Do Stay-At-Home Parents Get Shafted?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Defenders of stay-at-home parenting often claim that the skills gained by managing a household, especially with multiple children, are equivalent to the skills gained by managing activities in the workforce.

That argument neglects the fact that people with work experience are ALSO managing their personal lives. Plenty of people in the paid workforce are also dealing with runny noses, bedtime conflicts, school conferences, mortgages, doctor’s appointments, etc. etc.

I realize that the phenomenon I’ve addressed is adjacent to but not precisely the same as what you are talking about - you are contrasting a new college grad with an older person vying for the same job. Well, if I were the employer, I might want the younger person because they’ll take a lower salary, I expect them to have more energy, I think they will devote more years to the institution, their fresh degree means they will know the latest technical jargon/advances in the field, or any number of reasons.

Some of that is fair and some isn’t, but I see no reason why an employer should automatically value someone more highly just because they’ve bought a house or car than someone who hasn’t. If I need a computer programmer or a radiologist or a medical editor, why would I care if they understand car payments?

22

That a couple has a SAHP, be it mom or dad, is nobody else’s business. I’ve certainly heard plenty of stories over the years about the non-SAHP viewing their spouse as a 24-hour live-in babysitter, or that the money they made is THEIR money, not OURS, etc. but that is also a matter of other problems in the relationship IMNSHO.

23

Yeah, it’s not like housework and childcare is rocket science. My wife does jack shit for housework (it stresses her out for some reason), but I don’t really have a problem with doing it myself. Childcare we more or less split.

But to your point, the problem with taking a few years off from work is that you are not practicing the skills required for your actual job (which presumably has nothing to do with cooking, cleaning, and caring for children).

There is very much a “Manhattan Mom” phenomenon where the wife is a SAHM who runs the household, takes care of the kids (or more accurately supervises the nanny and other hired help who do the actual heavy lifting) while the husband works his high paying job in a big law firm or investment bank or whatever.

At the lower income end, if you spouse doesn’t earn like $40,000 a year, it’s not worth it economically for her to take a job because it won’t cover the cost of a nanny in the NYC area.

24

In the individual case, as in Joe and Molly, or Jenny and Julie, or Frank and Fred, your personal friends and neighbors, I agree.

As a matter of public policy, I vehemently disagree. It IS our business. Tax incentives, government money allocated to day care, laws and regulations that govern parental leave and related concerns - these matters influence the decisions of individuals, and they are policy decisions that the general public ought to care about - ideally because they care about the well-being of the society they live in, but if not that, then at least how these issues affect their own pocket book.

25

I am happy I can provide Grandpa daycare for my grand-kids. It’s been a little over five years now and Its been a fun time and I’m glad I am in a position to help my kids out.

26

She receives alimony after getting remarried? Or are you talking about child support?

27

I remember when my youngest was going through training to be a project manager. She was quite offended when my wife observed that it sounded like what she had done raising our family and maintaining our home. To say otherwise IMO undervalues the contribution of a good home/family manager, and overvalues the importance of much workplace training. So much business/management training impresses me as just common sense.

IME, many (if not most) non-technical jobs could be done by just about any reasonably intelligent person. Such a person could quickly catch back up on any recent developments after a few years out of the job market.

In our situation, my wife and I are both lawyers. During her time that she did not work full-time, she consistently taught college-level business law, and arbitrated state court cases. Personally, I am not impressed with recent law grads’ ability to actually practice law. Full disclosure - she was working hardest to rejoin the workforce right around the 08 turn-down, when there were 100s of applicants for the lowest paid jobs.

28

That’ funny. When my wife announced to me that we were expecting our first child, I told her “it’s just like one more project for me to manage”.

29

Child support.

When placement is argued, taken to mediation, it is typically over money. It costs more to give up time with kids than the money in the support agreement. Because I’m already having to provide for most of that anyway, an extra day every two weeks, it’s expensive for me to give that up.

I have a 6-8 plan, I get the kids three nights a week. 50-50 placement I would get one more day every two weeks.

When I went through the system my ex fought over placement. I am told by my lawyer that since the kids are young (youngest just starting preschool) and because she’s a stay at home mom she has an advantage in arguing over placement. In retrospect this was likely bad advice and if I had stood ground I had a better chance at getting 50-50 when I knew, especially after I saw my exe’s extremely irrational performance in the mediation session.

Then as time passes, fairly regularly online I read women saying that any man that doesn’t have 50-50 is a shirker or an asshole. Great. I want time with my kids. I take extra time when I can get it. I did my best through the blindside divorce process.

My ex knows what she is doing. It’s not like she never held a job. She earned six figures while we were dating. She has inheritance coming to her, I do not. Thank God she left my retirement alone, I will need it and she does not. But our situations are not particularly equitable. And plus I need to read the frequent insults about not having 50-50.

Meanwhile, most of my divorced peers, both work, 50-50 with no argument.

And anecdotally, any time there is a big issue with inequity, it nearly always involves a big difference in income or someone doing SAH, and the person filing always has a big advantage, often even profits from the situation at the expense of the other person. Regardless of whether the filer is the SAH or the worker, or the man or the woman (assuming heterosexual marriage.)

So I do not advise anyone getting into a SAH situation without consulting an attorney. It’s too big a risk.

30

This is not necessarily true. Take the example you used for your youngest - project management. The profession has been going thru a transition from one methodology (“waterfall”) to another (“agile”) in the last few years. The various certifications and training for project management are mostly focused on agile now, as most companies see that as the future and want to go that way. Anyone who may have been trained/experienced with waterfall and taken the last few years off to be a SAHP would need time-consuming retraining/certification in agile in order to be considered up-to-date, skill-wise. And someone with no agile experience or training today may have a hard time getting a PM gig. My guess is project management is not the only profession like this.

We never considered consulting an attorney when we made the decision for my wife to be SAHM. However, I wish we had an honest, transparent discussion about when she’d return to the work force. That was an un-validated assumption/expectation on my part.

31

I think “many if not most” specifically acknowledges that something is “not necessarily true.” No?

And, yeah, I’ve heard folk talk about waterfall, agile, scrum, whatever. In my jaded experience, much of that is just assigning fancy terms to whatever flavor-of-the moment. Many aspects of business and education simply repackage procedures every so often to be able to sell the new stuff and convey that they are up-to-date. Let a reasonably intelligent person with common sense and a decent work ethic know what system you wish to apply, and they could be up to speed pretty damned quickly.

But, businesses pay based on such designations, so who am I to disagree. Get the training/certification if it will help you get a job. But don’t try to convince me that the retraining/certification is necessary to actually perform the job (other than using the desired terminology.)

32

After a prolonged gap, trainings and certifications are not just for getting up to speed on the latest trends. It’s to demonstrate that you have actually thought about your career and are serious about getting back into it. “Yes, I took some time off to raise a family, but recently I also went back and got these certifications to make sure I was current”.

Displaying an attitude of jaded arrogance, dismissively declaring you could “be up to speed pretty damned quickly” is not going to land anyone a job.

Also, not all jobs are low to mid-level jobs where maybe the competition is someone with a couple years out of college who can pick it up quickly with just a bit of common sense. If you are in a serious executive role, it may actually be hard to come back into a career at the same level after leaving for many years. You no longer know how your company or business runs, you many not have the contacts or network you had. Maybe you could pick it up it short order but your competition might also be someone who has been positioning themselves for the past 4 years and is ready to take the next step now.

33

Do Stay-At-Home Parents Get Shafted? when being considered for jobs when reentering the workforce.

Of course they do. Any person that takes an extended leave from the workforce is going to be viewed skeptically by hiring managers, especially if they are seeking manager level or higher roles. The primary question is will you be leaving again?

To expect to return to your exact previous role before you left is a bit presumptuous. But is more dependent upon your previous role. If you are an operator on a widget line and how the company makes widgets hasn’t changed at all since you left, then this is probably easier to do. But if you are trade compliance specialist for a large global company and your company shifted sourcing from California to India during your absence, then this may be more difficult. Every situation is unique.

My spouse was a professional lobbyist when we married almost two decades ago. She moved from DC to the midwest, spent the first year and a half of our marriage, primarily serving as a general PITA to the general contractor while our house was being built. We soon after were expecting our first child and we decided together that she would stay at home and care for our kid, which ultimately turned into 2 kids.

She has expressed many times, missing work but has always valued her role as a mother, much in the same way as @Beckdawrek describes it. We have a few years before both kids are out of the house and onto college, but I don’t think even then my wife will return to the workforce. We’ve already begun discussing retirement plans.

I realize my situation may be unique, and not like average Americans.

But WRT @Jay_Z 's situation, I’ve never gone into a relationship trying to mitigate the risks of my partner wanting to leave me someday, as the child support that you pay, isn’t an income to your ex-spouse it’s your responsibility as your children’s parent.

34

I don’t believe in 50/50 physical custody, because then the kids don’t actually live anywhere, and most of the time from my own viewpoint, it’s nothing more than a man who never showed a lick of interest in the kids suddenly being able to call himself a single parent (and use this to get women into bed with him) and not have to pay child support, until he realizes that he’s actually going to have to take care of those kids half the time.

35

Dr. Laura always used to say the kids should stay in the house and be visited in turn by the parents.

36

The people I know who get child support have many and varied deals of custodial time agreements. Usually it’s Daddy weekends and summers. But 5O/50 splits are getting used more. Still the main custodian has to pay for more of the childs expenses. So money support is in there.
This is what men gripe about. I think. But he’s normally making more money and should share it with children.

Around here the vast majority are dead beat dads and a child support agency has to get involved. Taking any reported income, tax refunds and even adding a flag on the license plate. I think they can refuse to renew drivers license as well. It’s probably very expensive to do it. And the tax payers are on the hook for it.

37

I remember when Illinois proposed yanking the driver’s licenses of parents who didn’t pay support, and a judge explained why he didn’t plan to enforce it: “Anyone who has so little regard for societal mores that they aren’t going to financially support their children will not stop driving because they don’t have a license.”

We’re talking about people who WON’T pay even though they have the money. The state of Illinois does sanction professional licenses of people who get more than 30 days in arrears.

38

I’m a Stay-at-home-Dad after a 20-year career as an engineer, and I agree with those saying that you need to decide who is doing the shafting, and about what.

Do I feel denigrated or unappreciated? Not really. My spouse appreciates me, as do my kids. My peers do as well because I coach little league and help run the Scout Pack and do PTO work and help make the community run. That was value, even if it isn’t paid.

Do I feel like I would have trouble getting back into the workforce? Yeah, probably. Especially in my old job. But I have enough skills and self-confidence that I’m sure I could find something to do with my time.

Do I feel like I should be somehow financially compensated for the work I do? No, not really. The work I do would have to be paid for by somebody else, and I’m fortunate enough to not need to sell my hours for money. So using them to teach a kid how to play chess or how to throw a baseball is probably more meaningful than what I could have used them for in my previous job. And that’s just the community work, not the stuff I do at home for my own family.

39

The law and pre-nups are there in case we need them. Some people never need them. Some do. I did.

I am involved in a single parent support group. Mostly it is other women. For nearly everyone else, there are mostly two cases. Either the father is distant and it’s a chore to get him to have a relationship with the kids. Or he works, she works, it’s 50-50 regardless of what she thinks about him as a former partner.

My case may be a minority. But I still exist. We are divorced because my ex wants very specific things out of her life and her choices have enabled that. So I don’t take responsibility for the divorce, because I really had no say in it. I don’t want to digress into that topic right now.

I am called a good father. BY MY EX. And pretty much everyone else. I will relate a story about my ex. I coach many of my daughter’s sports teams. The attendance of my ex at these (she’s a SAHM) is fitful. Then my daughter had a sport through my school, so I did not coach. For that one, my ex shows up to every game. Basically because her loyalty is to her new husband (guy she knew before we ever met) and she doesn’t like it if she sees me being a good person too much.

I’ll say one thing here. Based on what I have seen I fully deserve 50-50. I do not have it. It’s more expensive to me not to have it, and for no good purpose, since I take extra time with my kids and show up to everything. That’s life I guess. But I don’t need to read online comments like “a man is a deadbeat if he doesn’t have 50-50.” That’s just an insult at this point. Stop doing this and don’t put up with others who do this.

40

Well sure. When someone gets released from prison they don’t go back and visit the warden and her guards every chance they get.