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Dissertation-level lengths of my drivel below - sorry! - with link-up at the very end for you kind souls playing along . . .***
Making decisions for someone not yet conceived, for a situation you have no experience with - easy, right?
Um, no - not for anyone outside of Reality TV land, I imagine, and certainly not for the Anonymous Husband and me.
That being said, how we wanted to parent our imaginary future children was something that we talked from our early dating days (when we weren't otherwise busy staring schmoopily at one another,
Classy Fab Sarah-style.)
Yes, you read that correctly - despite what Those People Who Know Everything say, my desire to have children was something I wasn't afraid to discuss with my gentleman callers. It had been a deal-breaker in past relationships
with lovable South American asshats for me, and I resolved that I wasn't going to get seriously involved again with someone who didn't feel the same way.
I'll never forget the moment during our festive "
Let's pick a city to move to together" negotiations - the AH and I dated long-distance at first - in which the AH mentioned Texas as a good settling spot, since we could afford to have a parent staying at home here. It was one of those warm n' fuzzy moments when I knew I'd stumbled upon someone who shared my picket-fenced view of the future.
So we knew that we were working towards the possibility of a stay-at-home parent, and we did some groundwork that allowed us to officially make that decision six years later. Here's
how we decided I'd be a stay-at-home-mom:
It was what we knew
Both the AH & I had a stay-at-home parent & felt that we had benefited from that. In his case, it was his mother who stayed at home; in my case, it was my incredible grandparents (it would take far more time, wine, and therapy to get into the details of it here, but basically my grandparents took over while my mother pursued her military career).
Importantly, because we'd both grown up with what we saw as a good model of stay-at-home parenting, we saw that move for us not as one parent "getting away with something" by not working, but as a marriage of two equals contributing differently but just as importantly to the family.
We took stock of our career aspirations & personalities
From the minute we met, the AH was the one happiest in his job, and the one earning significantly more. He thrives in a busy office setting & is at his best with a lot of people around. As is typical with the wildly glamorous lawyer lifestyle, he's also always worked very long hours, so from the get-go we were concerned that with two working parents, our (imaginary) children wouldn't see much of either one of us.
On the other, manicured hand,
I suspected early on that the law wasn't going to be my lifelong career. I'd proven over seven years of practice that I could do it; like
these women, I knew that if I stayed home I wouldn't wonder if I'd missed out on professional achievement. I'm also a recovering introvert who doesn't need the hustle & bustle of an crowd to be content, and I'm better when I'm running my own show (read: veteran student body president & bossypants).
I also tend to get . . . fairly driven, shall we say, when I'm really interested in something; that trait would have lent itself nicely to a career in law but for the "
really interested" bit. I figured that when it came to my future children that even though there were many (MANY) other people more qualified to care for them, no one would care about it more than I did. I also knew this drive would mean I'd get frazzled by attempting to balance job, child, and wifery.
Also? There was just that feeling I've always had . . . my fellow religious types might characterize this as a "
calling". Whichever phrase works for you, I had a hunch that I'd want to stay at home; the thought of it just filled me with that peace of the Right Answer. I wasn't comfortable making that final decision until our baby arrived & I got a real sense for what staying at home was like, but on some level, I knew.
We laid the financial foundation (read: the "Duh" step)
As the
Dowager Countess of Awesome would say, "
Oh, good - let's talk about money!"
Let me address the sparkly pink elephant in the room: "
Wait one second, Ms. Pretty," I can hear you thinking, "
You used to be a lawyer, and your husband still is one. This means you're gazillionaires who live in a sparkly pink palace and don't need to worry about things like money. Your advice couldn't possibly apply to us."
It just ain't so, darlings. Granted, the AH & I are extremely fortunate to be able to comfortably pay our bills, save, and have some extra left over - and not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for that, truly. Being able to make huge financial leaps like quitting a job without significant planning, however, is very much not something we were or are able to do.
To that end, we planned from the get-go of our marriage for the stay-at-home possibility, including these steps:
- Establishing an emergency savings fund (6 months is what we felt comfortable with);
- Buying a house for which we could comfortably afford payments on one income;
- Eliminating all non-mortgage & consolidated student loan debt, to the extent possible;
- Getting all of that boring life paperwork stuff (life insurance, wills, health insurance) sorted;
- Tracking all of our expenses for one month - down to every penny spent - to get a more realistic picture of what life on one income would look like.
I really, sort of, entirely, totally, 100% LOATHE talking about financial thingies like this, since we all have our individual incomes and priorities and Life Stuff to deal with here. I'm not saying these steps are required for everybody, of course, but these are the ones that worked for us.
Things to Consider About the Stay-at-Home Decision
Everything Those People say about how you love your child more than you've ever dreamed possible, even when you don't like said child very much, is true. There's rainbows and unicorns aplenty. That being said, here are a few things I'd advise any potential stay-at-home-parent to consider . . .
Are you good at being your own boss?
The thought of filling a day's worth of activities and snacks and naps (and snacks, and more snacks) for your wee one can be intimidating at first. Not only do you start off having little idea of how to do it, if you're like me, but it's strange being the one calling all of the shots for a human being relying entirely on you OMG.
If you're a bossypants like me, calling all the shots comes a bit more naturally, so I like this part of the job. Even so, the weight of being the sole person in charge of the day time decision can still be jarring, even for me. I occasionally suffer from what a friend diagnosed as, "paralysis via the million little decisions you have to make every day."
Also - irony of ironies - though you have company 24-7 as a stay-at-home parent, I still get lonely sometimes for adult conversation - how good would you be at forcing yourself out of the house and into child-friendly social situations (mom groups, library storytime, classes, etc.)? Or do you need that guaranteed structure of an office to feel like you've got company?
Are you good at not being your own boss?
Some days are boring, or your kid is acting like the lost, teething "Jersey Shore" cast member. Whatever ails you, unlike when you worked that desk job, as a stay-at-home parent you can't necessarily just pick up and haul off for lunch or even a quick coffee break. Or you can, but that "quick coffee break" takes an hour after you've loaded the car/ changed the diaper / packed the snacks /forgotten the snacks / forgotten your child inside the house, etc - by which time you've messed up his all precious nap schedule.
Long story long, your time isn't entirely your own anymore - can you deal with the repetitiveness (which some find boring) of the eat-play-nap structure of a newborn or toddler day?
(This isn't at all to say that you working types are off swilling martinis at 3-hour-lunches, but you get what I'm sayin' here. xoxo.)
What would you miss most about your job (aside from your paycheck), and can you live without it? (My answer: lack of validation)
There are no gold stars awarded for doing your job well as a stay-at-home parent, and this Type A Minus occasionally struggles with the lack of worldly kudos for what I'm doing. This is the first time in my life I don't have external pats on the back for a job well (? marginally fine? not at all well?) done.
My former job gave good dinner party - it sounded prestigious, provided me with a decent living, and I had feedback from the boss if I was or wasn't living up to expectations. Feedback from the boss now involves a half-eaten veggie burger being gleefully flung in my direction.
Yes, yes - I know, this is #firstworldproblems at its worst, my missing ego stroking. Alas, I'm merely human - if a human with inordinately good shoes. I can live without the validation just fine - just let me keep the shoes, Pretty please.
Loss of spontaneity
All parents deal with this, working or otherwise, but my struggles with this have related to sorting out how the AH & I still get to pursue our pre-child fun. Part of me throws a pity-party when he's able to call an audible and head to the occasional happy hour after work, whereas I have to strategize like an army captain leading troops to war just to make a girl's night out. I don't question his desire to do so on occasion, and he doesn't abuse the ability - I just sometimes envy that freedom to do so on a moment's notice.
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Any questions, class? This look about right to you, other stay-at-home parents?
Please remember to LINK-UP below to your own Pretty posts . . .
