My husband is a stay-at-home-dad and a musician. I have a great day job, so it’s never really been necessary for him to get a day job. But a few days ago, a musician friend of his called & offered him a teaching job at a music store. His friend, Dave, is currently the only teacher they have, and he’s got 35 students. He wants my husband to take 10 of them to start.
Honestly, I’m all for it. Sure, we can use the extra money, but there’s other issues as well. My husband has been having some self-esteem problems lately, because things just aren’t going the way they should with his music. He’s not making money with his playing, and sometimes he feels very inadequate as a person because he’s not contributing finacially to our household. While I’ve told him that that is not an issue with me, it still bugs him some.
But he’s also concerned about our kids. Our daughter has just recently started pre-school/day care, and she LOVES it. Our son is one year old (today!). My husband said that he’s spent the last three 1/2 years devoted to our kids, and he feels a bit guilty about taking a day job that will pretty much require us to put our son in day care too. I think the boy will be fine. He has had the benefit of my husband at home during this critical first year, and he’s obviously thriving. The boy is very sociable, and I think that some day care will probably benefit him greatly right now. The program our daughter is in takes children from birth to age 5. It’s excellent, not too terribly expensive, and I just can’t think of one bad thing to say about it.
The job my husband will be taking will be quite flexible. It’s teaching guitar one-on-one to individual students. Not like my job, which is 9-5 Monday through Friday. He can pretty much set his own schedule.
Anyone else out there ever face this crisis of conscience? I think it would be good for my husband to get out and do this, and he does want to, but he’s feeling some guilt. Dopers, can you help me help him feel better?
I haven’t (I don’t wnat kids), but, if he’s starting to feel inadequate because he’s not contributing financially, ignoring the fact that he might get depressed and then not able to take care of the kids to the standard that he would wish, the kids will get the idea that staying at home & parenting is a low grade, not to be wished for lifestyle. They will pick up on this as they get older.
I think taking the long view, he’d be better off working (outside the home) than risking biasing the kids against it as an option.
Also socialising is good for them (sorry to drop names or dump people in it, but I think it was tatertot who got called into school within the first fortnight because her son isn’t good at playing with other kids, if I’m wrong, I apologise, & I’m not blaming anyone). Playing with lots of other kids from an early age is good for you - I’m an only child & my mom was a stay-at-home mom, but she still to me to a day school/nursery so that I could play with other kids & get socialised.
Looking at some of my friends/acquaintances who are also an only child but didn’t have that benefit, they have a lot less friends than I do, & they tend to be friends only with other only-children. My earliest memory is climbing a rope ladder at that day school - I wouldn’t have got to do that at home!
Bringing home the bacon is almost genetically programmed into a man’s self esteem. However good of a father your husband is at home, his spirits will probably pick up a notch or two once he starts to have a paycheck too.
If you can afford the daycare for the one year old, go for it. Hubby can still drop off and pick up the wee 'un, and keep the bonding going that way. All of you are pretty damn lucky that this is the big crisis for you right now.
Fierra: He already is clinically depressed, and recently began taking meds for that. He’s got waaaaaaay more issues than just not contributing financially, though. That’s why I think that this will be good for him. He’ll be getting out of the house for a little while, and he’ll have contact with people older than the age of three. He’ll also be able to put his knowledge of music to better use than he is able to right now. Our kids love music, and they really love to hear Dad play his guitar. But they’re still just a bit young to actually play guitar. Our daughter is getting close, though!
He really does enjoy staying at home with the kids. He’s a very good, loving, devoted daddy. That’s a large part of his guilt thing about taking this teaching job. He feels like he’ll be abandoning the kids. Getting him to believe that the kids most likely won’t suffer because he’ll be working during the day is the problem. Our daughter already knows that daddy works at night. Our son is still too young to comprehend that yet. That’s why I think that he won’t be too traumatized if we put him in day care a couple of days a week now. The boy has been with babysitters, and he’s quite okay with that. I think he’ll be just fine.