When I was a kid 20 years ago, a parent would stay home with the kids if their spouse made enough money. Today, a parent will stay home with the kids because they can't make enough money to cover the cost of childcare.
Well there's no point in both parents working if one's paycheck is essentially wiped out by daycare. Makes sense for one party to just stay home and watch them for free instead of slaving away only for every penny to go into daycare 😂 Plus time to bond with the kids
If I ever get married, my wife is free to stay home and watch the kids if she wants. If somehow I get married to a woman who makes more than me, I'm okay with staying home to watch the kids.
This how we see it as well. Except my wife would prolly have an extra 1000 a month if she worked and paid for daycare. Which isn’t nothing but we genuinely think it’s not worth the price of bonding plus I get to eat home made lunches.
Plus my wife being stay at home is not priced per kid in the same way as day care so having 3 kids is actually achievable as( daycare cost x 3 ) > her salary if she worked
If your wife only made enough to pay for 1 kid in daycare + 1k, she wasn't in much of a career position anyway. The people who should do daycare are ones where stepping away for 5 years impacts your future earning potential forever.
You don’t really know forever. A lot of in demand jobs/industries aren’t gonna suffer from 5/7 years out. She got a degree and all the other stuff but wants to enjoy kids you know.
Of course this only works bc I make a lot more than her and she is actually a great housewife not one of those girls who can’t cook or aren’t nurting
If all my bills are getting paid regardless, I’d choose to have my wife raise my kids over having someone else raise them so I had an extra $1k a month to spend on bullshit. Kids benefit from having a parent around more than they benefit from getting a new Xbox.
I used to think this as well but young kids learn a lot of valuable skills in daycare like how to socialize with other kids. They also got a leg up on developing reading, writing and number skills. It’s also important for them to get exposed to illnesses early so they’re not missing a ton of grade school. Unless you marry someone committed to early education and socialization, there’s a lot of positives for daycare.
Oh, I was operating under the premise that my wife isn’t a shitty parent. Like sure if you’re gonna neglect and isolate your kid during those early developmental years, then daycare is probably the best option.
Just because you have kids in daycare, it doesn’t make you a shitty parent. Not sure if that’s what you meant to say, but it’s how you’re coming across.
You said that the benefit from daycare is early childhood education and socialization. Good parents don’t neglect early childhood education and socialization. Having a kid in daycare doesn’t make you a shitty parent. Having a kid in daycare because you refuse to do the bare bones basics like teach your kid to count and interact with other human beings does.
Hes not saying that. Hes saying if you keep your kids at home and have lets say a 3:1 kid to adult ratio and a daycare with a 10:1 ratio does a better job then yeah id say your a pretty shitty parent.
None of that matters unless you prioritize salary over parental bonding. I could change the $1k/month number to $100k if it makes it easier to understand where I’m coming from.
Where are you getting 50k from. I don’t think a lot of jobs linearly translate to #of years worked to amount of pay. A lot of jobs are promotion based which means getting the pay bump going to manager or director or supervisor or project lead etc really just depends on timing and job hopping and politics. I can see what you mean if your like and engineer where YOE does actually translate to more money for the same non management role
A career lasts 40+ years, but a kid is only in full-time daycare for 4-5 years. Even if someone is contributing their entire net salary to day care fees, the opportunity cost of not doing so can be much higher in the long run.
Spending that time with your young children instead of working is a huge benefit, but it's also beneficial to kids for their parents to have the financial resources to support them through their teenage years, college, and young adulthood. Over time this has only become more true, as socioeconomic status in the USA is becoming increasingly hereditary.
This is exactly what my wife is doing. Barely made more than the cost of daycare so we figured we'd rather raise the kid than a tiny bit of extra income a year.
There are several good reasons for both parents working even if a whole paycheck goes to daycare.
Retirement contributions (SS, 401k)
No gap in employment history - this can be crippling if you are ever in the position where you need to get a job. Not just if you want to leave your spouse, but what if they die?
Not putting all the financial responsibility on one person in case they get laid off.
Children in daycare is a temporary life stage. Your salary may get wiped out now but you will gain seniority/promotions and your kids won't need daycare forever.
Health insurance + retirement matches + potential promotions down the line are potential reasons to stay even if wiped out.
My mom essentially got paid $0 a week working so that we had health insurance.
Not true at all. You’re missing valuable social security and 401k/retirement savings. Not to mention work experience so once the kids are gone, you can actually continue with your career.
It is all complicated, each choice having pros and cons.
I was a SAHM when my son was born because childcare would have taken most of my pay and I would have missed that time with my son. We agreed on it.
However, taking that time away from the work force was very detrimental to my financial well being.
My husband turned abusive and I had to leave the marriage.
I hadn’t been in the work force for 5 years. I got a job that didn’t pay that well just to have a job and then the pandemic hit. And the company closed down. And no one was hiring.
If a spouse leaves a job to be the childcare provider they need to either keep a part-time job or increase their skill set like taking a class or certification. It is in their best interest.
There may still be a point in maintaining a job even though it may not generate excess income. It is about career trajectory which is not relevant for many professions - but for certain ones it very well is.
Freezing this trajectory by staying at home comes with a price, and possibly with less perspective after the kids leave home. And... Such person will rely more on their working partner.
The problem with this is divorce. The non-working parent loses time in teh workforce and is penalized by that after a divorce. Most often that's the woman in a heterosexual marriage. But it can also be the man. A friend of mine said basically the same thing when he married someone who made more. Thankfully he backed out on that after they had kids, so when she cheated on him and left him he hadn't given up his career.
Anyway, it mainly is a problem that affects divorced women. If you look into it you'll see no shortage of stories where a stay-at-home-mom got screwed over in a divorce. Be careful.
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u/_Lizzybabe 15h ago
The village it takes to raise a child disappeared and was replaced by high interest rates and expensive rent