Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Well either OP's wife was on track to become highly successful, or he's an idiot, because he thinks that with her credentials she will waltz into a $75k-100k job despite her resume gap.

I agree, can she really make that kind of income after a long career gap? And even if she can, will her income cover all the added expenses that may be associated with her returning to work, as well as the private school costs? When you both work sometimes you have to resort to convenience (like takeout vs. cooking), you have the cost of a second commute and wear/tear on vehicles- these seem like small things but they eventually add up.

With two working parents, both need to pitch in on housework and covering child related duties, or you need to outsource and pay someone for those duties. If she goes back to work full time she won't realistically be able to accomplish everything she does as a stay at home parent and it would absolutely not be fair to expect that.

I am a working mom and happy with my current work-life balance- I am a physician and my husband is a non-physician with a solid career in IT but works from home and can be the flexible parent to stay home with sick kids, meet the maintenance guy, etc. Sometimes I think it would be really awesome to have one of those amazing stay at home super-wives who cook and clean and manage the kids so I could work 100% and never feel guilty about it- I probably would have specialized in something more time intensive but way more lucrative. Can you imagine how nice it would be to come home to a pinterest looking house and kids and someone serves you dinner and hands you a drink? My husband and kids are great and I love my life but let's be real all the housework/ kid homework/ etc. is a total slog.

Seems like a classic "be careful what you wish for" situation and I would explore whether private school is reasonable. It's not like she wants to splurge on a fancy vacation or something totally frivolous. Some people will do well and be successful no matter their educational environment, and others really do benefit from a private or specialized environment. I say this as a person who went to public schools (some good and some really awful) married to someone who went to private school and definitely thinks he would have had a much harder time in public school. Our kids have attended either public or private depending on different factors, and it was really fortunate my oldest was in a good private school that quickly developed robust full-day synchronous online education rapidly when COVID hit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't matter if she gets lifetime alimony. Its not going to keep in her in the same house with the same lifestyle AND pay for her kids to go to private school. A court is not going to force OP to pay for private school. OP's wife is better of staying, she knows it and he knows it which is why he holds the cards.

Okay so first of all, he does not hold all the cards because he too would be worse off in a divorce.

But more importantly, is this how people really look at all marriages? Sorting out which spouse holds the cards like they're freaking opponents in life? Despite OP's clearly dysfunctional marriage I would hope that he and his wife have at least have some sense of partnership.

10 years from now after a divorce he will still be making 500k, no longer have child support, and be finishing up paying for college for his kids. He won’t be supporting his ex-wife and probably will have a new wife. Meanwhile the sah wife stops getting alimony and child support and her quality of life is nowhere near her previous life. It isn’t fair but that is what my sister’s life has become. She really wishes now she had stayed married and put up with her ex.

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Well either OP's wife was on track to become highly successful, or he's an idiot, because he thinks that with her credentials she will waltz into a $75k-100k job despite her resume gap.

I agree, can she really make that kind of income after a long career gap? And even if she can, will her income cover all the added expenses that may be associated with her returning to work, as well as the private school costs? When you both work sometimes you have to resort to convenience (like takeout vs. cooking), you have the cost of a second commute and wear/tear on vehicles- these seem like small things but they eventually add up.

With two working parents, both need to pitch in on housework and covering child related duties, or you need to outsource and pay someone for those duties. If she goes back to work full time she won't realistically be able to accomplish everything she does as a stay at home parent and it would absolutely not be fair to expect that.

I am a working mom and happy with my current work-life balance- I am a physician and my husband is a non-physician with a solid career in IT but works from home and can be the flexible parent to stay home with sick kids, meet the maintenance guy, etc. Sometimes I think it would be really awesome to have one of those amazing stay at home super-wives who cook and clean and manage the kids so I could work 100% and never feel guilty about it- I probably would have specialized in something more time intensive but way more lucrative. Can you imagine how nice it would be to come home to a pinterest looking house and kids and someone serves you dinner and hands you a drink? My husband and kids are great and I love my life but let's be real all the housework/ kid homework/ etc. is a total slog.

Seems like a classic "be careful what you wish for" situation and I would explore whether private school is reasonable. It's not like she wants to splurge on a fancy vacation or something totally frivolous. Some people will do well and be successful no matter their educational environment, and others really do benefit from a private or specialized environment. I say this as a person who went to public schools (some good and some really awful) married to someone who went to private school and definitely thinks he would have had a much harder time in public school. Our kids have attended either public or private depending on different factors, and it was really fortunate my oldest was in a good private school that quickly developed robust full-day synchronous online education rapidly when COVID hit.

We have absolutely no reason to think OP’s wife is anything like this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Despite your best efforts to shame me over "having my nose pressed against the glass" between me and rich people, it's not working because I don't think a person's value comes from the class they are born into.

If you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd realize that I didn't claim that extremely wealthy people have to choose between wealth and having successful, motivated children (although I do believe they might have to work harder at it because it is a truth of human nature that motivation is often born from lack - this is why most family businesses fail by the 3rd generation).

What I did claim is that IF someone has to make the choice, they should choose prioritizing the development over their child over accumulating wealth to pass on later. Why did I make that point? Because that is what is being debated in this thread; the trade-off between paying for very expensive school and building generational wealth. OP is wondering if the cost is worth it because he has limited resources, unlike these irrelevant rich people you keep mentioning whose butts you live inside.

OP needs to do his own analysis together with his wife about which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults and go from there.

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Well either OP's wife was on track to become highly successful, or he's an idiot, because he thinks that with her credentials she will waltz into a $75k-100k job despite her resume gap.

I agree, can she really make that kind of income after a long career gap? And even if she can, will her income cover all the added expenses that may be associated with her returning to work, as well as the private school costs? When you both work sometimes you have to resort to convenience (like takeout vs. cooking), you have the cost of a second commute and wear/tear on vehicles- these seem like small things but they eventually add up.

With two working parents, both need to pitch in on housework and covering child related duties, or you need to outsource and pay someone for those duties. If she goes back to work full time she won't realistically be able to accomplish everything she does as a stay at home parent and it would absolutely not be fair to expect that.

I am a working mom and happy with my current work-life balance- I am a physician and my husband is a non-physician with a solid career in IT but works from home and can be the flexible parent to stay home with sick kids, meet the maintenance guy, etc. Sometimes I think it would be really awesome to have one of those amazing stay at home super-wives who cook and clean and manage the kids so I could work 100% and never feel guilty about it- I probably would have specialized in something more time intensive but way more lucrative. Can you imagine how nice it would be to come home to a pinterest looking house and kids and someone serves you dinner and hands you a drink? My husband and kids are great and I love my life but let's be real all the housework/ kid homework/ etc. is a total slog.

Seems like a classic "be careful what you wish for" situation and I would explore whether private school is reasonable. It's not like she wants to splurge on a fancy vacation or something totally frivolous. Some people will do well and be successful no matter their educational environment, and others really do benefit from a private or specialized environment. I say this as a person who went to public schools (some good and some really awful) married to someone who went to private school and definitely thinks he would have had a much harder time in public school. Our kids have attended either public or private depending on different factors, and it was really fortunate my oldest was in a good private school that quickly developed robust full-day synchronous online education rapidly when COVID hit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Well either OP's wife was on track to become highly successful, or he's an idiot, because he thinks that with her credentials she will waltz into a $75k-100k job despite her resume gap.

I agree, can she really make that kind of income after a long career gap? And even if she can, will her income cover all the added expenses that may be associated with her returning to work, as well as the private school costs? When you both work sometimes you have to resort to convenience (like takeout vs. cooking), you have the cost of a second commute and wear/tear on vehicles- these seem like small things but they eventually add up.

With two working parents, both need to pitch in on housework and covering child related duties, or you need to outsource and pay someone for those duties. If she goes back to work full time she won't realistically be able to accomplish everything she does as a stay at home parent and it would absolutely not be fair to expect that.

I am a working mom and happy with my current work-life balance- I am a physician and my husband is a non-physician with a solid career in IT but works from home and can be the flexible parent to stay home with sick kids, meet the maintenance guy, etc. Sometimes I think it would be really awesome to have one of those amazing stay at home super-wives who cook and clean and manage the kids so I could work 100% and never feel guilty about it- I probably would have specialized in something more time intensive but way more lucrative. Can you imagine how nice it would be to come home to a pinterest looking house and kids and someone serves you dinner and hands you a drink? My husband and kids are great and I love my life but let's be real all the housework/ kid homework/ etc. is a total slog.

Seems like a classic "be careful what you wish for" situation and I would explore whether private school is reasonable. It's not like she wants to splurge on a fancy vacation or something totally frivolous. Some people will do well and be successful no matter their educational environment, and others really do benefit from a private or specialized environment. I say this as a person who went to public schools (some good and some really awful) married to someone who went to private school and definitely thinks he would have had a much harder time in public school. Our kids have attended either public or private depending on different factors, and it was really fortunate my oldest was in a good private school that quickly developed robust full-day synchronous online education rapidly when COVID hit.

How does a physician have time to read DCUM and write a lengthy reply like this at 3:08pm on a Monday?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Well either OP's wife was on track to become highly successful, or he's an idiot, because he thinks that with her credentials she will waltz into a $75k-100k job despite her resume gap.

I agree, can she really make that kind of income after a long career gap? And even if she can, will her income cover all the added expenses that may be associated with her returning to work, as well as the private school costs? When you both work sometimes you have to resort to convenience (like takeout vs. cooking), you have the cost of a second commute and wear/tear on vehicles- these seem like small things but they eventually add up.

With two working parents, both need to pitch in on housework and covering child related duties, or you need to outsource and pay someone for those duties. If she goes back to work full time she won't realistically be able to accomplish everything she does as a stay at home parent and it would absolutely not be fair to expect that.

I am a working mom and happy with my current work-life balance- I am a physician and my husband is a non-physician with a solid career in IT but works from home and can be the flexible parent to stay home with sick kids, meet the maintenance guy, etc. Sometimes I think it would be really awesome to have one of those amazing stay at home super-wives who cook and clean and manage the kids so I could work 100% and never feel guilty about it- I probably would have specialized in something more time intensive but way more lucrative. Can you imagine how nice it would be to come home to a pinterest looking house and kids and someone serves you dinner and hands you a drink? My husband and kids are great and I love my life but let's be real all the housework/ kid homework/ etc. is a total slog.

Seems like a classic "be careful what you wish for" situation and I would explore whether private school is reasonable. It's not like she wants to splurge on a fancy vacation or something totally frivolous. Some people will do well and be successful no matter their educational environment, and others really do benefit from a private or specialized environment. I say this as a person who went to public schools (some good and some really awful) married to someone who went to private school and definitely thinks he would have had a much harder time in public school. Our kids have attended either public or private depending on different factors, and it was really fortunate my oldest was in a good private school that quickly developed robust full-day synchronous online education rapidly when COVID hit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Well either OP's wife was on track to become highly successful, or he's an idiot, because he thinks that with her credentials she will waltz into a $75k-100k job despite her resume gap.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she can sell your mom some essential oils OP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Um, I am PP and from my point of view, that'd be a hard no for me. Nothing wastes resources as hard and fast as the government. Furthermore, it is unethical to tax the same money repeatedly. If I make it, I get to decide what happens to it.

Off topic, but this is simply not true. I've worked in government and the private sector. Hands-down the private sector is several times more wasteful. I was actually astonished making the transition. Meanwhile everyone in the private sector smugly wants to put down government while at the same time benefiting from the security government provides us despite refusing to pay taxes.

I work in the private sector, but I also think that for-profit American private sector is the most self-serving, unethical, and amoral sector that has ever existing. I am frequently revolted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love when men who have children pretend like they could work their high earning job if their wife didn't totally sacrifice their career. OP sounds like an entitled douche and I think private school is stupid.

Many times the wife didn't have a career to sacrifice. Yes, some high-powered, highly accomplished and educated women do choose to stay at home. However, in my observation, most women who opt to stay at home had limited ambition and were destined for a lifetime of middling jobs with limited earning potential. That's not to put this group down; clearly, they are a majority because not everyone is destined for high accomplishment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Um, I am PP and from my point of view, that'd be a hard no for me. Nothing wastes resources as hard and fast as the government. Furthermore, it is unethical to tax the same money repeatedly. If I make it, I get to decide what happens to it.

Off topic, but this is simply not true. I've worked in government and the private sector. Hands-down the private sector is several times more wasteful. I was actually astonished making the transition. Meanwhile everyone in the private sector smugly wants to put down government while at the same time benefiting from the security government provides us despite refusing to pay taxes.

I work in the private sector, but I also think that for-profit American private sector is the most self-serving, unethical, and amoral sector that has ever existing. I am frequently revolted.