Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Daycare is the cost of working split between both parents. It’s not a cost that’s only charged to women. Ugh!!

It is a cost that only needs to occur if both parents work. Don't make it about sexism. It's math.

DP and sure, but this thread presumes it comes out of the woman’s salary. If you want to do the math, do the math for both partners to work vs. not, and the costs for both of them. Include things like retirement savings, increased social security, etc., on the benefits side.

There are less tangible benefits to working for many people. I don’t know if I could put a specific dollar amount on the meaning I derive from using my graduate degree to (hopefully) make the world a better place, but I sure would miss it if I didn’t work.

What you find are the less tangible benefits are benefits to you but not others. Regardless of if you work or not, its always good to have education.

Some of us had enough credits for social security before we became SAHM's. I did. We still save for my retirement and I have money from when I did work.

It doesn't matter whose money day care comes from but if you look at the total cost of day care vs. the lower earning spouse, then you look at the cost/benefits. If I was barely making enough to cover day care for one child, what is the point in working?

Were you calculating the net present value of all lost wages and social security credits and income when saying that you barely made enough to cover day care for one child? Even with two good incomes, daycare was a strain on our budgets. However, childcare is only expensive the first few years and compared to a lifetime of earning potential, it's good to take the long view.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

By our third date, my husband was telling me he only wanted to marry a woman who would continue to work after marriage and kids. I appreciate his forthrightness and as I never had any interest in SAH, we ended up getting married and being dual WOHP. My guess is that most people discuss this extensively with prospective spouses.

I think that’s a really unfair thing to ask of a woman. You’d never had a baby before - what if you’d changed your mind once you actually gave birth? And your husband will never know what it’s like to give birth. Also, that just seems slimy to me of your husband to ask that. To me it sounds like, “I don’t care how you feel when you actually have the baby. The most important thing to me is that you keep making money for us.”

The point is, we both agreed that neither of us had a choice to SAH. We bought a house with a mortgage that required two salaries. I'm not really the kind of person who has changed her mind much as an adult. It's not slimy; he saw his dad live under tremendous stress because his was the sole income. Who wants that kind of stress? The important thing is that we were both clear from the beginning about what we wanted, and communicated that to the other early on the relationship.

NP. My dh and I made that decision also while dating. So many reasons
-more household income
-DH doesn't have to lean in, work nonstop, and can be home for dinner at 5:30 every night
-makes husband and wife 50/50 partners

But we did get a mortgage that we could support on one income in case the worst happened (like a special needs baby) and one of us needed to stay home.

You can have all of that with one parent working.

It's much harder on one income.

No, it’s not. We do it just fine. You wanted an expensive house that takes two incomes.

DP here. You don't think that there are places and jobs where single income is insufficient to put a roof over a family's head?! Have you read a newspaper in the last 10 years?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

By our third date, my husband was telling me he only wanted to marry a woman who would continue to work after marriage and kids. I appreciate his forthrightness and as I never had any interest in SAH, we ended up getting married and being dual WOHP. My guess is that most people discuss this extensively with prospective spouses.

I think that’s a really unfair thing to ask of a woman. You’d never had a baby before - what if you’d changed your mind once you actually gave birth? And your husband will never know what it’s like to give birth. Also, that just seems slimy to me of your husband to ask that. To me it sounds like, “I don’t care how you feel when you actually have the baby. The most important thing to me is that you keep making money for us.”

The point is, we both agreed that neither of us had a choice to SAH. We bought a house with a mortgage that required two salaries. I'm not really the kind of person who has changed her mind much as an adult. It's not slimy; he saw his dad live under tremendous stress because his was the sole income. Who wants that kind of stress? The important thing is that we were both clear from the beginning about what we wanted, and communicated that to the other early on the relationship.

NP. My dh and I made that decision also while dating. So many reasons
-more household income
-DH doesn't have to lean in, work nonstop, and can be home for dinner at 5:30 every night
-makes husband and wife 50/50 partners

But we did get a mortgage that we could support on one income in case the worst happened (like a special needs baby) and one of us needed to stay home.

You can have all of that with one parent working.

It's much harder on one income.

No, it’s not. We do it just fine. You wanted an expensive house that takes two incomes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

By our third date, my husband was telling me he only wanted to marry a woman who would continue to work after marriage and kids. I appreciate his forthrightness and as I never had any interest in SAH, we ended up getting married and being dual WOHP. My guess is that most people discuss this extensively with prospective spouses.

I think that’s a really unfair thing to ask of a woman. You’d never had a baby before - what if you’d changed your mind once you actually gave birth? And your husband will never know what it’s like to give birth. Also, that just seems slimy to me of your husband to ask that. To me it sounds like, “I don’t care how you feel when you actually have the baby. The most important thing to me is that you keep making money for us.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we were engaged, I told stbDH that I would never ever ever be a SAHP. ever. Life has a way of happening that messes up ones plans. We ended up with two children that needed more intensive parenting for much longer than NT children. In order to have a life where we both spent more time with them, one of us needed to be at home. I have been a SAHP since. I was definitely a more natural WOHP and it took a very long time to acclimate to the cadence of being a SAHP. We now have two relatively independent adult children who have finally blossomed and are contributing members of society (well one is there and one is nearly there)- something that was much harder to achieve for both.

You know, you don't need to justify your decision to stay home by saying your kids were special needs. Any woman's choice is valid if it's what works for her. When women continually put that qualifier on their time out of the workforce, it smacks me as so misogynistic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

By our third date, my husband was telling me he only wanted to marry a woman who would continue to work after marriage and kids. I appreciate his forthrightness and as I never had any interest in SAH, we ended up getting married and being dual WOHP. My guess is that most people discuss this extensively with prospective spouses.

I think that’s a really unfair thing to ask of a woman. You’d never had a baby before - what if you’d changed your mind once you actually gave birth? And your husband will never know what it’s like to give birth. Also, that just seems slimy to me of your husband to ask that. To me it sounds like, “I don’t care how you feel when you actually have the baby. The most important thing to me is that you keep making money for us.”

The point is, we both agreed that neither of us had a choice to SAH. We bought a house with a mortgage that required two salaries. I'm not really the kind of person who has changed her mind much as an adult. It's not slimy; he saw his dad live under tremendous stress because his was the sole income. Who wants that kind of stress? The important thing is that we were both clear from the beginning about what we wanted, and communicated that to the other early on the relationship.

NP. My dh and I made that decision also while dating. So many reasons
-more household income
-DH doesn't have to lean in, work nonstop, and can be home for dinner at 5:30 every night
-makes husband and wife 50/50 partners

But we did get a mortgage that we could support on one income in case the worst happened (like a special needs baby) and one of us needed to stay home.

You can have all of that with one parent working.

It's much harder on one income.

No, it’s not. We do it just fine. You wanted an expensive house that takes two incomes.

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: this is a topic on the Money and Finances board.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

By our third date, my husband was telling me he only wanted to marry a woman who would continue to work after marriage and kids. I appreciate his forthrightness and as I never had any interest in SAH, we ended up getting married and being dual WOHP. My guess is that most people discuss this extensively with prospective spouses.

I think that’s a really unfair thing to ask of a woman. You’d never had a baby before - what if you’d changed your mind once you actually gave birth? And your husband will never know what it’s like to give birth. Also, that just seems slimy to me of your husband to ask that. To me it sounds like, “I don’t care how you feel when you actually have the baby. The most important thing to me is that you keep making money for us.”

+1 I was ambitious and shocked when I realized I wanted to stay home. I went back to work, had a second kid, went back to work again and through it all I consistently wanted to be at home. I was super thankful my DH supported that, and that I’d paid off my strident loans rather than wait for PSLF to kick in. I think we still could have made SAH work even with the loans, but it was nice that wasn’t a factor.

This. I never thought I'd want to stay home with my kids. But when they were small, it's all I wanted. People told me that it would be hard to go to work at first but that it would get better. It didn't -- I hated it every day! I hated that I was working so that we could pay someone else to do the things I wanted to be doing. It made no sense to me. I quit and have no regrets about it. My only regret is in not listening to myself when I was miserable returning to the office and trying to convince myself it was "just" hormones (it's definitely partly hormones but that doensn't make it wrong -- sometimes when your hormones scream at you, you should listen to them!) and that I'd get over it and that this was normal and right.

Basically all the PPs in this thread giving 101 reasons why women should never SAHM -- that was my inner monologue. And then I finally listened to my own mind instead of all the influences telling me that only regressive trad wives become SAHMs, and realized that it's what I wanted.

If you really want to stay home with your kids for some amount of time, and you and your spouse figure out together how to make it work financially, do it. And ignore these people yelling at you that you're betraying feminism for that your DH will leave you tomorrow. They don't know you, and they don't know your marriage. Do what works for you. There are lots of ways to live.

Just don't make the emotional decision without running the numbers and fully understanding what you're giving up first.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we were engaged, I told stbDH that I would never ever ever be a SAHP. ever. Life has a way of happening that messes up ones plans. We ended up with two children that needed more intensive parenting for much longer than NT children. In order to have a life where we both spent more time with them, one of us needed to be at home. I have been a SAHP since. I was definitely a more natural WOHP and it took a very long time to acclimate to the cadence of being a SAHP. We now have two relatively independent adult children who have finally blossomed and are contributing members of society (well one is there and one is nearly there)- something that was much harder to achieve for both.

You know, you don't need to justify your decision to stay home by saying your kids were special needs. Any woman's choice is valid if it's what works for her. When women continually put that qualifier on their time out of the workforce, it smacks me as so misogynistic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we were engaged, I told stbDH that I would never ever ever be a SAHP. ever. Life has a way of happening that messes up ones plans. We ended up with two children that needed more intensive parenting for much longer than NT children. In order to have a life where we both spent more time with them, one of us needed to be at home. I have been a SAHP since. I was definitely a more natural WOHP and it took a very long time to acclimate to the cadence of being a SAHP. We now have two relatively independent adult children who have finally blossomed and are contributing members of society (well one is there and one is nearly there)- something that was much harder to achieve for both.

You know, you don't need to justify your decision to stay home by saying your kids were special needs. Any woman's choice is valid if it's what works for her. When women continually put that qualifier on their time out of the workforce, it smacks me as so misogynistic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

By our third date, my husband was telling me he only wanted to marry a woman who would continue to work after marriage and kids. I appreciate his forthrightness and as I never had any interest in SAH, we ended up getting married and being dual WOHP. My guess is that most people discuss this extensively with prospective spouses.

I think that’s a really unfair thing to ask of a woman. You’d never had a baby before - what if you’d changed your mind once you actually gave birth? And your husband will never know what it’s like to give birth. Also, that just seems slimy to me of your husband to ask that. To me it sounds like, “I don’t care how you feel when you actually have the baby. The most important thing to me is that you keep making money for us.”

+1 I was ambitious and shocked when I realized I wanted to stay home. I went back to work, had a second kid, went back to work again and through it all I consistently wanted to be at home. I was super thankful my DH supported that, and that I’d paid off my strident loans rather than wait for PSLF to kick in. I think we still could have made SAH work even with the loans, but it was nice that wasn’t a factor.

This. I never thought I'd want to stay home with my kids. But when they were small, it's all I wanted. People told me that it would be hard to go to work at first but that it would get better. It didn't -- I hated it every day! I hated that I was working so that we could pay someone else to do the things I wanted to be doing. It made no sense to me. I quit and have no regrets about it. My only regret is in not listening to myself when I was miserable returning to the office and trying to convince myself it was "just" hormones (it's definitely partly hormones but that doensn't make it wrong -- sometimes when your hormones scream at you, you should listen to them!) and that I'd get over it and that this was normal and right.

Basically all the PPs in this thread giving 101 reasons why women should never SAHM -- that was my inner monologue. And then I finally listened to my own mind instead of all the influences telling me that only regressive trad wives become SAHMs, and realized that it's what I wanted.

If you really want to stay home with your kids for some amount of time, and you and your spouse figure out together how to make it work financially, do it. And ignore these people yelling at you that you're betraying feminism for that your DH will leave you tomorrow. They don't know you, and they don't know your marriage. Do what works for you. There are lots of ways to live.

They are trying to justify their choices by putting down others. My mom worked. I did not realize it was an option till my husband said it when we had child care issues. I regret staying at a job I was miserable at to please others. I love the time with my kids. They only get one childhood. I am glad my mom worked as she was not a good parent and I was better off with Nannies, day care and own my own. But I want more for mine.