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[quote=Anonymous]To answer the last few PPs:

I agree that daycare is a shared cost and should be calculated out of the joint household income. I don't think the default should be to compare daycare costs to the woman's salary. That's gross.

HOWEVER having been through this, if you are a woman who develops an interest in SAHMing, one of the first things you do (before even talking to your DH) is calculate cost of childcare against your salary. Because you are considering dropping that salary. This becomes a huge part of the discussion as to whether or not a family can afford for the woman to stay home, and if so for how long.

I think if the male partner in a couple was interesting in SAH, the conversation would be identical -- how much does he make, how does this impact our childcare costs (yes "our"), what are the financial pluses and minuses of this move.

It's just that men rarely choose to take that step. Whether they want to stay at home or not (I personally think more men fantasize about being a SAH than we think) they don't view it as a real option and thus never get to the phase of comparing their income to the cost of childcare. I also think men are far less confident that they can offer a level of childcare superior to what they can pay for, whereas women often feel this way. Men are not raised or encouraged to be caregivers, they are often particularly unconfident about parenting in the early years. They are far less likely to get or take a decent-sized paternity leave, they worry more about career stigma around staying home, etc. Also, some are straight up sexist and don't think men should stay home. There are lots of reasons men don't pursue staying home, and they are all bound up in gender norms and sometimes misogyny.

But none of that means that women who want to stay home, and therefore run the calculation on whether the savings on childcare might sufficiently counterbalance the loss of their income on their household budget and long term financial plans, are doing something wrong. They are thinking practically about a choice that may or may not make sense for their family. But by and large, those calculations only happen because they want to stay home. Which might not be the choice you'd make, but is still a choice and also not automatically a regressive one.[/quote]

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