building wealth in the pursuit of happiness

Oct 17, 2007

the myth of the parent that NEEDS to work

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My wife is an extremely intelligent woman who decided to quit her professional career as a management-tracked analyst with a huge investment bank in order to be a stay-at-home parent when our son arrived. I would have willingly stayed home in her place but being older and further along in my career I was making twice as much as she so it would not have made sense. She has now been at home for almost two years and I have noticed that there is a subtle campaign against her choice, and it makes me angry. Despite all of the talk about mothers making the ‘tough choice’ to go back to work, I think the tough choice is staying home.

First of all, I know there are single mothers and poorer families who have no choice! I would maintain this is a very small proportion of the population, though. Single mothers definitely have no choice as the primary breadwinner, of course. Some families may have special circumstances that require both parents to work - health care costs spring to mind. I wonder, though, how many times the choice to work is the choice to support owning a second television, or keeping the premium movie channels, owning the house with the extra two rooms, or leasing a nice car - versus staying home with a child.

My family took a big hit to our finances when my wife quit work. We went from two people living in a two-bedroom apartment on two salaries to three people living in a three-bedroom house on one salary. We did it by making huge changes in our spending, and after a couple of years those changes have - surprise - become fairly routine. We understood that we could not afford as many luxury vacations or idle purchases of gadgets and jewelry and so on. The reward was that our son has been able to stay at home with his mother and be in a safe, healthy, fun environment.

This setup has not come without cost. My wife misses adult companionship and the sense of validation that you get from a professional position. We miss having the second salary, which for a while was all being plowed into savings and made for a relatively large down payment on our home. And of course my wife worries about her future job prospects once Little Buddy starts school and doesn’t need a stay-at-home mom. But the worst thing, recently, has been the assault on her decision by other women.

Bubelah relays conversations to me from her friends and ex-colleagues and so on where the subject is inevitably "when are you going to get back to work?" Aside from the obvious insult that caring for a child is not "work", this has a very negative effect on her state of mind. She usually laughs it off, but the simple fact is that she doesn’t really interact on a daily basis with anyone but me who supports her decision to make child care a full-time job. We don’t feel that the trade-off of getting another salary is worth having our son in day-care 10 hours a day before he’s even 2 years old, but that’s what we’re being told we need to do.

However, we don’t need the money, frankly. We may not be able to spend freely like our friends do (particularly since we also don’t take on any debt) but we really don’t NEED any more money to meet our current expenses. If Bubelah got a second job a lot of her salary would go to paying for day care, nannies and babysitters. I understand that sometimes both parents want to work. That is fine, but just be honest about that choice. Many people claim to be "forced" to work two jobs to make ends meet, but is it really "making ends meet" when you drive a new car and have premium movie channels and take a vacation to Aruba every year?

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Viewing 39 Comments

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    I must say that I agree with the premise of this article very much. In addition, my wife and I have been unable to have children yet. When we "decided" to have kids... oh five years ago... she started toning down on the job and didnt go back when the new contracts went out. So now it has been 5 years without a steady job outside of our house but I must say we both feel very spoiled and happy with out situation and life. I have breakfast lunch and dinner every day! She gets to stay home and be with her friends and do things she enjoys- seeing family and paiting and "making the house cute."

    Many times we can both sense a great deal of bitterness about our situation and a lot of the underlying hostitlity you sense but I think it might be worse for us i the sense that we "dont even have kids."

    It is easy for us to convince ourselves we are right when we see those people who just "have" to work and are always stressed out. We live a smaller scale life and seem much happier than those around us who think we are the crazy ones. Ill take both of us being spoiled and happy as opposed to DINKs who are unhappy and dont see each other.

    The funniest part of it all is that we live of so much less than others that we are also probably in better financial shape than those people who have been forcing themselves to work so much.

    So there you have it- it seems quite easy for us to live cheaply and save money and be happy all at once, despite what the naysayers want us to believe.

    Kinda long and rambling but I was inspired!
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    Great post! Bravo to you and your wife for making this decision. And it is just that, a decision. I have a hard time believing any married couple that says they both have to work. Sure there are exceptions like you mentioned, but for the most part it is a lifestyle choice where I think priorities are backwards. My wife is a stay-at-home mom to our three kids and she often gets the same treatment as your wife. This topic really gets my blood flowing! We have friends where both parents work and they have the big house and expensive cars and they pick up their kids from daycare at 6pm everynight. Not sure why they even had kids to begin with, essentially, they are not raising their own children.
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    I have to agree that, for many, it is an available choice. It certainly involves some self-sacrifice. But so does both parents choosing to work. The difference is that the sacrifice is imposed upon the kids.

    My sister manages the stay-at-home choice with her husband making a very middle class salary. They're managing to raise four kids in the process. I admire the parents who make the choice that your wife and you have made.
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    I just posted about being a stay-at-home mom this morning. The first year I stayed home, my husband and I made $19,000. That's it. If we can make it work, almost everybody can. It's all about priorities.
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    My wife has also decided to stay at home and we wouldn't have it any other way. It is amazing to me that we are able to do it. Society is set up now for a dual-income household, if you beleive the advertising and marketing. The more money you make the more money you will spend. It all comes down to living within your means and not getting sucked into the "joneses" trap.
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    In my eyes, there is no more important work than raising a child. Kudos to you guys for making that choice, we plan on doing the same.
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    If it's any consolation, there's equal pressure and judgement upon women who choose to work after having children. In fact, I think there's more judgement made upon women who are highly educated and don't work. It's not right either way.
    However, I do think that if you are a women who went to college and accumulated a ton of debt, then work 5-10 years before quitting, then college definitely wasn't worth it.
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    I read a book on this topic, The Feminine Mistake. It discusses exactly what your wife is hearing - how bad it is to stay at home, and how not working affects the mother and child. Kind of one-sided, but it touches upon some valid points.

    This is such a touchy subject, probably because raising your kids is such a personal issue and nobody wants to hear they're doing it the "wrong" way. It's not really a one-size-fits-all scenario, and finances aren't the only thing to take into consideration.

    That being said, I think the "we need two incomes" defense you hear from friends is a load of bull. They should man up and acknowledge that they want the lifestyle two incomes provide. To judge others because they made a choice and others made a different choice is pretty lousy, and I'm sorry your wife has to hear it all the time.

    As for myself, I have NO IDEA what I'll do when we decide to have kids. Probably try and find some kind of part-time working balance.
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    From my point of view its complicated. I don't have any children and I'm not particularly likely to, yet thanks in no small part to people like your wife, there's still an expectation that I'm likely to give my job up in a few years cos 'thats what you [women] do when you have kids'.
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    To the contrary, plonkee, I think the expectation for educated, talented women these days is that they will NOT give up their jobs. The young women at my workplace have all come back to work and spend much of their spare time talking about childcare issues. It is still the exception for women to stay home with children, especially if those women have a career.
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    This is so aptly written but unfortunately, not many people see the points behind it. Like you said, many people say that they "have" to work to "make ends meet" but their definition of "making ends meet" is quite actually to "living in a huge house, drive a few huge cars and visit Europe every year".

    I don't normally chat for long with people who don't know what they're saying..
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    I guess expectations differ in different places.

    There is a general thought here that after 2 kids, someone will drop to working at most part-time and essentially give up their career (if not their actual job), and its never expected that the man will do it.

    Anyone who thinks through the decision and knows, understands and accepts the choice that they are making, is almost certainly doing the right thing. There certainly isn't a perfect solution to the question.
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    Cute kid!

    Mike
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    I agree with your post. I decided to give up my career 11 years ago when my first child was born, and have been a stay-at-home Mom ever since. (We now have 3 kids.) I would encourage your wife to find a social network of other women who have also made the choice be a stay-at-home Mom. You can check out www.momsclub.org, which is a great group for stay-at-home moms with chapters all across the country. :)
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    Kudos to your wife. I think it's great for a parent (whichever makes the most sense in the couple) to stay home with kids. I had a great childhood with a stay at home mom. She was 40 when I (the oldest) was born, so she saw herself as having had a good career already.

    I think it likely that I'll be the one to stay at home if/when we have kids. Mostly because Mr. Micah is so passionate about his work and I haven't found that kind of passion yet. But I do get passionate about things like writing and quilting and other sewing...things which it's hard to do for a living.

    So I hope to get into freelance writing and sewing g on the side even before kids come along. Then I can keep those up and find fulfillment in them. :-) Since we have debt, it makes sense for me to keep working outside the home until we have kids.

    I'll probably network over the internet and with other moms. It could get quite lonely. Fortunately, with Mr. Micah being a professor, he probably won't be on campus 9-5 every day so he'll be around to take care of the kids a bit or at least provide intellectually stimulating discussion. (sorry so long...your post got me thinking)
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    As a woman with a PhD who chooses to stay home - well, I'll just say our family's choice is not looked upon favorably by the majority of people who know of it, either irl or online :)

    But so it goes ;)
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    Try calling it a "sabattical" or "early retirement."

    In one couple I know, the two people (with no kids) take turns taking a year or two off. This started when they paid off their house and will continue until both can stop doing paid work and still have their party house.

    I've never heard anyone give them any flack. We're all jealous and calculating how we can do the same.

    Seriously, she's on sabbatical, focussin on her dream of raising children.
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    I definitely respect your wife's decision. My husband and I both work, but we don't have children. I think if we did, I'd stay at home with them. I respect anyone with the courage to do what they feel is right for their child, even in the face of such comments.

    I think the whole issue boils down to something even deeper and broader than "working or stay at home mom". It has to do with a lack of respect for other people's choices. This lack of respect makes motherhood a two-edged sword: if you choose to stay home, other professionals will jump your case, but if you choose to work, other stay-at-homes might jump your case. It sounds like, from the comments I've read here and elsewhere, that there is no way to make a choice that someone won't give you a hard time over. Why can't we as a culture just respect the choice that someone made and leave it at that? Everyone has a difference situation and a different personality with which to respond to that situation, so everyone will end up making slightly different choices. As a society, we need to respect the fact that not everyone will follow the same path.
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    Great point about people who say they "need" two incomes. Why do people have to be so insecure about the choices they make that they can't say honestly, "I choose to work" or "I choose to stay home."

    KTHunter stated it well: It's about lack of respect for others. I can't imagine being so rude as to tell someone else they should stay home with their children or that they should be working instead. Nor can I imagine having a "friend" who would say such things to me.

    People seem to be overly concerned with what rude people are saying to them. If someone told you that you really should take your child to a plastic surgeon because making the child less ugly would help him or her to grow up happier and more well-adjusted, would you take that person's comments seriously? I'd look for better quality people to hang out with.
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