You Want to be a Stay-At-Home Parent
by: Guest
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Word Count: 1447
The subject of stay-at-home parenting is touchy, and emotionally
tangled up in a maelstrom of emotion, advertising, society
pressure, culture demands, and personal beliefs. When you have a
mixture of that many ingredients swirling around, the result is
likely to be a mess unless both parents are in agreement. One
resource for current stay-at-home and those who want more
information go on the Internet to
www.athomeparent.com. There are
other sites out there, I happen to think this one is a good
resource. I’ll start by examining the reason why many people
struggle with the decisions around one parent staying home with
their children or both parents working and placing the child in
daycare. I would like to point out that due to limitations on
the size of this article there is much material and many factors
that will not be covered here. This list of statements showcases
reasons both parents work today. Unfortunately, many parents
face this kind of pressure and a hundred more after the birth of
their first, second, third or even fourth child. How many of
these can you agree with?
A. You come from a home where both parents work. B. You want
your child to have more material objects than you grew up with.
C. All of your friends with children are working. D. Your spouse
says you have to work to support the family. E. Friends and
family ask what you will do all day if you stay at home.
Being a parent is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week job. You will
always be on call for your child, ready to comfort, feed,
clothe, praise, encourage and love every time your child needs
you. While working these long hours, you will receive no
paycheck, no health insurance benefits, and no office
conversations. You will soon learn that deadlines are for doctor
visits, play dates, cups of coffee with other stay-at-home
parents, and after school activities. Why do millions of
otherwise perfectly normal, sane, career track minded women (or
men because the number of stay-at-home dads is growing), the
majority of whom are women, suddenly put the career on hold for
years and take on a full time job like I described? Where is the
sense in subjecting yourself to the endless hours of lost sleep,
deprived personal time, and the emotional roller coaster ride of
being an always-on-duty parent living with your child? It could
be that these people have decided that money can not buy the
benefits they receive by being with their child. During the
years before school, their child will learn to walk, to talk, to
count, to read, hop, skip, jump and climb. This once helpless
baby will stretch out and grow bigger, exploring the world at
every step. A step a parent helped them take; a world the parent
is showing them. Staying at home with your baby is committing
yourself to raising a future adult. Or, perhaps a couple has
calculated how much it really costs to have both parents working
and decided the money was not worth the hassle of working and
emotional stress of leaving their child to be raised by somebody
else. Have you sat down with a pencil and calculator to find out
just how much money that second working spouse brings home?
Allow me to use Sandy (not her real name) as an example: She and
her husband Paul have sat down to decide if it was economically
feasible for her to stay home after the birth of their second
child. They wrote out a list of expenses associated with her
working. The major costs include: 1. Personal Appearance –
gently used or brand new quality clothing was bought frequently
to maintain a good image at the office, some required dry
cleaning and then she had a need for makeup and beauty products
she wouldn’t normally wear except to work 2. Transportation – a
second vehicle requires payments, insurance premiums, license
plates, taxes, the occasional repair and plenty of fuel 3. Food
– Sandy often ate at the corner food shop just down from her
work 4. Daycare – since Sandy and her husband were both working
during the day, the baby would have to be placed with a daycare,
their first child was already in school 5. Taxes – this was a
major hit to Sandy’s paycheck
The surprising thing to Sandy was the cost of the little things.
Morning coffee, afternoon soda pop, a quick spin through a fast
food joint to bring home supper, these and a dozen more ways to
spend a dollar here and a dollar there added up. When this
typical middle class family deducted all the costs of having
both spouses working, they were shocked to discover that Sandy
was contributing only a third of her $14 an hour pre-tax
earnings to the family. This amounted to only $4.5 an hour, or
barely $36 a day to the family Spendable income. That amount
calculates into $180 a week and $9000 a year. Each family unit
is different and you may decide that the money is worth the
effort of leaving home to work everyday. There is no right and
wrong answer as we traditionally think of right and wrong.
Instead, I prefer to think of it as being a best and O.K.
answer. When thinking about adding $9000 a year to your family
income, you must also consider the intangible costs for earning
that money. Intangibles are the things that will cost you
something, but are not measurable in terms of money. Working
parents miss most of the child’s firsts – first word, first
step, first dirty diaper, first funny face, first four years.
These things do not provide money, but they do give you sweet
and kind memories to take with you through the troublesome teen
years. Being away from your child 40 – 50 hours a week and
missing this kind of stuff is considered the emotional cost of
being a working parent. When a child is at home with her mother
or father, they will be learning about life from someone who
loves them more than any outsider. Children are great imitators,
and who can be a better role model than a parent? Considering
her career as a Customer Service Manager, Sandy knew she was
topped out in both earnings and responsibility. Based on that,
and her family’s finances, she decided to stay home when the
baby was born. She and her husband worked up a Spending Plan and
figured out areas where Sandy could decrease costs, like making
home made meals and taking the time to find the best prices for
things.
So assuming that you, as a parent who would like to stay home
with your child, what steps should you take? 1. Take some
serious time to talk with each other about this decision.
Reducing your standard of living to fit within a single income
can be difficult, and if both of you are not together on this,
it will fail and the stress on your family could be
catastrophic. 2. Plan what the two of you would like the future
to be like. Write down your ideas, you know, live on one income,
save for the future, pay off debt, enjoy being able to nurture
your child at home during the early years, find a part-time job
after your child goes to school. Write these plans on paper and
hang them on your refrigerator door. Why the fridge? It is the
only place in your house you are guaranteed to see them more
than once a day. 3. If you have a time period of 2 – 4 months
time before you will be ready to stop working, create a Spending
Plan right away. This will allow you time to adjust to living on
one income and make necessary adjustments to your spending
levels such as cutting back on entertainment, or reducing
monthly payments for little used services, etc. 4. The parent
who will be staying home should prepare themselves for the
change if they have been working. Start making contact with
other stay-at-home parents, talk with your friends about your
decision so they will not be giving your grief after the change
occurs. 5. Keep clear communications open with your spouse, to
make sure the two of you are in agreement.
Making the decision to leave the work force and stay home with
your child can be daunting. If you prepare for it like you would
for any other lifestyle change, this decision can work out well
for everyone in your family.
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