Working Moms vs. Stay at Home Moms: What is Better for the Kids?

I met up with one of my old coworkers this weekend for coffee and a long walk. He has a philosophical bent. We talked from everything to unions and the future of the middle class to my recent departure from the paid workforce.

I admitted to him that I now am uncertain about whether or not working or staying at home is better for my children and myself. It is true that I am home and present and able to participate more fully in their everyday lives. However, my attention is often not focused completely on them as I have a house to maintain and family life to organize. I also have interests outside of them and often find myself distracted. I'm also not able to provide all of the enrichment that the girls previously received from preschool or aftercare or just having the disposable income to enroll them in various lessons/classes. Another key part of the equation is that since I am with them all day, every day, I am not as enthusiastic about spending time with them or playing with them. When I used to get home from work, I was hungry to spend time with them. I missed them. Now, I look forward to time without them.

The jury is still out in my opinion. My dear friend characterized it like this. I'm testing and experiments with these different roles and different lifestyles to see what rings true. Do kids do better with a stay at home mother? Do moms do better when they don't have to split their time between work and family? Or is it a wash? Or do children do better with two working parents?

In truth, either way, I will have no regrets. I have been able to have it both ways now. I can see from both sides of the battled armament between stay at home and working mothers. I honestly can't see  why there is such tension between the two groups. Being a mom is hard work no matter how you frame it. When I worked I was exhausted from work, commuting, fitting in cooking and housework and quality family time. Now, I am exhausted from attending to my children all day, cooking, and cleaning. At least I've learned this: no mom has it easy.

Finding your groove: From work to staying at home

It's almost been a full week at home now. I've learned a few things being home that might be helpful for others who are planning to make a transition.

Expect a transition. Even if you've been dreaming about staying home for years or finally just quit your job out of frustration. There will be a transition time to staying at home. Being with your kids 24 hours a day is a lot different than spending 8 hours in an air-condition office each day. It isn't all good and it isn't all bad, but it is very different. So don't expect to go from professional career woman to expert stay at home mom immediately.

You may not have as much time as you think you will. I naively thought that once I was home all day that there would be plenty of time to get everything done in the house plus have lots of fun, quality time with the kids. Wrong! There are only so many hours in the day. I now have a lot more choice and flexibility in how I spend those hours, but they are still limited. I still haven't gotten the laundry under control, but I've also made the conscious decision to focus a lot of my energy and attention on providing meaningful experiences for my daughters.

Being at home may mean that you can't wait to get away from it. Now more than ever I need some alone time to recharge my batteries. Spending a full day with a 2 year-old is always exhausting no matter what.

Staying at home is exhausting

I've decided two days in that staying at home full-time is exhausting. I feel like I've never worked so hard. In my working days, I used to think nothing of forgoing washing the dishes in order to veg out on the couch for an hour in the evening. Now, I don't understand how it is that there are still dirty dishes in the sink. Didn't I just do them an hour ago. There is a never-ending need for cleaning, cooking, cleaning up after cooking, responding to this or that request from the little or not-so-little one. I may already need a vacation. I'm hoping things will settle into a routine soon, and soon I'll have caught up on all the housework I'd put off my last few weeks. At least I hope that is the case. For now, my kids are relatively healthy and happy. My oldest is playing with mud in the backyard with a couple of friends, the youngest is taking a much needed TV break (needed for mommy), white bean and spinach soup is simmering on the stove. I can appreciate in this moment what is good and leave for tomorrow what is yet undone.

My first official day home

Today is Monday. A day when I'd normally rush through a morning routine, rush one or more both kids to school or daycare, commute 1/2 an hour to work, and spend eight hours at a desk, and then repeat the routine in reverse. It is noon. Today, I've walked my oldest daughter to school, cleaned the girls' room and the living room, played with water in the backyard with my youngest, ate lunch outside with her, read her three stories, and tucked her in for a nap.

I'll admit that my convictions about staying home wavered a bit this weekend as it all started to sink in. Am I doing the right thing? Will I really enjoy it as much as I think I will? Is this good for the kids, for my husband, for me? I don't know the answers to those questions yet. I do know that I enjoyed my Sunday evening for the first time in a long time without the Sunday evening dread coming on. Life is like an unpainted canvas for me right now. I get to fill it. I just need to decide what the painting is going to be.

All in all, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity. It is something that I never thought I'd be able to do. I hope that I can be worthy of the gift.  

The Easy Path

During my time exploring my options and deciding whether to quit my job, I spent a lot of time trying on each decision to see how it fit. I tried to imagine how life would be with either option. It came back again and again to the fact that my job while emotionally and physiucally stressful provided a generous and stable income with benefits. Even though I yearned to spend more time with my kids, they were both healthy and happy, well-adjusted kids. The easy path would have been to stay the same course with my job.

Yet, every time I imagined spending another ten years or even one year at my job, the more disheartened and less hopeful I felt. Every time I imagined life without my job, either staying home or working fewer hours at a less stressful job, the more excited and hopeful I felt about the future. But there were drawbacks too, financial sacrifices and career sacrifices that me and my family would need to make. Plus, it meant overhauling quite  a few aspects of our life from where we lived to my daughter's preschool to a new closer relationship with our budget. It wasn't the easy path at all. In the end though it was the right thing to do. The more I talked about it with my duaghter, the more I realized that she wanted Friday mom  on Monday through Thursday too. The more time we talked about it, the more my husband expressed his desire to have someone to take care of the house and girls to allow him more focus on his career.

Since I've made my decision and told some friends about it, they've expressed their desires to do something similar. Most people are stuck where I was for awhile. They are taking the easy path even if it leads to job disatisfaction or depression. I made a New Year's resolution in 2010 that I wanted to take more risks in life. Sticking to the easy, safe path may allow you to have some security and safety but it doesn't always provide the happiness and joy that most people desire.

It's not always easy to see the difference between taking risks and being foolish. Perhaps, they are even one in the same sometimes. Everyone has to decide for herself at sometime or another whether their present course is the easy path. You need to evalute whether the tradeoffs that you're making are really worth it or whether you just feel stuck and are coasting along.

Downsizing in a Supersize Society

I’ve undergone quite a philosophical change over the past few years that has culminated in my family’s decision to downsize to one income. It started several years ago when my husband and I found ourselves very much in debt and living paycheck to paycheck even though we both had college degrees and decent jobs. I knew that the path we were on just wasn’t right. I knew we needed to pay off the debt but I wasn’t sure how. I read “Your Money or Your Life” as one of my first forays into my search for this new way to live. I learned some great principles and had some limited success. We stopped using the credit cards immediately and started trying to pay down the debt. The road was bumpy. Layoffs and other unexpected things happened but the real problem was that we weren’t focused on how we spent our money. We tried to budget but never tied our spending into the paper budget. Then, when we decided to try for another child, things got serious. I ended up on bedrest early in my pregnancy and suddenly my income was greatly reduced. We didn’t have savings and needed to borrow money from my parents to tide us over. It was just a thousand dollars but it was enough for me to realize how close to the edge that we were treading. I got real about the budgeting. We started sticking to it and saving money. When it came time for me to deliver we had saved over nine thousand dollars in the span of about six months. Since then we’ve lost a little steam. It’s easier to save when you have an immediate goal of something like covering maternity leave. But we’ve stuck to our frugal lifestyle principles. We did end up moving to a bigger house and buying a car. These were conscious decisions that we made after long periods of consideration about the real tradeoffs.

Now we’re taking a few giant leaps with our approach. We’re going to cut half off our income in one fell swoop. To me it now seems like a natural decision to do this. I see a million pluses and only a few big negatives. To me the ultimate goal isn’t what is left in the piggy bank at the end, it will be what beautiful experiences have I had in my life.

Not everyone sees things this way. For a lot of people it is about the piggy bank and the material trappings that represent that piggy bank: the big house, the cars, the clothes, the vacations, and the knick knackery. It goes against the tide to choose to have less (money and material possessions) so that we can have more (time spent with one another). I think it is hard for people to comprehend because we’ve been indoctrinated from an early age by the media to believe that more is always better. You always want to earn more money, have a more high profile job, buy a bigger house, and drive a fancier car. We’re always supposed to be advancing forward to more not choosing less.

I think it’s the easy way to measure your success in the world. I can easily see that my neighbor’s Mercedes is much better than my Mazda. But how easily can I tell that my marriage is healthier than my neighbors? I can tell that your little girl is wearing expensive shoes and mine is wearing shoes from Target. But how well can I see that your daughter feels safe and secure and gets all the attention and time that she needs? This is not to say that because I choose to stay home with my kids that suddenly all our problems will go away. That my marriage will be perfect and my kids will always be happy. I couldn’t disagree more. My daughter is just as well-adjusted and happy if not more than many of the children I know with a stay at home parent. This is just my rationale for why we’ve elevated monetary worth far above things like time, personal health, and relationships. From now on I have to acknowledge that I am using a metric to judge my success that is far different than many of my peers. When I cook a meal in my small kitchen or have to drive an old car for ten more years, I know why I’m doing it. I know that I traded those things in for a few more moments, a few more smiles and laughs, just a few more minutes spent with the people I love most in the world.

Timing

I read an interesting post today by a new-to-me blogger. The Wisdom of a Crowded Rink talks about how we always seem to waiting for the right time to do something. He gave some examples about going on a diet and starting an exercise regime. He then goes on to talk about how sometimes the best time is right now. That if we wait for the crowded ice rink to clear before going skating we might miss out on a the opportunity to learn and grow by seizing the moment. I couldn’t help but apply it to my own situation. There has never been a “perfect time” for anything in my life. I got married, had my first daughter, graduated college, started my graduate program, started my career, had my second daughter, got a promotion and just recently finished my graduate degree. None of these things happened with any great timing. In fact, my life seems to be guided by oddly- timed happenings.

My decision to leave my job is one of those oddly- timed happenings. Conventional wisdom would say that I should keep working, pay off debt, save for a house, and then save for my daughters’ college educations. In fact, just a few months ago that was exactly my plan. It was a great plan. It would set us on a great financial path. But it didn’t consider anything else besides our monetary needs. My family and I have needs and desires that are not quantified. This is not a “perfect time” in my life for me to leave my job and for our family to move to one-income. We still have some lingering debts, and the job market is quite shaky (there is a good possibility that it would take months for me to find a new job and probably at half the salary).

However, what time in the foreseeable future would be a good time? After I pay off debt 1-2 years from now? It may not be a good time financially for us to lose half our income but it is a good time for us in many other ways. My littlest daughter has 2 and ½ more years until school, just 2 and ½ precious years that I could be spending with her instead of her spending it in daycare. My older daughter is a couple short years away from adolescence. My husband’s career is on the upward swing and demands more of his time and energy. I’m the mom, the anchor of our family. My job is sapping me of my energy, my emotional strength, and my passion for life. I care less about it every day and every day I want more and more to be there for my family. What better job could I ask for?

So, I'm seizing the moment. Perhaps like Johnathon Fields, the blogger, mentioned that I'll get a few dings and bruises by running out onto the crowded ice rink. However, perhaps I'll learn and grow in ways that I never though of. At least I won't be sitting on the sidelines watching the ice skaters glide by and wishing I was gliding right alongside.

My new (small) place

I posted yesterday about a potential rental house that my husband and I were going to look at. We walked through the house and were generally pleased with everything: a good-size living room, one larger bedroom (good for the girls to share), and a decent bathroom. Then, we got to the kitchen dining room combination. You can probably fit both into my current kitchen. Yes, they are small. The house has a great yard, large garage for storage, and a wood-burning fireplace. The only big drawback was the small kitchen and non-existent dishwasher. We left the house and all I could think about was that tiny kitchen. All the other great things about the house seemed to pale in comparison to that small space. My husband was all for it. All he saw was that two-car garage, and then he was sold. I was more hesitant and needed to think about it for awhile. I had a case of the “grass might be greener”. I was ignoring all the great positive things about the house in the hope that there might be another house out there with a decent kitchen and dining room. Once, we’d made the decision to put in our application on the house, I was happy. This house meets pretty much all of our criteria and then some. Yes, we won’t be having dinner parties, and I will be back to washing dishes by hand. At least now I’ll have the time to wash the dishes.

We’ll be moving from our current 1800 square foot house to a 975 square foot house in March assuming that our credit checks out OK today. It’s exciting. It means that we’re one step closer to our goal. They even offered to knock another $50 off our rent for taking care of the yard. All in all, we’ll save $365 a month over our current place. That will go a long way to closing our budget gap. There is a lot to be thankful for. God provided a nice house in a great location that meets all of our needs. Maybe it doesn’t meet all of our wants but I think we can be really happy there. Now to start packing.

House & Home

I've been spending a lot of time writing about moving to a new house. I released my self from the self-imposed pressure of finding a new place last week because it was stressing me out. Yes, the sooner we move, the sooner we can save more money but it isn't critical that we move right now. I did look at an apartment-townhouse although small it would be doable. It also didn't meet one of our three requirements: laundry in unit. We decided to keep looking. The other day a listing for a house popped up. It's right in the area that we want to live near the village just a hop skip and a jump from the new library, police station, fire station, grocery store et cetera. It is two bedrooms and one bath. It has a garage with laundry hookups. It is a bit small-not quite 1,000 square feet but not much smaller than the apartment that we looked at.

It caused quite a stir in me because I had almost resigned myself completely to the idea that we would need to move into an apartment. When the house listing popped up, it got me thinking about the wants vs. needs and the status symbol that a single family home is. I live in an area where attached housing is subpar not just in terms of desirability but in terms of the quality of the housing (cheap construction of the 60s and 70s with few amenities) also. This house is more expensive than the equivalent apartment (if you take the laundry out of the equation). It is $1500 a month vs. the $1295 for the apartment. However, it does include the laundry hookups. We estimated that we would spend about $20 per week ($80 per month) on coin laundry at the apartment. We would also need to pay trash pickup at the house. So, the difference is $155 for a yard, a garage, the convenience of laundry, and the prime location. Oh yeah, and for the status symbol. It wouldn't entirely close the gap of our finances but it would save us about $315 a month over our current house.

We're going to look at the house this morning. I hope we really like it. It would be great to have a grassy yard again for the kids to play in. There is even room for a veggie garden. Something I would miss not being able to have in an apartment.

Up and Downs

It's been a bit of a roller coaster week for me emotionally. The happiness that I've felt at the prospect of being able to stay home with the kids hit the practical implications of dealing without a second income and leaving a career pretty hard. Yesterday, having a full day with both kids without the distractions of work or school was really nice. As I watched my youngest trudging around the big fountain at the park with a backpack strapped to her tiny shoulders (she is fixated on Dora the Explorer right now) and my oldest skipping around her golden brown hair shining in the sun, I was struck by how these amazing moments in my life are just flying by me. Sure, we have plenty of time on the weekends to have fun with the kids. We often make that a priority instead of the mundane tasks like yard work and grocery shopping. However, how many beautiful moments like this never existed because during the week we're all off in our separate spaces: work, school, and daycare. In that beautiful moment, I didn't doubt my decision one bit. In that brief beautiful moment, I knew that nothing in life could ever compensate me for the lost moments like these. Sure, there are plenty of other moments when one kid is throwing a tantrum on the ground and the other has wandered away that I find less beautiful. How, can you put a price tag on these lost moments. What is the opportunity cost of investing your life and energy in something else? This isn't just for working moms. It's for all parents. I know far too many other stay at home parents that find plenty of diversions to spend time on instead of their children. So, here it is. This is what I'm willing to exchange for more of these beautiful moments.

• My Career
• Financial Security
• Nice Clothes
• Entertainment
• Vacations
• Some Friendships (work friends and others who may not agree with my decision)
• My occasional grande non-fat mocha

It's a long list. If you were with me yesterday, you would understand why none of these things matter at all really.

Free Fun

My oldest daughter has the day off from school today. It's just me and the kids. I was trying to come up with some ideas of fun things to do today. Normally, I'd do whatever I felt like within reason. That might include going out to a local coffee shop for an inexpensive breakfast or maybe visiting a local nature center. I was always mindful of the cost but I didn't feel the need to avoid spending any money.

Now, we are trying to stick to our new one-income budget with some modifications. I can't avoid spending on childcare and rent for the house that we currently live even though those expenses will be eliminated or reduced at some point in the future. So, for my day with the girls, I'm trying to find fun free activities for us. Luckily, we live in a great area with beautiful weather year-round and lots of cultural activities, natural attractions and entertainment nearby. It can come at a cost though so we'll have to plan carefully to avoid spending money. My new plan for avoiding spending money when we're out and about having fun.

1) Pack lunches.

This may seem like an obvious one but often a lot of planning has to go into this. You need to have food on hand that is easily transportable and doesn't require refrigeration. This is often a difficult one for busy working families who look forward to the weekend all week long. Planning for picnic lunches can seem like a very small priority. This will be a lot easier once I have more time to plan and shop.

2) Bring plenty of yummy snacks.

With two young kids, I usually don't leave the house for any period of time without some type of non-perishable snack like pretzels or trail mix in the bag. Inevitably though my older daughter with the sweet tooth will beg for a churro or ice cream or something while we're out. A churro at the zoo easily costs $3. Last time this happened, I thought why not make some yummy snacks and have them frozen and ready to pop out and microwave before heading to a place with known temptations. I'm going to experiment with a homemade churro, which will probably end up more like a cinnamon sugar bread stick but will still probably hold up as an acceptable substitute. While maybe not the healthiest snack, it will save money and avoid the feeling that we're doing without. Hey, it may even taste better.

3) Stick close to home when possible.

This may seem like a bit of a no brainer too. Except that I live in a large metropolitan area. Some of our favorite places to visit are easily 15-20 miles away. With the price of gas, that is easily a $5 dollar if not more trip. This isn't taking into account wear and tear on the car. I still plan on regularly visiting those places. However, I'll need to think more carefully and strategically about when we visit, try to combine trips when possible, and perhaps substitute some closer places for our old favorites.

Today, we're visiting our local Science Center at my daughter's request. We'll be packing lunch, and I'll try to scrounge up some yummy snacks. We still have to drive but at least I'm aware of that extra expense and know that next time we'll be sticking close to home.

42 more working days until I'm home

I was a bit glum yesterday and stressed about the financial consequences of the loss of my income. I went to look at apartments. They were OK but definitely apartments. My husband had to have an emergency root canal, which ended up being an inconvenience because I had to pick up both kids and make dinner on a day when he normally does it. Then, there was the financial side, $500 we had to shell out for what was supposed to be a routine visit to the dentist for a cleaning. By the time, I got home and had someone food cooking on the stove, I was starting to feel pretty fragile. I called my mom and nearly broke down. I wanted to talk but more than that I just wanted to hear her voice. I wanted someone to comfort me. “It’s been hard”, I said. “I know”, she said. I lamented my difficult week: the interrupted sleep because of my daughter’s transition to the toddler bed, my house being a mess, how tired I felt, how stressed I felt about my whole quandary, and how unsure I was about everything that we were about to do. I’m sure that my mother has some apprehension about what I’m about to do. She even mentioned that she had tried to stay home a few times and had mixed results. But she supports me and would never say that what I’m doing is crazy or try to dissuade me. That is part of what is frustrating about my mom. I can never get a great read on what she is thinking because often she won’t tell me straight out. She did her best to comfort me and give me some pointers on how to work through my feelings. I have a lot to learn from her still. I hope I can be half as good a mother to my girls as she was to me.

Part of my downward spiral yesterday came because I was discussing my plans with a family friend briefly. When I mentioned that I’d looked at apartments that day because we would need to downsize to a more affordable place, a look came across his face that was a mixture of surprise, pity, and maybe even a tinge of disgust. Don’t get me wrong. He is a great guy, very free thinking and liberal but he saw our decision to downsize as a real negative instead of the positive that I’ve been trying to spin it to myself. I know that his perspective will be probably be more common than not. A lot of people I know will probably think that moving into an apartment is a serious step down in status. While I was somewhat prepared for his reaction, it still hit home. I didn’t really need any more negative feedback because I’m having enough trouble with this decision myself. I think part of my struggle is that there is so much time to think about this. I have another month and a half before I even give notice at my job. I need to stay through April to pad our savings a bit more. I have a month and a half to wallow in self doubt before I take the step to make this a reality instead of my constant fixation. My daughter asked me yesterday, “Are you still going to quit your job, Mom?”. I was happy to say yes and tell her when I’d be home for good.

Big Girl Beds and Life Changes

As I was cleaning up my youngest daughter’s room this weekend, I made an executive decision to move her into the toddler bed that has been sitting unused in her room for going on 8-9 months. She loves her crib. She really loves her crib. The problem is that we bought the crib when we lived in a tiny two-bedroom house. Since the crib would be in our bedroom, we decided to go with the mini-crib. After all, my oldest spent so little time in her crib and had moved to her toddler bed shortly after turning one. Well, we learned the hard way that no two children are alike. Luckily, my littlest is tiny. She is about the size now at 2 and ½ years that my older daughter was at 1 (she has a genetic syndrome that causes her to be small). So, we’ve let her stay in her crib as long as she has wanted. I’d probably still let her stay in the crib now if she wasn’t now exceeding the weight guidelines for the crib. Plus, we’ll be moving in the next few months. I have no interest in carting the toddler bed and crib with me to our new smaller house.

As you can probably imagine, it was a bit of a traumatic event for her. She managed to nap in there the first day. When it came time to go to bed for the night, she freaked out. I took her back to bed 4 or 5 times. By the last time, she was shaking. She did not want to go into her toddler bed. We had already moved the crib out of her room so that wasn’t an option anymore. I ended up holding her until she fell asleep and putting her in the crib later. It seems a bit comical to me. After all, going from the confinement of a crib to the freedom of one’s own bed should be exciting right? Except that she has known only the crib since she was a newborn. The bars that seem prison-like to me are comforting to her. She was so frightened of the change to her “big girl bed” that it caused her to shake like a leaf. I am reminded a bit of myself. Just like her, I abhor change. The unknown to me is far scarier than exciting. Even though I as the all-knowing parent (snicker) know that she will be happier in her big girl bed after she gets over the initial fear. She’ll have the freedom to come and go. She’ll be more independent. She doesn’t yet know that though. It’s like my situation. Quitting my job and staying home with the kids feels a lot like moving into a big girl bed. Compared to the familiar comfort of my “prison bars”, it seems frightening. I’m just not sure if I’ll like it. Once my crib is gone, it’s gone. There is no going back. I have a little more empathy for my little girl right now as she goes through one of the childhood rites of passage. I hope one day, just like her, I’ll be happy that I made the change too.

Sick Kids Happen

My seven-year-old daughter woke me up in the middle of the night dying of thirst last night. It wasn’t any surprise that when I checked on her this morning, she was feeling quite poorly. She proceeded to vomit bright yellow bile all over the couch shortly after waking. She continued to throw up all morning. I had great plans for today despite a poor night’s sleep. I was planning on doing my usual Friday morning walk and trip to the park, a mad dash to clean up the house thereafter, and a relaxing afternoon with my girls. My plans were swept right off the table as soon as I realized that my daughter was really sick this morning. She is sleeping right now while I wait for a precious delivery of seven up and Gatorade from my husband.

I am reminded of how often in my life, my plans have given way at a moment’s notice for the sake of my children. From the unexpected pregnancy of my oldest daughter to the two months of physician-ordered bedrest during my second pregnancy, I’ve had to change my plans to meet their needs—to put them first. We had a terrible health scare last summer when my youngest daughter suddenly had a lymph node in her neck swell up to over 6cm. We spent many tense weeks going from doctor to doctor, waiting for test results, and living in each moment with the possible threat of lymphoma hanging over our heads. I was ready at a moment’s notice to put my entire life on hold to do what I needed to do for her. It was then that I realized how much more important my children are to me than any other thing in this world. I knew that if something was really truly wrong with my daughter that I would quit my job and spend every moment that I could with her. Why wait until something catastrophic happens? I need to be there for every moment now even the moments when I’m holding my daughter’s hair so that she can vomit. These moments are precious. I’ll never get another chance.

Changing Expectations

Everyone I’ve talked to about my decision to quit and stay home with the kids has been supportive. I’ve discussed it with many of my close personal friends and a couple of my very close coworkers. Now, that my husband and I have determined that we need to significantly downsize our lifestyle to afford to live on one-income, the response has been a little mixed. Something on the order of, “What you’re going to move out of your house into an apartment?” Most people regardless of their professed progressive beliefs seem to think that the normal progression in life and careers and income and lifestyle should not be reversible. In fact, it is something to look down upon. Perhaps, once upon a time in the not too distant past I thought that way too. A dear friend made the decision to become a stay at home mom and could only do so by living in a studio apartment with her husband and young daughter. At the time, I thought she was a little crazy. Now, I understand—not that I’m ready to move into a studio though.

So here is the rub. I’m changing my expectations. I’m trading in a big house and spending money for time with my children. I understand the exchange, but I need to realize that not everyone will understand or even agree with my decision. I can’t change society’s or my friends’ expectations for me. I can only change my own expectations. My expectations for my own life will be a much smaller house or apartment than I live in now, little money for spending or extras, and a few giant steps backward in my career. My expectations will also be that I will have lots of time with my girls; time when I can focus on them without the mental distractions of a career and busy nonstop life. My expectation will be that I’ll pour out my life and energy into them, my husband, my friends and family instead of into a career. Perhaps, to some people who see everything in black and white and only see the numbers, it will seem like I’m losing rather than gaining in this equation. For now, I’ll work on my transforming my expectations and ignoring those of others around me.

The High Cost of Housing

“The rent is too damn high”, quips one of the more outrageous SNL sketch characters. I frankly have to agree. My search for a new lower cost abode has been fruitless thus far. My must haves in a new house include: approximately 1,000 square feet, two bedrooms, laundry or hookups in the unit, and located within my current area in a relatively safe, comfortable neighborhood. My wants include: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1200 or more square feet, a garage, and within walking distance to my daughter’s school and the village. I have yet to find even a single hit with the must haves within our price range.

The average two-bedroom, 1 bath 1960’s-70’s walk-up apartment with maybe a swimming pool, and coin laundry is at least $1200 per month. Yikes! The salary needed to afford that less than desirable apartment is approximately $50,000 a year. We hear a lot about lifestyle inflation. The expensive vacations, lattes, and designer clothes are supposedly keeping the two working parent family busy. Hardly. It is the necessities: housing, utilities, transportation, and food that is making mom keep 9am to 5pm and a 5pm to 11pm jobs. The latter is the “second shift” at home in case that’s not clear.

I live in the same area where my parents grew up. Just a few miles down the road is a subdivision that my grandparents bought a house in when my mom was a little girl. They bought a brand spanking new 3-bedroom, 1 bath house on my grandmother’s salary working retail at a department store and my grandfather’s off and on again jobs. Fast forward fifty years, my husband and I are priced out of that subdivision even though it has aged, and the houses need quite a bit of work. Did I mention that my husband and I both have Master’s degrees in our fields? My grandmother had a teaching degree that she never used, and my grandfather only finished some college.

Okay, so it’s clear. Housing is expensive. What are we going to do about it? Here is the kicker. I have no idea. My current options are to stay in our current house avoiding the transition costs of moving, or find something that meets our needs but is more than we want to spend, or adjust our needs. I did find a decent looking house yesterday for rent $200 cheaper per month than we are currently paying. The house appears to meet all of our needs except that it is $150 more than we were planning on spending at a new place. It also isn’t half as nice as our current place.

So I spent some time pondering this last night while searching the almighty internet for answers to my quandary, when I ran across this blog: http://www.pennilessparenting.com. This extremely frugal family moved from a “spacious” 700 square foot home to a 500 square foot home to save $100 a month. It definitely put some things in perspective for me. I still don’t think I want to live in a 700 square foot much less a 500 square foot home with my husband and two daughters. Perhaps, though, the average 2 bedroom apartment isn’t so bad after all.

Feminist Apology

As a modern, educated, self-proclaimed feminist, I’m sorry for leaving my career, leaving the workforce, and leaving the rest of the women in the working world to fight for equality. This is where my apology ends. Because while I believe that my mother and grandmothers fought their way into the paid workforce, they did so on men’s terms.

That is why even now in these modern times, having a baby qualifies as a disability. Let me know spell that out again in case anyone hasn’t grasped the absurdity. A woman doing something so natural as carrying a child and giving birth to that child, qualifies for leave time only because it is considered a “disability”. Then, only if you’re luck and have an employer who provides paid leave or live in one of the few states the provide paid family leave, are you at all compensated during your “disability”. Then, once you’ve had the child and exhausted your twelve weeks of partial paid or unpaid leave, you must return to workforce. Once you’ve returned, you are on your own to try and negotiate with your employer for accommodations as a new working mother, whether that be a room with a door to allow for pumping, an alternative or reduced schedule or even just additional breaks to allow you to continue breastfeeding. All the while, you must keep up the appearance that you are putting in as much time and effort as your work colleagues.

Women gave up something crucial when we entered the workforce on men’s terms. We didn’t demand to be treated as women—women who become mothers and shoulder the sole responsibility for pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. I don’t place blame at the feet of those who marched before me. Who can argue with the civil and social rights that women have gained over the past century and a half. We now make up half the work force, and if forecasts are accurate, we’ll be the more educated, skilled half of the workforce in the coming years. It is time to right the injustice, for women to claim and elevate their roles as not just women, employees, but also as mothers, wives and the caregivers of our society.

One could argue that I’m running away instead of staying and fighting for paid family leave, flexible work schedules, regulation to require employers to provide pumping rooms, on-site daycare, et cetera. I like to think of it as non-conformance. I am striking from the workforce until working mothers receive equitable treatment. I’ll still be fighting from the sidelines.

Downsizing

After multiple lengthy discussions with my husband over the past couple of days, we’ve made the decision to downsize our home. We live in a great rental house. It’s over 1800 square feet with 3 bedroom, 2 full baths, and a den. It is a 1950s house and is showing its age. However, it is the nicest place we’ve ever lived. It’s in a great neighborhood. There is a million dollar home next door. It is in walking distance to my daughter’s school, shops, the library, and the park and rec center. There isn’t much I don’t like about the house except for maybe the dated kitchen. The problem is that the house will eat up almost 40% of my husband’s base take home pay after I leave my job. We have a great deal right now; the rent is under market. The big “but” is that the rent won’t be in line with our new income. My original plan had been to stay here and see how everything shakes out after I leave my job in April. We’ve decided though that it would be better to move to a cheaper place more in line with our income before I quit my job. I didn’t want to leave this house. In fact, I’m still a little sad to give up all this space. Now, that we’ve made the decision I feel relieved. If we move to a cheaper house or apartment, we’ll be very close to making ends meet. The pressure will be off for me to make a certain income each month. When I do get a part-time job that money can go to savings and for the extra little fun things. Now, it is an adventure. I am religiously skimming the craigslist ads looking for our new home. I know it will be smaller, maybe in a less desirable location, and it might even be an apartment. I also know that this is what is allowing me to downshift my life. In a way, it’s exciting. The next step in my journey home, wherever that may end up being.

Why Fridays off just aren’t enough.

It’s Friday. The day that makes working the rest of the four days of the week bearable. It’s the day that I get to pretend that my only job in the world is to be a wife, a mommy, and a friend. My Fridays off were a negotiation with my employer. I agreed to keep my current workload. They pay me for only thirty hours a week, and I get my Friday off. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal all around. For other working moms slogging their way through 40+ hour work weeks and toting kids back and forth to daycare five days a week, it probably sounds a lot like heaven. However, instead of satisfying me in a way that I get to keep my professional career and play stay at home mommy, it has instead made me realize how much I enjoy my Fridays with the kids and abhore my Monday through Thursday work. I love walking my older daughter to school, walking down to the village with a friend for a cup of coffee, and hitting the park on the way home to play with my youngest. I love the busyness of home life. I love the creativity of planning and cooking meals of sewing, knitting and making fun little toys for my daughters. I love the expectancy of waiting for my husband to get home. I love greeting him tired but happy with dinner well on its way. I know when I’m finally home that every day won’t be perfect. Some will be tough. There will be new worries about paying bills. But I’m happy in the moment in this beautiful day where I get to dream about a not to distant future when Fridays won’t just be Fridays. Fridays will be all week long.

I quit! Or at least I will quit in the very near future.

51 working days from today, I’ll take a leap of faith and leave my job. Over six years I’ve spent juggling work, family and often school. When I was younger I dreamed of a professional career with an office downtown. I thought that was what I really wanted in life. Of course, eventually I’d want marriage and kids and all that too. Somewhere along the trip, it all flip-flopped and went upside down. Suddenly, the marriage and the kids are what is important. Spending time with my kids and taking care of my family gives me fulfillment. The career became a job. Quickly it became not just a job but a job that I could barely stand but for the paycheck. For the past couple of years ever since my second daughter was born, I’ve been dreaming of leaving my job to stay home with my kids. It’s not because I don’t want to have a career. I do still want to have a professional career, a life outside of the home. I know that this isn’t the career for me. I don’t enjoy the work much, and the working environment is often unpleasant. I’ve also realized like many working moms that I exist in an uncomfortable place between two worlds. Drawn in by the smiles, laughs and tears of my children and weighted down by the responsibilities and stress of working on someone else’s terms. There are the heartbreaking moments when your child wakes up in the middle of the night with a fever and your first thought is that you have an important meeting you can’t miss the next day. The push and pull of strong maternal desires and the need and desire to perform at the job rends at the fabric of my heart. I want to be there to walk my oldest daughter to school and take my youngest to play at the park. It’s been a long time in coming but I’m ready to put my life and energy into what I really care about: my family.
So for the last two years, I’ve had a dirty little secret that I turn to whenever things aren’t going well. It’s a tab on my budget spreadsheet that I’ve spent hours poring over tweaking expenses and income to find that perfect match of end meeting end so that I can quit my job. The ends have never met despite all of my attempts at fitting the puzzle pieces together. An endless string of pondering questions: What if we moved to a cheaper house? What if we got rid of our home phone? How much more money would he need to make and how many more jumps on the pay scale to get there? So when I hit the latest bumpy patch at work, I turned back to the spreadsheet. I also did some quick calculations to estimate our taxes for the year, and realized that as a family we are paying over $400 a month extra in federal taxes because I work. So of my take home pay over 40% is going to pay for childcare and taxes. Of course, there are other benefits to consider: retirement savings, health benefits, career et cet. I opened up my spreadsheet again and ran my calculations including our reduced tax bill. Of course, as usual, the ends don’t meet. They’re about $500 precious dollars a month from meeting. My husband is a teacher and we live in a relatively high cost of living area. At first as usual that $500 seemed insurmountable. How could we find an extra $500 a month? The short answer is that we can’t. We’ve pared the budget down to the basics. Then, I began to weigh my choices.
· The status quo.
· Quit my job and find a part-time job in the evenings or weekends.
· Drastically change our lifestyle
As I’ve said the status quo is no longer desirable or sustainable. I can’t stay in a career that I don’t enjoy. I don’t want to make the tradeoffs required as a working mom with a professional career.
The second option started to become much more attractive. I could be home during the day with the kids and then find some part-time subprofessional work in the evenings/weekends. It isn’t ideal. I’d like to leave the workforce entirely for some time but it might give me more of what I’m looking for.
The third option is a possibility. I think it is my plan B if things don’t work out with option two. We could move to 2 bedroom apartment and sell our car that still has a car payment. That would just about close the gap. I do worry about our quality of life suffering. I did spend some time living in a one bedroom apartment with my husband and infant daughter when we were finishing up our degrees. We had one car in an extremely car-dependent city. It was somewhat of a stifling experience.
So the plan for now is to save as much money as we possibly can in the next three months and build up our cushion of savings. I’ll look for good part-time jobs and possibly even look into teaching at a community college as a solid part-time job. In the meantime, I’ll probably still be playing with my spreadsheet.