Reply to Are you offended when someone says they “didnt want someone else to raise my kids”?

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Reply to "Are you offended when someone says they “didnt want someone else to raise my kids”?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is nothing wrong with wanting free time, downtime, and an unhurried life. I don’t think my parenting or my children are superior to yours. But I adore my slower relaxing life and don’t care if you look down on it. I’ll be on the couch with my book and my dog.[/quote]

…..while your husband sacrifices his down time and free time to fund your life. [/quote]

He doesn't see it that way. First, he likes working. Also, he has a lot more downtime than if we both worked. He doesn’t need to split chores or errands with me - I get those done during the day on weekdays. He doesn’t have to scramble to figure out what’s for dinner, or rearrange his workday because a child is sick. There are benefits to having an at home spouse. Some people value those benefits more than others. [/quote]

Why do people keep saying that the working spouse is sacrificing time to have a SAHP?  It’s just a nonsensical argument.

Between my husband and I, when we both worked outside the home we worked 80 hours + 20-30 hours of commuting (to include kids drop offs and pick ups) per week between us.  Now he works 40 hours + 5 hour commute weekly (generally no kid stuff plus he has more flexibility to base his commute schedule around traffic).

I understand that we are giving up my salary, and that he is taking on the mental burden of being a sole provider, and I am taking a risk in terms of future career and earnings potential.

But he isn’t giving up any more of his free time or down time with me home, and as you pointed out, he actually gets MORE free time this way because he doesn’t have to spend so many nights and weekends doing stuff that I have already gotten done.[/quote]

Have you missed the zillion pages of this thread plus the million other threads about husbands of SAHMs who work long hours and/or travel and are never around? Obviously that's not the case for everyone, but for you to think that most people can just cut their income in half and have a spouse who only works 40 hours a week and support their family in this area is what is nonsensical.[/quote]

It’s not a matter of percentage of income.  It’s an absolute number: “how much money does our family need to bring in to live the life that we want to live?”  If it takes both spouses to hit that, both spouses work.  If one or both spouses make that on their own, then a couple can have a conversation about whether or not one of them wants to stay home.

If your family can comfortably and happily live on 200k per year, then cutting your HHI from 500k to 250k is no problem.  Cutting it from 1 million to 500k is even less of a problem.

A lot of people in this area truly love their jobs (which is great).  However, a lot of people in this area are almost addicted to making money, just for the sake of it, or because as someone else said here they use their income as a way to keep score in the game of life.  But no matter how much you make, you’re not actually required to spend it all.  So many families can just choose to make less.

This isn’t complicated.

(NB I am not saying that families *should* have a SAHP.  I am merely pointing out that it’s an option should a family decide to go that way, and it doesn’t mean the working spouse has to take on a bigger job or more hours.)[/quote]

I just wrote that I didn’t want a job for the sake of having a job.

If DH earned 500 or even 800k, I would probably go back to work. He earns 2-3m so we don’t need for me to go out and get a 100-200k WFH flexible job. I have considered getting a job now that my youngest started elementary school. What I did not anticipate is that my middle and high school kids require a lot more parenting and driving. It was hard enough for me when I was a working mom to drive one kid to sports once per week. [b]Now I have 3 kids with activities every single day. My daughter has activities 5x per week. Both my older kids have sports 5-6x per week. It is a lot.[/b][/quote]

Do you think you're different from other people with three kids in activities?

Your husband making $2-3 million a year is an absolute outlier.

So you're using your incredibly unique income experience to justify your incredibly common life. It's just silly.[/quote]

You just said our HHi was an outlier and then said we had an incredibly common life.

The point was that it was hard for me when I was a working mom getting my kid to sports practice once per week. It felt like a big scramble on that day. I had to pick up two kids, get to practice and get dinner. It would be much more difficult with 3 kids and sports daily, not just once per week. I am well aware that many families juggle work and sports. Most of my kids’ teammates have parents who all work.

What is very different is that I do not have to scramble and feel stressed out all the time. I don’t have to be annoyed at staff appreciation or the last minute class party. I can visit my dad in the hospital in a different state or drive my mom to surgery. I know other working parents also have to deal with elderly parents, kids, work and the house but I don’t have to do it strained. [/quote]

You also don't have to be that parent who is constantly emailing/begging for someone on the team to include their kid in carpool to/from the activities.  That is how many of the working parents/parents without extremely flexible schedules manage it.  Our HS/MS got out at 2:20pm.  Unless you are flexible and WFH, who can leave work at 2pm to transport their kids to activities and then not get home until 7/8pm to finally "return to working".  Not many people I know can do that on a daily basis.  
So you end up asking the SAHP/PT working parents to grab your kid from school to get them to the game (but you also have to manage getting the equipment there as well---most MS/HS kid don't use lockers so they cannot take big gear to school).

I was a SAHP simply because I wanted to be home with my kids when young. It was what worked best for our family.  My husband was on a path to high paying job and it meant travel and oh, his job was a 45 min drive from the house.  So yeah, he left at 7:30/7:45 am for work and often got home at 7:30/8pm (avoided the rush hour on way home so it was only 45 mins, not 75 mins).  So I concluded I wasn't going to run myself ragged managing it all by myself when he was traveling and in reality for most days as most "work with the kids" is done by 8pm when they are under 9.  So choice was to hire a nanny to do it all for us and I go back to work, or I just do it---I enjoyed it and loved watching my kids at their activities.  But most importantly, we didn't need my income.  Kids were set for college (at 90K/year colleges) and our retirement was on track and we were still saving 25%+ on top of that.

So while your kids don't need to do all the activities daily, some want to and enjoy it.  We didn't want to deny them that.  And I refused to work a full time job and run my self ragged with everything else.  Yes I know most families do just that.  But I'm not most families and we lived in a way to allow the choice not to (we lived on one income even when we both made the same thing).

[/quote]

This describes most of the SAHM setups I know. The dad doesn’t want to dad so the mom has to be both parents, which is impossible if you work FT.  [/quote]

[b]not that dad "didn't want to Dad".  They had career aspirations and wanted to pursue those[/b] (highly successful CEO by 42).  Very involved when around (not traveling for work or at work).  
But we decided that as a family, we didn't want to have both parents doing that--someone needed a more flexible job.  I chose to SAHP because I didn't want to "do it all".  I wanted to have a more relaxed life for our family.  Had I wanted to work and try to do it all, I would have hired a Nanny, cook, whatever we needed to make it happen smoothly.

And yes, it made sense for my husband to pursue his job, because he was passionate about it, and while I made excellent money, I had no desire to move up management (I'm an introvert techie---love the work no desire for the politics involved at the higher levels).  So it makes sense to let the person with chance for much higher pay to pursue that.  And yes, I'm a highly educated woman who made that choice after a decade of working. Lucky to be in that position.

Hint: you don't get to C suite/CEO/high level management very often if you leave work at 5pm to get the kids, and take 3 days off the week your kids are too sick to go to school (or work from home despite having in person meetings that week).

[/quote]

DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?!?!?

A man who wants to pursue his "career aspirations" is still a dad. But a mom who works doesn't raise her child. [/quote]

Ummm...I never stated that.  That was different poster.

Both parents can have whatever career aspirations they want.  In our household, we felt it was silly to have kids and have BOTH parents wanting to pursue a highly stressful, high travel type of career. We didn't feel it was fair to have kids then have a few full time nannies who would take care of them if/when we both had to travel Sunday to Friday.   Or whose jobs would require them rarely to be home until 7/8pm.  So we CHOSE to have one pursue the high powered path and the other to focus more on the kids.  I don't care if it's the mom or dad or both who pursues that.  If you are fine with several weeks per month having neither parent home (they are traveling for work) or neither home until the kids are in bed most nights, then you go for it. We were not fine with that, and didn't have family nearby, so we chose to not do that (but we were on that path prekids. ) 
We felt that wasn't fair to the kids, so I chose to SAHP.  I could have just scaled back to PT, but once I had my first, I wanted to be at home.

[/quote]

And some people think it isn't fair to their kids to be raised by only one parent. To each their own. [/quote]

They are raised by both parents.  One just isn't around quite as much as the one who is there 24/7.  Just like a kid who goes to daycare/before care at 7am and isn't picked up from daycare/aftercare until 6:30pm, isn't around their parents during that time.  
So kid gets 3-4 waking hours with both parents a day or full time with one parent and 1-2 hours a day with the other.  And then most weekends dad is around and involved (plans when they have to do work calls/work around the kid's schedule so they don't miss important events with the kids--games/concerts/recitals/etc) 
Oh and the perks of that mean instead of making $300-350k we make $800K+ and don't have to worry about college, our retirement, paying for kid's activities (one did travel ball, other did competitive dance at $20K/year).

You can pick whichever you want.  Others will pick accordingly for their family.

[/quote]

Your hypocrisy is so astounding, but I'm hoping you can finally see it 150 pages in.

You say kids with a SAHM and a working dad are raised by both parents. But the OP said that working moms don't raise their kids.

So either you agree that the OP is untrue and offensive or you're a hypocrite. Which one is it?[/quote]

Not what I'm saying.  You are confusing many other Posters with me.

In all situations, the kids are being raised by both parents.  I have never stated WOHM don't raise their kids.

Once again, you do what works for you.  Stop denigrating other people for their choices.  
And stop being jealous that someone has the finances and healthy marriage and ability to choose to stay at home.  That's their choice.  Just like many women choose to work because they get great joy from their career.  
Hint: Both are smart women, both use their brains. So stop with the antics of degrading people.  
[/quote]

Ha, I have tons of money and a healthy marriage so I'm not at all jealous of you. And I didn't denigrate anyone. I merely pointed out the hypocrisy of all the SAHMs crowing that their husbands raise their kids while simultaneously saying that they stayed home so that someone else didn't raise them. If that's not you, then great, welcome to the land of the reasonable.[/quote]

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