What would you give up to stay home?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2004
What would you give up to stay home?
1422
Sat, 08-05-2006 - 8:36am

Hi everyone.

I have always said that staying home is so important to me that I would give up many things to be able to do that. We live in a very small home, I have no jewelry and we buy all our clothes at Walmart. I know that if I went back to work, we could afford more. But I would never trade being at home for a larger house or more luxuries.

However, after reading this board I have started to suspect that there are things I would not want to give up. If I couldn't send my kids to preschool a couple of hours a day, if I couldn't afford any after school activities like ballet lessons or if I could'nt afford any kind of summer program for them, I think I would have to find a way to go back to work. So basically, I'm perfectly happy to deny myself "things." But I would not want to take much away from the kids.

Of course I would probably have to find a new career becuase I could never work the 80 hours a week my old career entailed.

Lilypie Baby Ticker

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 10:51am
Don't you think depending on what you're doing to show you feel responsible for and nurturing to them your twins will think you're a tad bit overinvolved in their lives once they reach a certain age?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 10:52am
Yeah, but you're not exactly the average working mother.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 10:53am
Psst....her DH is the SAHP, not her.

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Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 10:54am
That's probably a good way to look at it. I found it interesting, but I wanted to know more about the source of his ideas.
Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 10:55am
He's an economist, and he says it is based on his analysis of statistics, but he doesn't back up his analysis with anything.
Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 11:16am
I don't think that's universally true either, but I see posters say all the time that their families can't make it without the second income, and I tend to believe them. Certainly it's possible that they are also saving more because of the second income, but if you look at savings rates for Americans in general, they're pretty dismal. It's pretty hard for me to think that banking raises is a common practice (despite it being a great idea). Even you were just telling me about several friends who were scaling up to $1M houses because the quaint 2400 sf house wasn't cutting it anymore. And housing prices have gone up astronomically, even for the quaint 2400 sf house.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 11:24am
I admit that remark (kids as something to hand over to someone else) was a little over the top, but it was directly in response to KBs statement that some SAHMs view work as something that they can come and go to as they wish. I think that remark was nothing short of a generalization and had no basis in this thread. I answered her extreme view with another extreme view (and one that I don't hold). Does that make sense?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 11:27am
I agree with you generally, I just resent people in general (definitely not you specifically) thinking that we're living so high on the hog because we spend both incomes.

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Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 11:38am
No, it's a statement of how I feel about my own life and my own quality of life, which is based on different things than yours. That's why I said "personally." I want us to have the option to do different things with our lives--not to be locked into a lifestyle that requires two incomes or even one big income. If we couldn't do that, if we couldn't even take two or three years off, I think we'd be looking at changing our lifestyle, probably moving somewhere less expensive. Your questions are all about you and what you want, not about me. We like camping, and our favorite restaurants are already dives. ;)
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 11:38am

Some kids don't. Some kids do. Some kids don't need two WOHPs. Some kids do.

KB has made the universal declaration that kids don't need a SAHM. She has no business making that decision for everyone else.

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