare burdens and simplify the challenge of a dual income family. I remember having several friends with teacher moms when I was a kid and I was jealous that their moms were around in the summer. I also remember friends who would just go to their mom's classroom after school to do homework and hang out until she wrapped up at 4pm. It was also nice to have a parent who knew the lay of the land in the school or the district.

But now teaching is viewed as a lot less family friendly and there are an increasing number of teachers who choose to leave the profession when they have kids or choose not to have kids. Even though real incomes for teachers have not really increased versus inflation they are asked to do much more including more work after hours and with the school community. Teachers often don't really get summers off anymore -- in many districts it's more like 6 weeks and they have to attend a lot of PD days or records days during days their kids are off school so they are still turning to camps and other forms of childcare and not just hanging with kids all summer.

But the biggest thing is that since Covid a lot of other jobs have become more flexible with WFH options and teaching is one of those jobs that really cannot be done WFH. And that realization has hit a lot of teachers hard. WFH is a huge boon for working parents -- I WFH full time and my DH has two days a week at home and this flexiblity is life changing. It eases commutes and dinner times and makes it possible for kids to attend after school activities some days and makes morning drop off easy. It reduces marital stress and tension and enables us both to have better and closer relationships with our kids. Teachers know this better than anyone because they spend all day with kids and know what they need. But the job of teaching is no longer very conducive to being that kind of parent and it's really unfortunate (and is also contributing to the teacher shortage just FYI because teaching is not high paid nor prestigious so if it's also not family friendly then you are going to eliminate many potential teachers because what exactly is the value proposition there).[/quote]

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