Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always find it bizarre when women boast about how their husbands never stay home with sick kids so they can prioritize career. The women seem openly proud about how they’ve enabled their husbands to be bad fathers. I genuinely never know how to respond when I hear someone talking about that.

I think they're explaining more than bragging. It's hard to find a really high earning job that also allows for a lot of flexibility and unplanned remote work. They're not bad dads for letting the SAHM or default parent stay home with sick kids. This is usually what it takes to earn a lot of money.

I'm a little jealous and wish that I picked a high-earning husband and I could have stayed home with kids the whole time. Plus had money to outsource to make everyone's lives easier. Of all the combinations, high earning DH with SAHM seems like the best to me.

It does seem easier. Like we both have lanes and there is not as much negotiating of priorities. My biggest concern would be the pressure to feel fulfilled in a situation that maybe wasn’t completely fulfilling and then filling my time with all of these volunteer obligations that would make doing things for my family difficult but might make me feel more fulfilled. And then my other fear would be around job loss. I’ve seen a number of men lose high paying jobs in their early 50s and that can be career ending. In a dual income household it’s easier to recover from something like that. Also it’s crazy to me to assume when you’re 29 that your spouse will always out earn you. When I met my husband he made $180,000 and I made $80,000. Now he makes $500,000 and I make $330,000 but I feel confident that I could out earn him in the next decade. My career has taken a ton of twists and turns since I’ve had children and I would have missed out on all of that if i had stepped out of the workforce.

Anonymous wrote:DP. I think they’re just that - truly unicorns. Like you, everyone I know making $200K+ has to really earn it. Moderate to long hours, significant responsibility. Even more so with folks earning $750k+. The labor market at the high end tends to be very efficient, so there’s rarely if ever a “free lunch.”

If you can get one these jobs, great, but I wouldn’t stress if you couldn’t.

I have a unicorn type job - I think. $330,000 and fully remote 13 years after I graduated from college. But I am lucky to be in a niche roll, I have a lot of control over my day but calls at night regularly, and to get promoted I will need to start traveling at least once a quarter. I have a ton of flexibility but also am expected to drop everything on occasion. Agree about the free lunch…the bill always comes due.