(In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s a guest post from my spouse Helen, who writes about matters financial at Queercents. It’s a slightly different angle on our family story.)
My best investment is not the traditional sort of realized gain, but rather, the investment of time, love, and attention.
The investment was the decision that my spouse and I made before we started a family that one of us would stay home with the child until he was old enough for school. Dana and I were each raised in families with stay-at-home moms, and that was what we both wanted for our child. The problem, of course, was we both had careers, and since we started our family rather late in life, each of us had climbed halfway up the proverbial ladder. Who would jump off?
And how would we live on just one income? We had always had two, roughly equal, incomes. Having one of us stay at home would mean a significant change in our lifestyle. From “2 incomes for 2 people” to “1 income for 3 people.” Hmmm. . . . Not favorable math.
The decision was one of the heart, not of the head. The math does not work out on paper, and giving up several years of salary is certainly our most expensive investment ever.
It was the right decision for us. Becoming parents changed our priorities. While I still enjoy the challenges of my day job, I can’t wait to get home at night and hear about what he discovered today. And Dana has discovered that paper mâché really can be more fun than reading global banking marketing analyses.
Living on half of our previous income has forced us to focus on what really matters. Now we actually talk (gasp!) about what we should spend our money on. Luckily, we agree on almost all financial matters. We travel and dine out less frequently. We had already acquired a houseful of furniture and stuff, so we hardly shop at all these days. Old Navy, IKEA, and Legos get our few discretionary dollars. Most of our friends are two-income families, so it can be tempting to keep up with the the Joneses. But we rein ourselves in. Sometimes we splurge, but we prioritize saving for retirement and education over the immediate gratification of water parks and Nintendo. We also hope we’re setting a good example for him, because someday he’ll have to make his own choices.
Having a stay-at-home parent is not the right option for every family, and I would fight to the death to defend the right of a woman to choose to continue her career. Quality daycare may be difficult to find, but it does exist, and it’s a better option for those who think staying home would be unbearable—better for the mum and better for the child.
For us, having a parent stay home was the right choice. We liked the arrangement so much that we continued it even after he began school. It’s great for him to come home after school to some activity Dana’s cooked up—even if it’s just helping with the shopping.
We celebrated today with a wonderful, if exhausting, day working in the garden, after watching “Toy Story 2” over breakfast. It just doesn’t get much better.
Happy Mother’s Day. Or, as it is at our house, Happy Mothers’ Day.
Photo credit: stock.xchng
thanks so much for writing this article, my wife and i are planning on taking that same leap, our son is two in June
it’s scary, but MUST happen — he’s getting way too amazing and we are just missing too much of it with both of us working full-time, it’s great to hear of you have done it — thanks again
Good luck to you and your family, Kathleen. It’s a cliche, but they’re only young once. Enjoy!