At the behest of Athena, Rhymer Enterprises has budgeted the profits made by the Slapbot Division to the promotion of full-time parenting. Specifically, RhE will be paying custodial parents of children under 16 a stipend to allow them to quit their jobs and become stay-at-home parents. Both men and women can apply, but only parent per household.
Here’s the thing, though. The Slapbot division is profitable, but not infinitely profitable. I’m not gonna go into numbers because it’s none of your fucking business; the point, when you apply, you’ll have to not only convince Athena’s representative that your kids will be better if with you out of the workforce, but also will have to specify, as a percentage of your current salary, how much money it will take to get you to leave the workforce. (Take it as a given that your health care benefits will remain as is.) Athena’s representative will negotiate with you, of course, but there are limits to her largesse.
Which brings us to the thread question. Working parents of minor children: as a percentage of your current salary, how much will it cost to get you to leave the workforce until your kids reach 18?
A lot of HUH??? in your post. Who is Athena? for a start. A profitable company is offering workers to support them if the don’t wish to work? Huh again???
Athena is of course the One True God: Queen of Olympus, Patron of Heroes, and Castrator of Zeus.
Rhymer Enterprises is a joke company I used in threads to explain where hypothetical and improbable amounts of cash are coming from. RhE makes its money in any numbers of unlikely and evil ways, including murder for hire, hookerbot pimping, selling weapons of mass destruction, vacations in Faery, and murder for hire.
My youngest is 10, and I work in an industry where 8 years out of the workforce would make me damn near unemployable, so I’d want as much as I’d make between now and my planned retirement - so at least 2.5x my current salary. I’d probably open at 3.5x and negotiate from there.
For my wife’s career, 8 years out of the workforce wouldn’t substantially affect her rehire-ability, but if she’s home all day while the kids are in school she’s going to spend a LOT of money on her hobbies, so 2.5x is probably right for her as well.
My wife and I are talking about having kids and whether it will useful for one to stay home with the children at least until they start school.
I earn roughly 4x what my wife does and work from home so more then likely we’re talking about her quitting. With our current jobs we need 25% of my wife’s salary in order to make ends meet of course children will undoubtedly increase our monthly costs so I’d start with 50% of her salary to open negations.
Would the income be taxable? It makes a big difference. I would be nearly unemployable after eleven years out of the work force. And given that I’m single, there’d be no income after that. So I’d need a minimum of 300% my current salary, one to live on and two to save, in order to break even.
Even then I’m losing in the long run, as my career has always had a respectable level of increase, and I’d be missing out on eleven years of that. Still, if I can break even and cover my retirement, I’d go for it. I would not accept any trade which gave Celtling my full attention now, in exchange for my being a burden later.
If the income is taxable, then it has to be %390 I think. Am I getting the math right there? Approx %30 taxation - actually at that rate it would be much more wouldn’t it? What’s the highest tax rate in the USA? I’d almost certainly reach that bracket, so add that x3 as well in order to reach an eleven year total which provides for living off my interest.
Let me think. On the one hand, while the money’s ultimately coming from those notorious criminals at Rhymer Enterprises (who deal with tax agents by feeding them to alligators); you’re dealing with Athena, who is lawful and good. And since you’re not performing a service for Athena (it’s not like you’re being paid to tend to HER kids), tI think the payments might qualify as a gift.
I dunno. RhE obviously has no tax people on staff, but my guess is “gift.” If Rand Rover were still around I’d PM him and ask, but he’s not so I can’t.
This is exactly the sort of rational thought coupled with appropriate humility that will earn God’s respect.
If I were able to stay at home with the kids, I would also be able to spend quite a bit more time on my mostly non-profitable hobby farm.
So, since I could conceivably begin to make that a profitable enterprise, I can reduce my request to Athena by that amount. Assuming I could make ~%20 of my current income through farming and assuming that my wife, who makes more money than I do will continue her streak of doing so, I humbly request 80% of my current salary.
I could be wrong, but I think that’s cheating. Athena didn’t offer us the chance to spend more time on other pursuits, or else I’d go back to college and end up even more salable on the other end. As I understand it, she’s offering to pay us to give home and children our nearly undivided attention. (I’m thinking PTA and swim-team-parent are OK.)
Nope, not gonna happen. I am spectacularly bad with unstructured time and I need to get out of the house every day or I go nuts. It would not be good for me or my daughter. Beyond that, I have a great career, do good work, and have invested a lot in it.
Maybe if it were millions upon millions so that I could hire personal trainers and magicians and people with live cheetahs to keep us structured and entertained I’d do it. But probably not.
Sure, I’m in. Just duplicate my current salary and benefits. I’ll bet my kids would adore having me completely focused on them all the time too, don’t you think? They’re 15 and 17.
When they were little I would of agreed with you. IF you could have paid me at all to get through the play doh and lego years.
I did it last year. My husband took a new job that increased his salary by about 50% of mine. Plus, I lost work and commuting expenses, his new insurance was way better and cheaper than the one I was on - but there are a few other factors - our son really needed parental attention - so I homeschooled him last year - i.e. there was a real need to have someone home. Me working for as long as I worked means we have two fully funded college accounts (unless they go to really expensive private schools, then there might be a few loans), and we’d max’d two 401ks for a long time - so retirement wasn’t taking a hit.
Mathematically, those last two have huge timing issues - the gains in the kids college accounts are about a year worth of tuition each and our 401ks are mostly gains - time has definately been on our side since I worked when they were young. Had I stayed home when they were young, even with a 50% stipend for doing so, we’d have underfunded college and 401ks.
Yeeeeah, I agree with Dangerosa and delphica for years 0-3. You’d have to pay me at least 2x what I currently make to do that. Maybe more like 3x.
Now that the Little One is 4, I’d jump at a chance to leave the workforce for 75% of what I’m making now. Every year I entertain the thought of leaving the workforce a little more, as she becomes more fun to do things with, the things we can do together get more sophisticated and interesting, and I feel like I can contribute more to her development.
You don’t need to have research or mathematical prowess to wave colorful animals at an infant or toilet-train a toddler, but you do need to have more patience – and so full-time parenting at that age isn’t probably the best thing for me or her. Figuring out interesting pedagogical ways to teach mathematical concepts is a way in which my talents for research and mathematics could actually be somewhat useful.