Help! Husband pushing me to find job!

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-04-2006
Help! Husband pushing me to find job!
1529
Tue, 11-07-2006 - 10:35am
My husband has just taken a leave of absense from his high paying 80 hour a week job to focus on being home more and finding out what he really wants to do. He is now working 3 days a week at a job he really likes. He always said if he took this job he would find another part time job to supplement the income. I am working weekends and babysitting during the week, but my income is a joke. Our kids are 5 and 3 and cry every weekend when I leave. My problem is this: my husband has put no effort in finding that 2nd job he said he would find and is pushing me to work full time. I want to be a stay at home mom, but it may mean him going back to a job he hates. He says the kids will adjust, get over it. Am I being selfish or lazy for wanting to stay home? Is he being selfish for leaving a good paying job?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-03-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 9:03am

"IF one of the parents can be home for their children then WHY NOT?"

Do you equate being able to do something with it being something you should do? I could drive 100MPH on the highway, should I because I can? I could move to a less desirable neighborhood with less deisirable schools and have my dh SAH, does that mean I should because I can?

Why would I choose otherwise? There's way more to life than being home when the kids get home. Don't get me wrong, kids need supervision but you can provide that while working. I want my kids to have a better life. I want college paid for. I don't want them to be burdened with my care when I'm old and I don't want them growing up in a household that lives with financial stress. Yes, my dh could be home when they get home but there are important things his income pays for that are far more important than his being home when they come home from school. Besides, my kids like latch key. They get to hang out with their friends after school. It's benefits all the way around for us with both of us working.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2007
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 9:35am
You're absolutely right, gr8ful, that working so that a family can have some savings is a very legitimate reason for doing so. I have taught my sons that, if possible, it's best for a couple to set up their lifestyle so they live off one income and put the other income into savings and investments. That way they have a safety net. Especially for families with only one income, who are really living on a shoestring, they don't have that safety net. When you're barely getting the mortgage and other bills covered, there usually isn't money leftover for something like disability insurance, so if the bread winner becomes disabled, they run the risk of losing everything. Even if you can afford disability insurance, I don't think it usually covers 100% of a person's income. And if a woman has been home raising kids for several years, it may not be so easy for her to go out and find a job that pays as well as her husband's. I think that's a real risk that a lot of couples don't consider.

~Ghostwriter, M.A.


iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2007
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 9:39am

I loved being a latch-key kid. And I was one of those before they had a name for it. It taught me independence and self-reliance. All the other kids thought I was way cool 'cause I had my own house key.

Also, your post reminded me of the line in Jurassic Park where Ian Malcolm says, "You were so busy thinking if you 'could' that you never stopped to think if you 'should.'" Just because you "can" do something doesn't mean it's the best choice.

~Ghostwriter, M.A.


Avatar for mkatherine
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 9:49am
As a single mom I know full well the importannce of saving and safety nets-- that's why I forgo other stuff -- I don't have a new tv or tivo or any of that stuff, my furniture is old and stained as my carpets, but I have two disability policies, one through work and one I pay for on my own, 2 retirement accounts, a 529 college account, and life insurance that I pay for and medical/dental that work pays for. it's hard -- but when I'm feeling sorry for myself that I'm wearing the same sets of outfits to work over an dover I remember the safety net I have and I feel better. it can be done on one income (I don't make a ton, I make $55K a year but I have awesome benefits) but it requires an incredible amount of willpower to forgo "stuff" --

 

Yes. We. Did.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2006
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 10:17am

1. I wasn't rude.

2. If you use phrases like "COL, whatever that means" you have to expect the natural consequence that some poor, naive fool might actually BELIEVE you and understand you to mean that you don't know what COL means.

3. Everyone on the PLANET lives in SOME kind of COL place. It might be horrifically low, or astronomically high, or somewhere in the middle, but since, as you state yourself, COL means "cost of living" everyone in the world lives in such an area.

4. I'll respond on this board when I choose to respond and to whom I choose to respond. You may choose to ignore me. That's fine. You may NOT tell me when *I* may or may post.

5. I hope your baby is feeling better.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2007
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 10:25am

You have spoken out quite vocally about things taken out of context, so allow me to post two full sentences that I wrote:

"Sometimes people spout off an opinion without really thinking it through. I have no idea if this is the case with Wahu, but I'm sensing it might be."

So, what could I not be more wrong about? My own sense of things? And here I was under the impression that the Thought Police was the stuff of fiction.

~Ghostwriter, M.A.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 10:35am

"It's a bleak future for those who don't save to take care of themselves. "


So true.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 10:38am

It does take willpower to forgo stuff.


We have a fair bit of stuff, but my husband loves TV.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 10:45am

>>"if there is no NEED for a second income, and you can make it on one...then you are putting your money needs infront of your children if you insist on working and not staying home with your children no matter if you are a woman or a man"<<


But again, whose job is it to define "need'?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Sun, 02-11-2007 - 10:47am
Benefits are tough.

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