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[quote=Anonymous]I am not a SAHM but I work PT even though I only have one kid who is school age. My take is that people often overestimate how easy it is for middle class people to find reliable childcare when they both work, if they don’t have nearby family or other resources. It’s really challenging and right now we make it work by me being PT. It would be great for us financially if I could go FT, plus obviously very good for my retirement fund. But it would come at a major cost to family stability. I probably am still going to do it, but I dread what it will mean for our day-to-day. My current schedule makes everything so much easier. We never feel hectic. Our relationship are all really solid.

When you are wealthy and can always afford the extra help you need, or to pay for conveniences that make things easier, you may not realize how valuable that is to family stability and well being. But as a family that has had to sacrifice income to get that peace of mind, I realize how valuable it is. Yes, when I am FT we’ll be putting away way more for college/retirement than now. But that will be the only financial shift. It’s not like my FT salary will enable us to do that AND pay for housecleaners, meal prep, household admin, vacation planning, childcare on school sick days and in the summer, and all the other stuff I currently do. We’ll have to do all that, plus work, in order to get the extra savings. Probably worth it in the end but still: not fun. Which is why we’ve put it off a bit, accepting a few extra years of lower savings in exchange for an easier like during a pandemic.

So maybe before judging a SAHM whose household income is a fraction of yours, you should step back and be grateful that’s not a trade off you ever have to navigate.[/quote]

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