My wife worked for a company that moved their NY office back to Europe, so she got a one year package (god bless the French). Randomly, this happened in the middle of her materity leave so she is essentially getting paid a year to stay home with our 7-month old daughter. Come next summer....whatever she wants to do is fine. If she wants a career I support it. Right now we dont need the money, but my job could always go south.
This is the crux of the argument. Most families say they can't afford a single-income house, but what they really mean is that they can't comfortably afford it. I'd rather have a 19" TV and a stay-at-home mom than an HDTV and kids in daycare all-day, every-day.
My wife works and never wanted to be a stay at home mom. She always wanted a career. But now she hates her job, and the commute and wants to stay home to take care of our kids even though they aren't home all day. On top of that we got into a fight because she thinks she would like to be a stay at home Mom more than I would like to be a stay at home Dad, just because she's a woman. I think thats BS, her basically saying she loves the kids more than I do because she's a woman. It didn't help when I told her that I take care of the kids more than she does. I fix lunches for school, get them up and dressed, take them to school and pick them up, give them baths etc all while she tries to drag her lazy ass out of bed. I think if she could find a job closer to the house that she likes this would all blow over but getting her out and motivated to find one is a different story. Women... can't live with them... can't kill them.
I didn't read the replies, so this might be a carbon-copy of someone else's reply. My wife doesn't work. We had a baby last November, and I did the math, and quality care+supplies for caring for a baby while we both worked would cost us about 20k for the first year. She was working as a Librarian assistant, and was only making 18k. She did graduate with a lit degree last year, so she could have gotten a job as a teacher making 30+k a year. But when you figure in the intangables of raising your kids yourself, especially in the first few years, not to mention that this way our son can be breast-fed, which is a huge bonus in terms of his health now and for the rest of his life. I also get the bonus of not having to do much cleaning around the house, having all of my meals cooked for me, being able to sleep all night because she feels it's good for me to get a good night's sleep because I'm the sole provider. I wake up in the morning, shower, put on my clothes that are already ironed, and go to work. Of course, all of this could also be chalked up to my wife being a very sweet, generous person. I can also honestly say that I would chip in on everything if we were both working (or even if she asked for help- she won't let me clean!). In the end, it's all about quality of life for my family and me. If she were working, we would have more income, but we do ok on what I make, and we are all very happy.
I work and my wife stays home and raises our boys. We both are working, I am working for money, she is ensuring the boys have a happy and healthy childhood. DD
I hope YOU do... but not proofreading. It's "your", dude... What is your reasoning? You gotta say WHY, man... you can't just come out and say "blah" without saying "I think BLAH because BLAH". I think there are some wives that could afford to NOT work.
Wasn't sure how to vote, actually. Married and have kids (well, 1 and a half). My wife runs a small business (Urban Chef) out of the house. So, she works, but she stays at home with Lydia. Pope, why don't you just let her not work for a little while. If she never wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom and if the kids aren't at home, I would think after a couple of months of decompressing after a bad job, she'd want to go back to work. That is, if you could afford it, which I assume you can or else it likely wouldn't even be a subject of discussion.
VP, I feel for you man. I seemed to have a similar situation occur with my wife this past Saturday. I was upset that I don't see her much anymore at night because she is always doing stuff with her business. We worked things out mainly because we have no choice, IMO (yes, I have decided that divorcing her is no longer an option). I ate lunch with her today and we both admitted that we have to get on a common schedule with our sleep and cleaning things around the house. Before I got married, I got up at the same time every day, took a shower, left to go to work at the same time, went to bed at the same time, etc. No way in hell have I been able to do those things since I have been married. And I think that has caused a lot of discontentment on my part but we are going to give it a try at doing a schedule. I really think that she would like it if she didn't have to work but I don't make enough and there is too much debt for her not to work. Hopefully, within the next 5 years, our situation will change where if she wants to stay home, she can and we will still be able to live comfortably. Oh and someone was talking about having a baby or just having a baby...the wife has been talking about this to me for awhile. I told her I wanted to wait at least 2 years but I am at a point that I just don't know if I could do it. I love her and I know having a child with her would be the ultimate act of love but I can't picture myself having to go to high school functions for this kid when I am 55 or so. And that doesn't even get into the costs of having a child..*shudders*
Right now my wife and I are what my in-laws would call DINKS (Dual Income No Kids). My wife is career-minded and doesn't want to stay home. She had to burn some vacation time this past week and realized that she doesn't like staying home. Of course that could all change when we decide to start a family. In the mean time its just us and the dog.
My wife has worked most of the time we've been married. She stopped for awhile when she went back to school so that she could get her degree. Of course, we'd only been married about six months and that was always her intention when possible. After that she worked full time. Back in March, however, we adopted a baby girl. Her company offered three months of maternity leave. That was nice. After that she worked a little longer. I had agreed to another job at that point, so it was a "light at the end of the tunnel" situation. She knew it was short term. Since I worked at home and had a flexible schedule, I kept our daughter during the day when my wife was at work. Now I go to the office and she gets to stay home. Although I'm making more money now than I did in my previous position, we still have to sacrifice some things in order for her to stay home.
