Job/Baby Conundrum

In My Humble Opinion
21

My kids are tweens, but I thought the same thing. In truth, what happened to me (may you be more fortunate) is that daycare prices went up pretty much at the rate my kids aged into “less expensive” programs. So I had a pretty consistent daycare bill until the youngest was in full day Kindergarten - at which point we used the schools before/after care which was about half as much with two kids. When the youngest was in third grade we started to let them come home on the bus to an empty house for an hour (an empty house with stay at home neighbors and a large dog) - which cut it in half again. My son started middle school last year - half again. My youngest is about to turn twelve and go into middle school. My last daycare bill ever was in June.

So in 1999 I had two kids in the infant room for about $1600 a month. (my kids are only a year apart, my daughter was born in 1999, my son in 1998). When they both were in the toddler room, I was down to $1400 a month for a whole month, then the price increase hit and I was back to $1600, repeat at preschool - I paid about $1600 a month until my daughter was six, when I started paying $800 a month though the school for before/after care. When she was nine I started paying $400 for two in before school care. The last year I paid $200 a month.

IME daycare expenses will be a lot more than you believe for a lot longer.

(ETA, we moved daycare costs to college funds - plus all the school fees, band, piano, baseball, gymnastics - as they decreased, so I still have $1600 a month going into the kids’. I’m hoping they get cheaper when they actually leave the house ;)).

22

My wife and I are due in late Aug. a lot of what you are saying we have spoken about ad nauseum over the last several months; here is my brief take:

Your job sounds great according to you, however, leniency in terms of when you get back from lunch, or the bathroom etc is not a privilege it is a courtesy. In my experience, if a job is great then it’s greatness is organization wide. If they are buying you lunch, and bringing in speakers etc…yet counting seconds about when you are back on the job then the lunch and speakers carry less gravity for me and speak more to control, rather than a genuine care for an employee.

That being said, why not take the 8 weeks paid, the quit? That is exactly what my wife is doing. Granted our scenario is slightly different as I work from home and will be supporting everyone on my own…and my wife is leaving a job she wants to leave.

Someone up thread mentioned that you will never get those first years back, and the bonding that will happen plus the family time for you to be the teacher of this new little human being is priceless. Maybe the true question is this: Do you value time with your child [if all bills are paid by your SO and he is there for both of you, not working 70- hrs a week] more than your current job?

I’m going to be a first time dad in 5 weeks…being able to carry the load and give my wife a choice as to whether or not she has to go back or not is priceless. She takes this very seriously because she has never had the option to NOT work…so i recommend looking at your options and remembering that little human being inside of you is going to be very curious about the world…who do you want their teacher to be?

23

So listen, you’re in the US, I’m in Canada. I have options that you don’t have and I realize that gals in the US go back to work when their baby is 6 - 8 weeks old all the damn time.

With that in mind, if there’s any way not to do it, DON’T DO IT!! Even the extra 4 weeks FLMA would offer would make a difference. I remember when Junior was about 3 months old I thought to myself ‘How the hell do those poor women in the US do it?!??!’

Further, it sounds like your employer’s policies would make it imposible for you to breast feed, which is a drag.

I dunno - if it were me, I would quit this job and stay home for at least a year (which is what I did). If that’s not financially feasable, do what a former co-worker of mine did - get a part time job with a couple of evenings and one day on the weekend so that your husband can care for baby while you work and vice versa. You’ll still have one day on the weekend to spend as a family, and if you’re not working every night you’ll get to put baby to bed a few times during the week.

Really, everyone will tell you this, but it’s hard to understand until you see it - they change so much in the first year it’s great to be able to be there and watch them develop and grow and learn stuff.

24

I should add that the decision to be a SAHM is a lot bigger than how much daycare costs.

First and foremost, how much do you WANT to be a SAHM and how much do you WANT a career? I’d make a lousy SAHM of toddlers. On the other hand, there are women who desire being a SAHM more than anything else. And that should be weighted heavily.

On an economic front - look at the whole picture. That includes insurance, retirement contributions, social security credits, the effect of gaps in your work experience. It includes whether your husband is up to the pressure of being a sole breadwinner in an uncertain economy with kids involved. His job stability. (My experience is that kids added a lot of pressure to maintaining a stable job). It includes what your goals are regarding your standard of living. For us, having our kids graduate from college with no or little debt and being able to travel are both priorities - so that factors into me continuing to work. Work expenses are always brought up and need to factor in - I find them rather silly for my circumstances as I don’t really NEED a fancy work wardrobe, can bring lunch, and haven’t been to Starbucks in months - gas and car expenses are my only real work expense - but other people have other requirements including dry cleanable suits and hobnobbing over lunch. It includes what economic benefits you’ll bring to the house as a SAHM that you wouldn’t bring as a WOHM - i.e. are you up for couponing, cooking from scratch, keeping a vegetable garden, canning (and would you not do those things with a full time job - because - and I don’t know how they do it - I know a few people who pull off raising kids, working full time, and are still frugal home ec professionals in terms of gardening, canning, and stretching a dollar.)

25

This is a scary thread. I love my job. Love it. It’s also flexible and relatively kid-accommodating. Yet it seems like everyone I’ve run into (except my husband, amusingly) is convinced that I’ll want to quit when we have a baby. I actually think I’d go stir-crazy, but no one else agrees. We could probably afford for me to quit, but I don’t want to quit if we have a baby, which I suppose makes me horribly selfish. It really makes me understand why so many professional women just don’t want to have kids at all or put it off as long as they can.

26

Have you talked to your employer about just taking (unpaid) leave for 6 months? Sure, money will be tight during that period, but you’ll have a chance to work out the daycare issues, make sure the kid is strong and healthy and catch your breath beofre you dive back into work.

27

My wife is one of these women. No way in hell she was staying home…strong woman, career oriented, really making it happen for her professional future.

Enter positive EPT test last December.

Still unsure about staying home, very happy to have options [ my salary will be more than enough to support us] and I work from home…so her feminine sensibilities are playing a card she never knew existed in life. She is remarkably excited to have a child, but unsure what she is going to do with herself and lately she has been saying how excited she is to “teach” our young child about life. Lot’s of excitement at the Phlosphr household!

28

Fortunately in New York State, employers must allow you (unpaid) time throughout the work day to use a breast pump until the child is three years old. Now of course, I’m sure crappy employers manage to adhere to the law while still making it an unpleasant experience for the employee, but at least the foundation is that it’s the law.

29

18-month-old 75% time working parent here. GET THE ADDITIONAL FOUR WEEKS. You have no idea how long four weeks is at that stage. Two months to three months is HUGE.

Also, your husband is also eligible for FMLA, right? Three months for you and three months for him will get you to six months. Then you can re-evaluate whether you want to stay home, or stick the kid in a cheaper daycare, or whatever.

That being said, it is really hard to have two parents who work demanding scheduled jobs. Mr. hunter and I are very, very lucky that we have about the most non-scheduled jobs possible – as long as we get our work done it doesn’t matter when (or where) we do it. (This has meant that – occasionally, when we’ve had tight deadlines – I’ve come back to the office after the Little One has gone to bed, that I have had to work on weekends, that I’ve had to juggle a laptop on my lap with a kid who is running around and demanding my attention (that’s happened only once, but it sucked).)

You haven’t mentioned (as far as I’ve seen) how restrictive your husband’s job is nor how much leave he has. Is it possible for him to take half days off as well if your baby needs to be taken home from childcare? Can he pick up some of the slack? I’ve done most of the slack-picking-up, since I’m much more interested in child care than my husband, but he’s definitely done his share as well, especially when I’ve had business trips.

I also highly recommend finding a sitter you trust and using that sitter regularly so the baby gets used to her; so that you have another option if both you and your husband can’t make it work on a particular day.

I LOVE having a job and not staying home at my baby. I would go completely crazy as a SAHM, I think. I also LOVE not working full-time and getting to spend time with her. I really feel I have the best of both worlds. Or, what Dangerosa said.

ETA:

Vihaga, this is ME. Also, people have pointed out to me that it is actually a good thing for your baby to have a model of a strong career woman, and not think that for females choice is limited to being a mommy and that’s it.

delphica, as part of the Obama health-care law it has become federal law that workplaces MUST allow pumping time, in a non-restroom facility even.

30

I stayed home with #1 for nine months. I went batshit. Not everyone can do it. It’s kind of hard in our extremely pro-baby culture to say much negative about staying home with your kids, but it’s really hard work that you never get to stop doing. I am a much happier person and a much, much better parent if I get to pursue my own interests, too. That being said, I have had a very flexible arrangement ever since the kids were born, so they generally weren’t in daycare full time (although we paid for full time) and I really don’t feel like I “missed out” on their early years. Like Manda JO (I think) said upthread, sometimes it is like juggling chainsaws trying to accommodate four busy schedules, but it usually works out.

31

I should amend my post. I know we can afford for me to quit, which I think makes it even more guilt-inducing. The flexibility of my job doesn’t hurt. (For example, one of my coworkers often works 4 days- Thurs-Sun, to accommodate child care, and my boss hasn’t said anything about it at all.)

It’s nice to see other people are making it work!

32

FWIW, this is what I felt like before Junior arrived - i.e. I don’t want to be a SAHM, I’ll be bored after a month, my career is everything, blah, blah, blah.

Yah, didn’t happen. Met Junior, thought he was a peach. Now I’m back to work after being off for a year and I miss him terribly during the day, and feel like the year went way too fast.

That being said, I have a girl friend who was dying to be a SAHM. Had her child, tried it for a while and couldn’t wait to get back to work.

Again, it sounds cliché, but you never really know how you’re going to feel until you’re there.

Oh, and BTW - wanting to work doesn’t make you horribly selfish - a baby would much prefer a happy mom who doesn’t resent being home with them, even if it means seeing you a bit less.

33

Yeah. I could quit, too. We carefully went over our finances before the baby was born, actually, to make sure that I could afford to quit if the baby came and I was suddenly overcome with SAHM hormones.

…I wasn’t. I did take off almost 4 months, and that just about killed me. I am SO much happier now that I’m working, and I think the Little One actually prefers it that way, because when the babysitter comes they do fun things like art activities it would never have occurred to me to do (like, the babysitter brought chalk and they draw all over the driveway… that would never have occurred to me!)

I do feel a little guilty from time to time, yeah. But I keep telling myself – and you should too – that a happy half-time mom is WAY better than a grumpy full-time mom. (Actually, my mom wsa a grumpy full-time mom. Looking back on it, a part-time job – which she did get when we were older – would have done wonders for her sanity, and I think my sister and I would have preferred that.)

34

As I said, mine are tweens. I walked back into work after maternity leave with “thanks for letting me work.” I’d make a HORRIBLE SAHM. And as a WOHM mom, my kids have gotten some benefits we wouldn’t have been able to afford to give them without my job. Like college funds. Like traveling to Europe. Like private instrument lessons.

My kids seem at this point to be fine, well bonded children with good values. They are, for their ages, pretty self sufficient due in part to having to be. And I don’t have any regrets about missing major evens (my daughter is off to camp for three weeks this summer, if you let your children go - which is an important part of my own parenting philosophy - you are going to miss things - being a SAHM just delays it. I can’t be there to watch her go to camp - I miss her, and I wish I could watch her - but not having mom there - she has gained so much maturity from it in the past its worth it not to be able to watch.)

Don’t let external guilt make your choices for you. Make the choices that are best for you and your children.

35

I loved my job and felt exactly as you did. It was a great job, very flexible and kid accommodating. I didn’t want to quit…and I didn’t. I was off work for 12 weeks after he was born and went back to work without guilt. I was feeling stir crazy. It wasn’t easy, and I did miss him, but I did what was right for me. It is not horribly a selfish thing. You make sure you have a good nanny, sitter, or in our case awesome day care center. I visited my center of choice many times during my pregnancy and after Kiddo was born, but before I went back to work. Trust me, those ladies were not strangers raising my child. They were part of my village.

36

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]

Don’t let external guilt make your choices for you. Make the choices that are best for you and your children.
[/QUOTE]

All things being equal, this is most important.

37

BTW, I never wanted to be a SAHM and actually having a child and maternity leave did nothing to change that. Yes, there were people who said “oh, you’ll want to once the baby arrives” and there were people who when #2 followed so quickly said “oh, now you will for sure.” They were wrong.

Now, I’ve had plenty of FANTASIES about being a SAHM. In these fantasies I’m capable of baking bread while I garden, keep the house clean, sew little hand tucked jumpers for my daughter, homeschool my children, and have two clean shining children greeting their father each day. - OK, maybe not quite THAT June Cleaver - drop the hand tucked jumpers for quilting or something. And I still have plenty of time to spend on the Dope, read my favorite books, watch TV, and raid with a WoW character. These fantasies are about as realistic as the ones where I win the Oscar for Best Actress with George Clooney as my date (looking incredible in a vintage Chanel gown and Harry Winston diamonds) - fortunately, I recognize it as not being a very realistic vision of my own capabilities.

38

I don’t want my husband to take 3 months with the baby, mostly because he just got back to work after a year of unemployment a couple of months ago and I think being out of work again for any reason might cause him to shoot strangers from a bell tower somewhere. He is also not good at staying at home at all so while the baby would be well taken care of the rest of the house might as well have been hit by a tornado. Even when he wasn’t working and had nothing but job searching to do he still never washed dishes or did laundry or anything because he simply didn’t see that it needed to be done until I came home and asked why he didn’t wash dishes that day.

Beyond that his job is freaking amazing and the benefits are beyond anything I ever expected either of us to have. We have a PPO health plan for our family through his job that costs us nothing. Literally, $15 copays, no annual deductible and no monthly premium. If we took the coverage through my job it would cost us $1000/month for insurance with $40 copays. He has pension and free college classes and all sorts of stuff that is not available elsewhere, he is a member of the union and he loves going into the office. Every morning he gets up and gets excited about going into the office and I wouldn’t want to take that away from him and anything that might feasibly put his job in jeopardy is not something I would want to do, even if legally his has the option of taking that time off of work.

39

The federal law is terrific and I think it will improve things for a lot of mothers in the U.S. I am even more lucky in that the New York State laws are more generous than the federal law, which only applies to mothers of children 1 year old and younger; NYS law covers you up to three years. I add this as a reminder for new mothers to check their more local laws as well.

40

This is a case of to each her own. I had a really great job, making more than anything my wife could expect to make, so she stayed home. Both our kids are out of college now, and they are plenty independent, and they got heavily enriched by her staying home. That doesn’t mean this is the only choice - people who would hate to stay home shouldn’t have to.

A few other things from our experience. First, staying home saves money - not just from daycare, but because whoever stays home will have time to cook, which is going to save lots of money over takeout or prepared foods from the grocery - not to mention being healthier. You also save on clothes.

There are other benefits. Just after third grade our eldest got signed by a manager in NY and started acting professionally. Besides the money for college, it was an amazing experience for us all. I left work early to take her to some auditions and some shoots, but she never could have done it if we were both working. My younger daughter got into riding, something else impossible if we both worked. She became captain of her college team, and I think this experience has served her very well, and very likely got her some jobs.

My wife is a biologist, but got into writing when the before the younger one was born. She works freelance, from home, and has been able to increase her work as the kids got older. She has absolutely no desire to work in an office again, even long after the kids are out of the house, and I envy her commute down the hall.

I suspect health insurance is a growing field, and, with raises the way they are, you may not be missing out on a lot of extra money by staying home. You might also find a company which doesn’t monitor your john time.

Oh, and 30 years past where you are now I’m still alive and we’re still married, so, though planning for the worst is a good idea, don’t listen to people who say marriage breakup is inevitable. By the way, be prepared for scorn whatever you do from those who chose the other way.