The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: poetdereves on April 19, 2024, 02:56:14 PM
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DW and I have considered me being a SAHD starting in 2025. Current income and expenses:
CURRENT INCOME:
DW: $159k
DH: $85k
Rentals: $9k
Total: $~250k
CURRENT EXPENSES (past 12 months averaged):
$129k
2025 INCOME:
DW: $159k
Rentals: $9k
Total: ~$170k
2025 EXPENSES:
$86k
I can break this down more into a case study if people want to see, but I am not necessarily looking to have the budget combed through for places to decrease expenses. I am open to it, but it isn’t necessary to keep the option to stay home available.
The biggest changes financially will be losing my income (~$80k), but we would stop paying our in-home nanny ($400/wk) and a few other things that we hire out that I would do myself. We’d also lose the ability to contribute to my 401k at work, which I currently max out. We will still have enough income to continue saving quite a bit, so I am wondering what other options are out there for tax advantaged investing.
I currently have DS (2 years old) a couple days a week while my wife works (from home). We are having our DD in October. We have our nanny three days a week. I do have a lot of extracurriculars that I participate in and include my son in that I would like to keep doing for my own sanity.
Any other SAHDs out there that have some good-to-know info?
Any things that you wish you’d have known about being a SAHD or being married to one?
Anyone gone back to work after 3-5 years, or did it become permanent for you?
What kind of issues have you had socially as a SAHD?
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Have you considered how your taxes will change? You will likely be keeping much more of your wife's income if you quit working (assuming MFJ).
Looks like, before considering tax changes, you expect quitting to save you $43k. Would you do your current job for a salary of $42k? ($85k salary - $43k work-related expenses = $42k actual pay.)
I can't comment on the social aspects as I don't have kids yet, but my partner being a SAHD is one possibility for us too. Interested to follow.
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My DH was able to secure a new job easily after ~ 7 years as a SAHP (I say approximately as he did work on a gradually decreasing part time basis 2015-2020, then stopped completely when covid hit). His new job actually pays almost twice as much as the old one but that is because he was being woefully underpaid hence why he quit to avoid daycare expenses. I FIRE'd in December 2021 and he started working in July of 22 to mitigate sequence risk and make it easier to get a mortgage.
Socially you should be OK if you already have friends outside of work and participate in some activities. The cheapest way to get a break when the kids are little is to join a gym with on-site daycare, then you can make friends with other parents if you go at a consistent time every day. Also make sure you are the one dealing with the school and doctor appointments and stuff because they will still want to treat your wife as the default parent which contributes to burnout. I don't know how you divide cooking and housework now but it's probably best to talk about changes ahead of time.
You can fund a spousal IRA if not working but I don't know the cutoff for the deduction so someone else here can help you with traditional vs Roth. I did trad IRAs for self and husband + maxed 403b plus 457b for the year I qualified for it, but my income was much lower than your DW's.
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I was going to ask why not start as soon as DW goes back to work, but an October birth and 2025 start for SAHP sounds about like that is the plan.
Socially, it depends on you social network. The key is to build a network that supports your goals, rather than bend your goals to your existing network. People who care about you will generally come around. I have never seen a guy with the trail mamas around here, but it is the kind of thing that would be worth looking into, for whatever interests you may have.
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I did the SAHD bit as well as am primary caretaker for our kids (4&6.5).
It's pretty isolating unless you have other SAHDs to socialize with. I'd suggest trying to find them and hang out with them even if you don't click with them that well. I would take kids to birthday parties and books because it would be a bunch of moms and me. School skips the call order and calls mom first because surely Dad doesn't know.
That being said, I developed some really valuable friendships with other moms over playdates. One on one it was great. I got used to dynamics changing when more than one mom showed up.
It took me over 5 years to find a deep friendship with another SAHD who did the SAHD dad bit as well as with a difficult child.
You'll still want to keep the nanny on standby because you like SAHM's need a break. Carve the time out. Dad+kid time, dad +kids+mom time, dad+mom time, and dad time are 4 relationships you'll need to prioritize. In our house, mom+kids+dad time greatly outweighed mom+kids time just due to the fact that mom worked full time and weekends were spent as a family.
Best of luck breaking social norms!
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
[MOD NOTE: What.]
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
Based on?
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
I literally require this to be satire.
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I've been a stay-at-home dad since 2021, when I FIREd the year my son started kindergarten. Before that, my wife and I both worked from home part-time and shared childcare duties.
I'm glad that FIRE allowed me to do this. Spending time with your kids, especially when they're little, is a priceless gift. You'll never have a better opportunity to teach them things and to influence what kind of person they grow up into. If you want to do it, I say go for it!
My #1 tip: Libraries are your friend! They often have story time, craft hour or other activities for kids. It's also a good way to meet other parents, both to make friends for your kid and to get some adult interaction for your own social life.
I was prepared for weird looks or sexist comments (like "why are you staying home with him when he has a mom?"), but that hasn't happened. Of course, I live in New York City. Your experiences may vary if you live somewhere with different politics.
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I've been a stay-at-home dad since 2021, when I FIREd the year my son started kindergarten. Before that, my wife and I both worked from home part-time and shared childcare duties.
I'm glad that FIRE allowed me to do this. Spending time with your kids, especially when they're little, is a priceless gift. You'll never have a better opportunity to teach them things and to influence what kind of person they grow up into. If you want to do it, I say go for it!
My #1 tip: Libraries are your friend! They often have story time, craft hour or other activities for kids. It's also a good way to meet other parents, both to make friends for your kid and to get some adult interaction for your own social life.
I was prepared for weird looks or sexist comments (like "why are you staying home with him when he has a mom?"), but that hasn't happened. Of course, I live in New York City. Your experiences may vary if you live somewhere with different politics.
Libraries are in fact amazing. Changing up the day and time of the week when you go exposes you to so many different families.
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
I literally require this to be satire.
I groaned.
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
I literally require this to be satire.
Well, I found someone new to block, I suppose.
Also, what the actual f*ck?
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
So, you like playing with matches and lighter fluid?
That's a big, fat, sexist "might".
Surely you jest.
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I think wanting to be home with your children is a great idea. Of course you are signing yourself up for 2 full-time jobs - looking after the children and keeping the house from being a disaster (because a toddler and a baby can turn a home into a disaster just by existing).
My only thoughts (concerns?) are about this paragraph:
I currently have DS (2 years old) a couple days a week while my wife works (from home). We are having our DD in October. We have our nanny three days a week. I do have a lot of extracurriculars that I participate in and include my son in that I would like to keep doing for my own sanity.
Baby in October - how much maternity leave will your wife get? At least she works from home - is the plan that you look after baby and just bring baby to Mom for breast-feeding (for as long as the breast-feeding is happening) and look after baby the rest of the time? Have you talked with parents of a toddle and a new-born to see how they handle the double child-care?
How will baby fit into your extracurriculars? If you drop the part-time nanny then you will be responsible for baby as well as toddler, all day every day, no nanny for back-up. I've looked after my toddler grand-daughter when daycare was closed and DD was working from home, it was as if DD was not there. I was on my own. The time to plan for that is now, not when you are finding it difficult to fit baby into your schedule. And you can't leave baby with your wife, working and baby-tending are very incompatable.
I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just remembering the first 6 months of my DD's life, when having a bath had to be carefully scheduled around her. Extracurricular activities were taking her with me when I walked the dog/did the grocery shopping. My schedule was based on her schedule. And we were breast-feeding, and breast-feeding babies are very portable.
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
So, you like playing with matches and lighter fluid?
That's a big, fat, sexist "might".
Surely you jest.
Your interpretation seems sexist. I'm just suggesting that since the OP appeared to be making a proposal for selecting a caregiver based on incomes, that the other spouse, despite higher income, might be the better caregiver. I made no attribution to sex/gender as the reason for that.
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Is there an emoji for pretending to cough while saying bullshit?
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@Morning Glory - Good tips about the spousal IRA and the on-site gym care. I will keep those in mind as we try to make our decision. I love a good success story.
@ixtap - Luckily for me, there are some decent social scenes that I already participate in that kids easily fit into. Jiu jitsu and mountain biking are both a big part of nearly everyday for me, but there's quite a few ways to rope kids in. Also, while they are both small I realize my schedule still has to bend around them, so we have talked about me going to the morning BJJ classes before she works or hitting the trails for an hour after she gets off and watches the kids a day or two a week.
@JJ- - I feel you on the SAHD rarity part. In all the days I have been out with my son in two years I have only met one SAHD. I really appreciated the four different relationships to prioritize and I really think that's going to stick in my mind for a while.
I'll respond to everyone else soon, but DS just woke up. Appreciate it!
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
So, you like playing with matches and lighter fluid?
That's a big, fat, sexist "might".
Surely you jest.
Your interpretation seems sexist. I'm just suggesting that since the OP appeared to be making a proposal for selecting a caregiver based on incomes, that the other spouse, despite higher income, might be the better caregiver. I made no attribution to sex/gender as the reason for that.
Let's assume positive intent on your part. Why do you think ignoring income makes suggesting the partner as a SAHP a better choice?
OP is already a part time SAHD and wants to do it full time. You've decided to ignore context and specific questions on advice to being a full time SAHD. How were you expecting your feedback to be received?
Just an FYI, income was not part of the discussion. The rest of the forum saw that, and so your suggestion that mom=better comes off incredibly judgmental, expecting women to give up a high paying job to stay at home with kids while simultaneously saying Dads=worse (this justifying a massive sacrifice by mom) to embrace traditional gender roles.
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@Morning Glory - Good tips about the spousal IRA and the on-site gym care. I will keep those in mind as we try to make our decision. I love a good success story.
@ixtap - Luckily for me, there are some decent social scenes that I already participate in that kids easily fit into. Jiu jitsu and mountain biking are both a big part of nearly everyday for me, but there's quite a few ways to rope kids in. Also, while they are both small I realize my schedule still has to bend around them, so we have talked about me going to the morning BJJ classes before she works or hitting the trails for an hour after she gets off and watches the kids a day or two a week.
@JJ- - I feel you on the SAHD rarity part. In all the days I have been out with my son in two years I have only met one SAHD. I really appreciated the four different relationships to prioritize and I really think that's going to stick in my mind for a while.
I'll respond to everyone else soon, but DS just woke up. Appreciate it!
I sometimes jokes that other SAHDs are so rare that when I meet one sometimes, the crazy in the eyes is so intense when I meet them that there's almost a primordial need to connect and be best friends. Hey. Hey. Hey. A dad. Hey. We have kids. I'm a dad. Let's be friends. What are you doing today. Tomorrow? Ok the next day?
There are meetup groups for SAHDs here. I never met them at the library. It took a happenstance event for me to meet my friend, so the most important thing is just to get out and live. It wouldn't have happened otherwise.
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Is there an emoji for pretending to cough while saying bullshit?
Damn, we need a like button.
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The biggest thing that I'm seeing OP is that you may be wildly unrealistic regarding your martial arts and biking while having a toddler and newborn to care for. You know the toddler, but the new baby isn't here yet, so you just don't know.
You should prepare for the possibility that leaving the house will just not be possible for some period of time unless you have 3rd party child care. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
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My two cents: if there is any chapter in life you will never regret, it’s being a SAHD. There will be hard days, as you already know, but there will be a beauty in it that you will reflect on for the rest of your life. And the bond you build with your children will be far more valuable than what any job could ever offer you.
I’m a SAHD and homeschool / unschool my two kids. I’m writing this from a tent in the desert on a weeklong camping trip with each kiddo asleep next to me while DW is out of town. For me, life doesn’t get any better than this. I absolutely love life and getting to experience it with these two.
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My two cents: if there is any chapter in life you will never regret, it’s being a SAHD. There will be hard days, as you already know, but there will be a beauty in it that you will reflect on for the rest of your life. And the bond you build with your children will be far more valuable than what any job could ever offer you.
I’m a SAHD and homeschool / unschool my two kids. I’m writing this from a tent in the desert on a weeklong camping trip with each kiddo asleep next to me while DW is out of town. For me, life doesn’t get any better than this. I absolutely love life and getting to experience it with these two.
My husband was a SAHD to his daughter for her first five years, and he would say exactly the same thing.
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A topic I haven't seen mentioned yet is how much of a benefit this can have for your spouse's career and the mental health for both of you (while not ignoring the fact that being a SAHD/P is challenging, as is being a sole-source of income spouse). My spouse has stayed at home and it has allowed me to significantly advance my career and earning opportunities. Need to travel for a business opportunity ... no problem. Need to work crazy hours for a few days to take advantage of a significant opportunity - my spouse has me covered.
With two young children, there are so many appointments and sick days. When both of you are employed outside the home, you have to determine who will cover these appointments (split 50/50? Have 1 always do it ... and then are they resentful that it isn't more equal? etc.) I will tell anyone who will listen that being able to focus more on my career and business because my spouse covers most of the household responsibilities is a major factor in my success. As long of you both feel that you're in the best role for each of you, then it can be a huge psychological advantage -- and even the potential to advance one's career more quickly, if that's what they want.
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
So, you like playing with matches and lighter fluid?
That's a big, fat, sexist "might".
Surely you jest.
Your interpretation seems sexist. I'm just suggesting that since the OP appeared to be making a proposal for selecting a caregiver based on incomes, that the other spouse, despite higher income, might be the better caregiver. I made no attribution to sex/gender as the reason for that.
I stand with GilesMM here.
He suggests that the couple consider the mother regardless of income and the courageous woke police of the internet get their shorts in an uproar? It was a simple observation and you have to get your high-and-mighty act on? Sooo fucking tired of this…
Is it some kind of rule now that SAHx’s have to have lower incomes? Or maybe whether the man or the woman is better at raising a child is like a coin toss? Does anyone live in the real world and face real world issues, or is life some kind of academic term paper, with all social decisions pre-ordained?
I’d think they’d be bad parents by NOT considering it.
Praying this woke shit will please just die a natural death already.
[MOD NOTE: Ignoring the OP's intent with this entire topic. Gaslighting us into pretending the original wasn't sexist. Accusing everyone who calls you out as 'woke'. Of all the things that need to "die a natural death"... I've learned we actually have to say something or this stuff keeps going.]
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
So, you like playing with matches and lighter fluid?
That's a big, fat, sexist "might".
Surely you jest.
Your interpretation seems sexist. I'm just suggesting that since the OP appeared to be making a proposal for selecting a caregiver based on incomes, that the other spouse, despite higher income, might be the better caregiver. I made no attribution to sex/gender as the reason for that.
I stand with GilesMM here.
He suggests that the couple consider the mother regardless of income and the courageous woke police of the internet get their shorts in an uproar? It was a simple observation and you have to get your high-and-mighty act on? Sooo fucking tired of this…
Is it some kind of rule now that SAHx’s have to have lower incomes? Or maybe whether the man or the woman is better at raising a child is like a coin toss? Does anyone live in the real world and face real world issues, or is life some kind of academic term paper, with all social decisions pre-ordained?
I’d think they’d be bad parents by NOT considering it.
Praying this woke shit will please just die a natural death already.
Did you miss this?
Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
[MOD NOTE: What.]
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OP explicitly said he WANTS to be a stay at home dad. He did not ask for opinions on which parent should stay at home. He didn't even say that he wants to stay at home because he has a lower income. "Have you considered that you might be a worse caregiver than your wife would be?" was unsolicited and undermining. The only part of the OP it could possibly be relevant to was his question "What social issues have you faced as a SAHD?" because it fits perfectly into a widespread sexist narrative that SAHDs hear constantly.
The quickest way to let the subject die--which is what I want, because I'm far more interested in the actual subject OP raised than this argument--is to drop it.
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I'll be very explicit here, since it's lost on a couple of you.
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The OP said: I want to be a stay at home Dad. Any advice from ppl about money, gotchas, returning to work 5+ years later?
Derailment: Let mom stay at home, she might be better.
Mod: No. Don't do that
Gaslighting: What? That's not sexist. I didn't say anything about sex or gender. Woke police! Woke police!
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Let's not mince words. When a man is saying, "I wanna stay at home" and someone says "Let the woman do it. She's better", that someone is intentionally invoking the sexist assumptions of our society. Maybe out on Twitter/X, you can pretend this away, but you're not fooling anyone.
a) you got off topic
b) you were, in fact, invoking sexist assumptions about parenting
Well, I'm the "Woke Police" and I'm here to get this thread back on topic.
Thank you.
Toque.
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Have you considered mom staying home instead? Might be a better care giver.
So, you like playing with matches and lighter fluid?
That's a big, fat, sexist "might".
Surely you jest.
Your interpretation seems sexist. I'm just suggesting that since the OP appeared to be making a proposal for selecting a caregiver based on incomes, that the other spouse, despite higher income, might be the better caregiver. I made no attribution to sex/gender as the reason for that.
I stand with GilesMM here.
He suggests that the couple consider the mother regardless of income and the courageous woke police of the internet get their shorts in an uproar? It was a simple observation and you have to get your high-and-mighty act on? Sooo fucking tired of this…
Is it some kind of rule now that SAHx’s have to have lower incomes? Or maybe whether the man or the woman is better at raising a child is like a coin toss? Does anyone live in the real world and face real world issues, or is life some kind of academic term paper, with all social decisions pre-ordained?
I’d think they’d be bad parents by NOT considering it.
Praying this woke shit will please just die a natural death already.
[MOD NOTE: Ignoring the OP's intent with this entire topic. Gaslighting us into pretending the original wasn't sexist. Accusing everyone who calls you out as 'woke'. Of all the things that need to "die a natural death"... I've learned we actually have to say something or this stuff keeps going.]
In what universe do either of you think they hadn’t considered having mom stay home? It’s what culture assumes and strongly condones. Making a decision that goes against that bias has necessarily weighed that option.
Your outrage is misplaced, Ron. As is your unsolicited opinion, imho.
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@FireLane - I appreciate the library idea! I think about its usefulness for me as an adult, but I forget that they cater activities to children.
@Sibley - Thanks for the reminder that it doesn't always turn out how you expect. DW and I have had a really easy time with DS, but easy kids aren't always a guarantee. I really enjoy my chances to get to workout or be outdoors, but I understand those things may get put on the backburner for a while. Jiu jitsu and mountain biking aren't super easy with a newborn, but I do have a full home gym I have built over the past few years which can suffice when I need a quick energy burn. Maybe it will be at 4AM while DW is breastfeeding the baby (if we can work that out like we did with DS), but at least it is something.
@FallenTimber - I appreciate the reality of this comment being written from the middle of it. The newborn phase has its complications for sure, but the future years of getting to do stuff like that makes it all worth it. Probably one of my favorite comments.
@Smokystache - Your perspective is one that has been at the forefront of our conversations. DW works from home at all times, and for some reason, even in 2024, people think that WFH means that she can just get up and go do whatever needs to be done around the house/with the kids. It just isn't true. When she's working, she needs uninterrupted time to do her job. The bummer about the WFH situation is that when our kid has been sick or the nanny has an appointment and needs a day off she is usually the one to bite the bullet because my job is on call and critical. There's rarely an option to leave if needed and I am often uncontactable for hours at a time when I am working. Me staying home solves a lot of this, especially as they get to be school aged.
@GilesMM and @Ron Scott - I am not offended or bothered by either of your comments. I can identify as a stay-at-home-mother if it makes it easier for both of you guys since you both got your undies in such a bundle. I don't spend a lot of time on forums or social media and didn't realize adults actually get so enthused by something that their brains aren't used to. DW is active on the forums and will probably soon comment about how much better equipped I am to handle our two kids and for her to continue to grow her career. Her field is remote and the income possibilities are nearly limitless, while mine is capped unless I decide to go back to more school for further certifications or give up 80-100+ hours a week to expand my income. I have read helpful comments from both of you on many other topics and know you are both intelligent, but I would really appreciate it if both of you would go stir the pot somewhere else unless you have something else valuable to contribute. I am getting good feedback from others that will ultimately help guide my decision and I'd hate it for two bored old guys to ruin something cool. Thanks.
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@Sibley - Thanks for the reminder that it doesn't always turn out how you expect. DW and I have had a really easy time with DS, but easy kids aren't always a guarantee. I really enjoy my chances to get to workout or be outdoors, but I understand those things may get put on the backburner for a while. Jiu jitsu and mountain biking aren't super easy with a newborn, but I do have a full home gym I have built over the past few years which can suffice when I need a quick energy burn. Maybe it will be at 4AM while DW is breastfeeding the baby (if we can work that out like we did with DS), but at least it is something.
Even if baby is high needs, it will get better. Just takes time. And don't discount the toddler. You're going to throw a massive rock into his happy pond, and even the best kid is going to have some adjustment struggles. Again, you'll get through it.
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I'm not a dad, but I stayed home once my daughter was born, and started working remotely, part time once she was about 9 months old. So I have a few specific tips that I hope will help:
1) My husband occasionally works from home as well, so I've had to learn when I can't bother him and what is too much. Even when DD isn't home, I try to stay out of the office space where he works as much as possible. Any interaction I initiate I try to keep the same as I would if I were texting him while he's at the office. You probably already have some experience with that, but I think it might become more important.
2) I'm glad you plan to keep up with your activities! Building activities into my routine to combat loneliness has been the most difficult part about staying/working from home for me.
3) Make sure you both actively are taking time for breaks. DH and I also had a system we called "primary parenting." I'd ask him if he could primary parent for X amount of time, and we'd both know that if DD needed anything that he'd be the first one to take care of her.
I hope if you do this next year that it turns out awesome for all of you! Also, you may see more dads at events as your kids get older. I don't know any SAHDs but I know plenty of dads who regularly take their kids to after school activities.
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As a follow on to TheFrenchCat, I agree very much with #2, as well as the point about seeing a lot more dads engage after the kids are of a certain age. I won't speculate on why that is, but I see more dads than moms at after school & sporting events/activities, so I think that will get easier over time, and you will find more connections as your kids age.
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@TheFrenchCat and @MaybeBabyMustache - I like the primary parenting idea. I'm pretty sure DW and I do the same thing, but we don't really have a word for it. We can both kind of just tell. I do see it being something I will have to work on managing because DW is busier at work than I am currently, so I will often do the primary parenting all the way throughout the evening without issue. I can see that being a bit more daunting if I am not out daily either at work or doing recreational activities. We will both be thoroughly tired, but could look at each other's daily situation as a "break" and think that we aren't getting one ourselves.
Also, the point #2 is encouraging. I usually attend my jiu jitsu classes at lunchtime and I'd guess that probably 15/20 of the guys are minimally employed or primary caretakers and very present in their kid's lives. Many of them coach their kid's weekend sports teams because they're either wealthy or the SAHD. If that's what I can look forward to, I can handle the younger years where I am a bit lonelier but also more heavily involved in promoting becoming a truly decent person to my kids while they're on the younger side.
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My husband is a SAHD of two toddlers (2YO and 3YO). It was definitely rough the first couple years when they were so little and we also moved across the country 1.5 years ago so he lost a lot of his friends but he is thriving as a SAHD now. He gets a lot of help from grandma, has joined the local SAHD network, and has made other SAHD or firefighter (non-regular hours) friends at both the library and the gym.
I would say go for it, we haven't regretted choosing the SAHD path and I'm patiently waiting until we can FIRE and I can join him :).
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I think with modern work schedules, the lines are blurred for stay at home parents. My wife works part time and my job is flexible, work from. So I will take our daughter to the park on a Tuesday morning when my wife is working or we'll both go to story time when she isn't working and there's usually a few dad's or couples there with their kids. The gym used to be a ghost town in the middle of the day during the week. Now it's packed. Doesn't seem like many people actually work 9-5 anymore. So I think you'll be fine. Also as others have said, once they start school and after school activities then it's seems like the ratio is more like 60/40 dads to moms. Enjoy, I'm jealous. I'll hopefully be joining you in a year or two.
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I just wanted to share that my husband is a stay at home dad and he really enjoys it. I wish I could give more practical advice or share more about how we make it work, but I think our situation is so different that it wouldn't actually be helpful. He is blind, so even though he is the stay at home parent he can't take them out and about for activities, or go to dad groups, or anything like that because he can't drive. He also can't cook or really clean. So all of that is still on me, but he does do an amazing job of taking care of them and keeping them alive and thriving (2 and 3 years old).
Oh - one thing that worked really well, I went back to work after the first one when she was 3 months old, and then a few weeks later covid hit and I became a full time work from home parent, until the 2nd one was 2. So one huge benefit was that we didn't do any pumping at all, and the babies were both still exclusively breast fed. He would just bring me the child whenever she needed to eat and I would nurse her with my camera off on meetings or while working. That was super nice. I would just feed her and then hand her back to him when she was done and he would take over again until the next feeding.
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And...we're back on track, I hope. I'm a huge Amy Dacyczyn fan. Though some of the details may be hilariously out of date (it predated most of the internet), the themes are still spot-on and stand the test of time well. She has a lot of great ideas on how to live well while one parent is staying home with the littles. You can still get the print version at your favorite used book source, or you can flip through it here, free. Lots of food for thought.
https://archive.org/details/completetightwad00amyd
And I second, third, and fourth the library! There are so many awesome programs and things to do in general. Ever noticed there's frequently a park near a library? Go to Story Time, eat your packed lunch in the nearby park and boom! it's naptime and a good chunk of the day is over. There are also places like Gymboree or My Gym (or similar). They can be spendy, but damn if they aren't social. A Zoo Pass can be very worthwhile if you have one close by.
I love the "primary parenting" approach!
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Not to derail this thread any more, but to me, it's a benefit of being the stay-at-home spouse that I can prove by example that dads are just as good at parenting as moms.
My wife has chosen to keep her career a little longer, and I'm happy to support her. I like being the one to walk my son to school and pick him up every day, to take him to play dates with friends, to help him with his homework and take care of him on summer breaks and vacations. It shakes up people's entrenched assumptions by showing them there are other ways to do things than the societal default.
There are too many people, including some right here in this thread, who hold a knee-jerk belief that parenting is women's work. When the sexism of that attitude is pointed out, they get huffy and defensive. They're upset because other people are challenging assumptions that they didn't realize were questionable.
Isn't that just like FIRE? Lots of high earners don't retire early because they think it can't be done. We FIRE folk disprove that belief by example. And when they encounter one of us, many of those people get angry and defensive, too, because we're doing something that jars against their assumptions. The only way they can regain their sense of equilibrium is to argue that we're doing it wrong, somehow, and to assert that their choices were the correct ones all along.
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@wageslave23 - your point about modern schedules holds true for me as well. Most of my friends that I hang out with now do not work a typical 9 to 5. That is something nice to consider.
@economista - I resonate well with your points about breast-feeding. DS has never taken a bottle in his life. We tried just for convenience purposes to pump and use a bottle, but he was breast-fed only by choice. May or may not work the same for the second one, but that situation that you said was common for you guys is one that is common around our house too.
@FireLane - I really appreciate your perspective. I was talking to my wife yesterday about how I would be excited to be a stay at home dad because I do not fit the typical mold of a stay at home parent. I find enjoyment in not looking like the norm. I guess it is the same in our finances. I like that we are working towards stealth wealth, but look more poor than the typical person in our social circle. We make enough money that we could live a typical lavish life full of debt, but choose to go against the grain and try to do something better with our life. My parenting style is very similar.
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@TheFrenchCat and @MaybeBabyMustache - I like the primary parenting idea. I'm pretty sure DW and I do the same thing, but we don't really have a word for it. We can both kind of just tell. I do see it being something I will have to work on managing because DW is busier at work than I am currently, so I will often do the primary parenting all the way throughout the evening without issue. I can see that being a bit more daunting if I am not out daily either at work or doing recreational activities. We will both be thoroughly tired, but could look at each other's daily situation as a "break" and think that we aren't getting one ourselves.
FWIW, I'd very much recommend talking through how you both see this working at a pretty detailed level. At this point, you probably both have assumptions about how the workload will be split, and those likely don't align 100%, and when you're both sleep-deprived and stressed is not the best time to identify those disconnects. ;-)
When we had DD, I took the lead in many parenting/childcare things, because I was working very part-time from home, and DH was working a demanding new office job. It was easy to toss a load of laundry in between calls, or start dinner when I had a break, you know?
By the time we added DS, we were both working full-time back in an office (and, you know, had a toddler who also happened to be VERY ADHD). DH just kept doing the things he'd always done -- sharing dropoffs and pickups, doing the dishes and his own laundry, etc. But that left me to pick up the slack. As you can imagine, this did not go particularly well. I got very resentful that he just assumed I'd do all the primary kid stuff, when I had just as many time constraints as he did, and one night I just lost my shit. After I calmed down, though, I realized that he was just doing what I had trained him to do, and we had never talked about how things would change with either the move/dual office jobs or the addition of the second kid.
Your situation is obviously different, because you will in fact be voluntarily taking on most of the added burden of the second kid. But you also can't really know what all that will entail until the second comes along -- how much time it will take, how difficult it is to juggle managing both kids at once, the added volume of laundry and dishes, etc. etc. etc. So it may be helpful to talk through how you think that will work now -- but no matter what, make sure you continue to communicate as things develop and require changes.
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My husband has been SAHD for 12 years. A lot of the discussion about SAHP focuses on the benefits when the kids are really young (saving on daycare, being there for the big early milestones), and those are all great, but in my experience the benefit doesn't diminish when they hit school age, because school schedules still assume that there's a full-time parent at home.
My kids' elementary school runs from 9:30-4. There's before and after care available, but it's not at all flexible. You basically have to sign up at the beginning of the year and if your schedule changes, any shifts are subject to availability. That care isn't available the first week of school. There are some free after-school programs because it's a Title I school, but that scheduling is even worse, and we've had issues with our kids being kept afterschool when we expected them home on the bus, or being sent home on the bus when we expected them to stay after school.
Also, since the general culture has shifted away from latchkey kids (or at least, latchkey kids in elementary), we once had an issue where a bus driver make our 4th grader get off the bus even though they had dropped their house key and couldn't find it (twilight at 4:30 in MN). Luckily, a neighbor was around and we weren't far from home, but that was a little scary. And that's not even getting started on all the midday choir concerts, art exhibitions, teacher conferences, etc. that get scheduled completely irrespective of standard work schedules.
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I stayed home while getting my bachelor's after getting out of the military.
My experience:
The kids were very happy with me being home; I felt very lonely, but only because I wasn't near any family. We had the typical adjustments of moving to a new place, and I didn't help things much by being such a Yankee, but around the time we were leaving (3 years later) we'd made some inroads in the community and could have fit in to some degree.
About managing a house:
The work of the at-home parent of little kids does not end, and is not very satisfying. The dishes are never done. The laundry keeps piling up. And "How many times do I have to tell you to that the SHOES GO where the the shoes go?!?! By the time I'm flinging my wife's work boots across the house she's wondering what my problem is.
'You know,' she said, 'I had a hard day at work, and it would be nice if I could just come home to a nice, peaceful place.'
'At least you get to come home from work! I'm still there! This shit never ends!'
The experience really helped our relationship when my wife was the at-home parent again, because my understanding was that being home wasn't so great.
Returning to Work
My return to work was in such a different field - from military to accounting - so there's no fair comparison I can offer. I was starting fresh.
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Shit really does never end with kids. Neither my wife nor I stayed home after the birth of my son, and even having him away at daycare for several hours every day wasn't much of a break. It's an awful lot of work, and my only fear for a stay at home parent is that you really want to make sure that your significant other is going to be on board with taking some of that load when you need to share it. Because you will need to share it.
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About managing a house:
The work of the at-home parent of little kids does not end, and is not very satisfying. The dishes are never done. The laundry keeps piling up. And "How many times do I have to tell you to that the SHOES GO where the the shoes go?!?! By the time I'm flinging my wife's work boots across the house she's wondering what my problem is.
'You know,' she said, 'I had a hard day at work, and it would be nice if I could just come home to a nice, peaceful place.'
'At least you get to come home from work! I'm still there! This shit never ends!'
Yeah, the gods really missed the mark on punishing Sisyphus. They could have made him a 21st century stay at home parent, no rock required.
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To follow on to @merula's point, I've worked part time (<1/2 time) from home since our kids were born, and there were definite advantages to being home during middle- and high school. Mostly because kids will talk when they're ready to talk, and more face time provides more opportunities for that. And because I could pick up a bit of the carpool slack, during soccer season. Also, because our high school has an open campus, so during once/week long lunch the kids sometimes came here for lunch with their friends.
I appreciated the opportunity to get to meet some of their friends, and to be the parent who's around (but not all up in their business: I did have work to do). It also meant I could volunteer in their schools all the way through -- often, but not always, with groups of kids that didn't include them -- but I still got to know the office staff and a number of the teachers.
But yeah, the chores and work of keeping small kids alive never end, and @Laura33 is, as usual, completely right about communicating clearly and often with your spouse about expectations and divisions of labor!
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About managing a house:
The work of the at-home parent of little kids does not end, and is not very satisfying. The dishes are never done. The laundry keeps piling up. And "How many times do I have to tell you to that the SHOES GO where the the shoes go?!?! By the time I'm flinging my wife's work boots across the house she's wondering what my problem is.
'You know,' she said, 'I had a hard day at work, and it would be nice if I could just come home to a nice, peaceful place.'
'At least you get to come home from work! I'm still there! This shit never ends!'
Yeah, the gods really missed the mark on punishing Sisyphus. They could have made him a 21st century stay at home parent, no rock required.
Agreed. @Chris Pascale , that section above gave me flashbacks. One can indeed hit a point where you look at your spouse and complain "you get to go to work!" Appreciation is not plentiful when you are a SAHP and the pay is even worse. ;)
When I was at home with a baby, we had a SAHD in our group. My impression is that once all the moms got to know him, he fit in just fine. Part of the friend group at library story time, part of the pack of parents doing stroller walks to the park. No one thought it was weird he was a dad, we were all just trying to keep our demanding offspring alive and stimulated with appropriate educational and social activities.
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About managing a house:
The work of the at-home parent of little kids does not end, and is not very satisfying. The dishes are never done. The laundry keeps piling up. And "How many times do I have to tell you to that the SHOES GO where the the shoes go?!?! By the time I'm flinging my wife's work boots across the house she's wondering what my problem is.
'You know,' she said, 'I had a hard day at work, and it would be nice if I could just come home to a nice, peaceful place.'
'At least you get to come home from work! I'm still there! This shit never ends!'
Yeah, the gods really missed the mark on punishing Sisyphus. They could have made him a 21st century stay at home parent, no rock required.
Agreed. @Chris Pascale , that section above gave me flashbacks. One can indeed hit a point where you look at your spouse and complain "you get to go to work!" Appreciation is not plentiful when you are a SAHP and the pay is even worse. ;)
When I was at home with a baby, we had a SAHD in our group. My impression is that once all the moms got to know him, he fit in just fine. Part of the friend group at library story time, part of the pack of parents doing stroller walks to the park. No one thought it was weird he was a dad, we were all just trying to keep our demanding offspring alive and stimulated with appropriate educational and social activities.
So many times in this forum I've hit 'post' and think, god, I'm an idiot, and you dudes are always like, 'no. You're our idiot.'
It's really very touching.
I do wish I could go back and be a better at-home parent, but I guess I'm the at-home parent now, being 100% remote about 2.5 years. Today, before heading out for tutoring, I sat with kid no. 3 and listened to some music. It was nice.
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My husband has been SAHD for 12 years. A lot of the discussion about SAHP focuses on the benefits when the kids are really young (saving on daycare, being there for the big early milestones), and those are all great, but in my experience the benefit doesn't diminish when they hit school age, because school schedules still assume that there's a full-time parent at home.
My kids' elementary school runs from 9:30-4. There's before and after care available, but it's not at all flexible. You basically have to sign up at the beginning of the year and if your schedule changes, any shifts are subject to availability. That care isn't available the first week of school. There are some free after-school programs because it's a Title I school, but that scheduling is even worse, and we've had issues with our kids being kept afterschool when we expected them home on the bus, or being sent home on the bus when we expected them to stay after school.
Second this!
School schedules are really tough for two-working-parent households. The school day doesn't align with 9-5 jobs. There are holidays, week-long winter and spring breaks, and of course summer vacation. And on top of that, kids get sick all the time.
Being able to stay home with my son and take care of him when necessary, without burning vacation days or having to scramble for childcare, has been a huge blessing. I don't know how we would have done this if my wife and I were both working full-time jobs.
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My spouse (m) and I (f) are in the middle of exploring the option of my being a SAHP to our almost two year old. My health and mental health dictated needing significant lifestyle change. We took it as a chance to move closer to his formerly remote work location to invest in his career.
Im working part time remote winding down a toxic burnout work situation while full time parenting for the last month. When I am finally free of this job in a few weeks I am hoping to just SAHP for a while and see how it goes. I am anticipating it being a huge quality of life improvement for all of us. Already we are thrilled to be healthy and not cycling through constant sickness. The toddler no longer has the daycare cough.
Sorting out roles has been a lot. We have barely scratched the surface. Others mention talking it thru with your partner. I’d encourage talking it thru again and again and again. Both of you doing visioning or something around the four relationships above, thinking about the next 1,2,5,10 years. We what we thought was a lot of talking about it, but we miscommunicated a lot. It is hard with busy jobs and kids leaving very little time for deep communication. One technique we used after we discovered some miscommunication was to share a paper notebook journal. I probably did more writing than my spouse ( which makes sense since I was the one putting my foot down about my work situation and initiating a change), but he got to read through and see my thought process and make his own notes and comments and get his thoughts straight, and we each could do the work when we had the time and energy for it.
I am enjoying the heck out of being home with my kid. She is a delight. I can’t wait to be done with this work and have more freedom to be a human. I am also enjoying caring for our family. Yes. Unending and little thanks… but at least now I’m not squeezing it all into the weekends in order to sit at a desk way too far from my kid all week. I do enjoy cooking, perhaps not the daily grind of it, but I’m leaning into that. I can get a lot of satisfaction out of caring for my family.
I’m not sure yet what our long term plan is. We’ll see how this goes and how I heal, but I’ve found this conversation timely and wanted to share the journal idea. Good luck to you OP!!
ETA: the journal wasn't just thoughts and feelings, it also had budgets and projections exploring how dropping to one income temporarily or longterm would affect us.
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About managing a house:
The work of the at-home parent of little kids does not end, and is not very satisfying. The dishes are never done. The laundry keeps piling up. And "How many times do I have to tell you to that the SHOES GO where the the shoes go?!?! By the time I'm flinging my wife's work boots across the house she's wondering what my problem is.
'You know,' she said, 'I had a hard day at work, and it would be nice if I could just come home to a nice, peaceful place.'
'At least you get to come home from work! I'm still there! This shit never ends!'
Yeah, the gods really missed the mark on punishing Sisyphus. They could have made him a 21st century stay at home parent, no rock required.
Agreed. @Chris Pascale , that section above gave me flashbacks. One can indeed hit a point where you look at your spouse and complain "you get to go to work!" Appreciation is not plentiful when you are a SAHP and the pay is even worse. ;)
When I was at home with a baby, we had a SAHD in our group. My impression is that once all the moms got to know him, he fit in just fine. Part of the friend group at library story time, part of the pack of parents doing stroller walks to the park. No one thought it was weird he was a dad, we were all just trying to keep our demanding offspring alive and stimulated with appropriate educational and social activities.
So many times in this forum I've hit 'post' and think, god, I'm an idiot, and you dudes are always like, 'no. You're our idiot.'
Ditto flashbacks. In my case, one evening I had survived the witching hour, managed to feed everyone and get the laundry done, but the clean laundry was sitting in piles on the kids' floors. I was doing something -- forget what, but it was Useful Family Stuff -- and DH came by to remind me that his parents were visiting that weekend, and "it would be nice if the laundry was put away and the house wasn't quite so messy."
At which point, I did my best to tamp down the homicidal rage tearing through my body and just snapped, "well, FEEL FREE."
Now, I'm normally a reasonable grownup; can't remember last time I truly lost my shit with someone. Obviously DH didn't, either, because 5 minutes later he was quietly sitting on the floor of DS' room, folding laundry and putting it away.
Also, ditto on school schedules. Never realized how good I had it when my kid was in a daycare that was open 6-6 year-round. And being home for older kids -- my DS does not talk AT ALL, particularly about things that matter, and yet if I'm here/not on a call when he gets home from school, he will immediately just start blurting out everything that happened that day.
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I'm a dad, and I took six months of leave when our daughter was 6-12 months. What I figured out pretty quickly is that being at home with an infant feels like a nonstop grind for me.
Our situation was probably especially difficult. My wife took off from 0-6 months, before going back to work. She's a litigator, and about once a month she takes a case to trial that requires 14+ hour days for a week or more. I also had some lingering work responsibilities that I was trying manage during nap times and evenings. I felt like I was working from the time I cracked my eyes open until the time I went to sleep, and because I didn't know what I was doing the constant newness - while beautiful in its own way - added to the stress. There was no autopilot, just constantly flying the plane by feel while also worrying about what was going on at work. I lasted about two months before calling in childcare two mornings a week, and that made a world of difference because it gave me the mental space to walk away and reboot.
Now that she's almost two, I can almost think it would be fun to be a SAHD. For me, the baseline for success would be a spouse working a strict 9-5 with no evenings/weekends, and some small amount of childcare during the workweek, like a two morning a week preschool.
But if SAHD means all or most of the domestic work 24/7 without end, that would be its own circle of hell for me.
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I'm a dad, and I took six months of leave when our daughter was 6-12 months. What I figured out pretty quickly is that being at home with an infant feels like a nonstop grind for me.
Our situation was probably especially difficult. My wife took off from 0-6 months, before going back to work. She's a litigator, and about once a month she takes a case to trial that requires 14+ hour days for a week or more. I also had some lingering work responsibilities that I was trying manage during nap times and evenings. I felt like I was working from the time I cracked my eyes open until the time I went to sleep, and because I didn't know what I was doing the constant newness - while beautiful in its own way - added to the stress. There was no autopilot, just constantly flying the plane by feel while also worrying about what was going on at work. I lasted about two months before calling in childcare two mornings a week, and that made a world of difference because it gave me the mental space to walk away and reboot.
Now that she's almost two, I can almost think it would be fun to be a SAHD. For me, the baseline for success would be a spouse working a strict 9-5 with no evenings/weekends, and some small amount of childcare during the workweek, like a two morning a week preschool.
But if SAHD means all or most of the domestic work 24/7 without end, that would be its own circle of hell for me.
Oh yeah -- this is a great point! If you can get childcare even for a couple of hours, a few times/week, that will give you a chance to do just a little bit of your own thing: work, gym, whatever is highest priority for you. We live in a college town, so managed to find a string of lovely young people to do childcare a few hours/week, which was AMAZING. (Plus, after the first one they voluntarily each found the next, which made our lives even easier). Be careful not to trigger the nanny tax, however. (And try to pay a fair rate for this: our first kid was pretty high energy, and I wanted to appropriately compensate people for keeping him amused and alive!)
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Really appreciate the ongoing ideas and conversation topics for DW and I to discuss. I hadn't really even thought about what SAHD could look like once school starts since our kids are still a few years away, but the more we dive into the topic it is becoming clearer that I have the skills and patience needed to do it long term if we desire, along with still building a good amount of wealth for the future on one income.
Once thing we talked about was that while being a SAHP can come with a lot of extra work, DW and I have managed to keep our home together while also each having jobs and the kid. There are definitely a lot of conversations that will be had about scheduling/tasks for each of us to split, and adding another baby is a level of stress we have only rarely experienced (we fostered brothers for a couple months during covid), I think getting to get rid of the stress of managing a career may make it at least a little more streamlined that my sole job will be caring for the kids. At least from a mental health perspective I feel like I will be enjoy the days where I can be with the kids and do what they need without the lingering realization that there's work to be done too.
Another big plus is that we live near DW's family and they are very helpful. They take DS every Friday so that DW and I can either get stuff done that has been put off, or so that we can spend some good solo time together. Her step dad is RE in his early 50s and her mother is following in the next couple years as well. Even getting Friday's off and then weekends and evenings with the help of DW is quite a bit of extra help for me.
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Really appreciate the ongoing ideas and conversation topics for DW and I to discuss. I hadn't really even thought about what SAHD could look like once school starts since our kids are still a few years away...
My experience socially of being home full time was similar to @FireLane 's: we live in the core of a liberal urban area, and people were over-the-top supportive of seeing a dad out with a small child on a random Tuesday morning.
I do think it might get weirder once the kids go to school, though. We have social scripts for women to be permanent stay-at-home spouses, and in many places we now have social scripts for Dad "taking time off work to be with the kids and save money on daycare."
What we don't really have are social scripts for permanent stay-at-home husbands that don't have to be justified by some immediate need, like childcare.
Even in liberal society I think we're much more ready for the at-home track to be permanent for women than we are for men.
Like being Fired, it's of course up to you how much you care about what people think of not working a job-job.
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My experience socially of being home full time was similar to @FireLane 's: we live in the core of a liberal urban area, and people were over-the-top supportive of seeing a dad out with a small child on a random Tuesday morning.
I do think it might get weirder once the kids go to school, though. We have social scripts for women to be permanent stay-at-home spouses, and in many places we now have social scripts for Dad "taking time off work to be with the kids and save money on daycare."
What we don't really have are social scripts for permanent stay-at-home husbands that don't have to be justified by some immediate need, like childcare.
Even in liberal society I think we're much more ready for the at-home track to be permanent for women than we are for men.
Like being Fired, it's of course up to you how much you care about what people think of not working a job-job.
This is true. I live in an incredibly liberal area (in our precinct, "Uncommitted" got a majority in the democratic primary), and while people were really supportive in the abstract, it was still definitely tougher for my husband than it would have been for me. TONS of programs are still called "Mommy and me", there were side-eyes at playgrounds if my husband was sitting alone if people missed seeing him with kids who look just like him, and on one memorable occasion an older woman CALLED OUT OF HER CAR "That baby needs a hat!". Readers, it was a 60 degree spring day, which in the frozen north is basically pool weather.
(That is one big thing to think of, actually: if your kids don't look like "yours" to judgmental strangers, you may find this harder. Scaremongering around trafficking has led to more than one mixed-race family being detained or interrogated.)
With the kids being older, he's not out with them as much during the day, and teachers usually know he stays home. I have not, however, been able to get the school nurse to stop calling me first instead of him. Besides that, the biggest impact might be how people talk to me about him: "Does your husband STILL stay home? What does he do all day??"
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Really appreciate the ongoing ideas and conversation topics for DW and I to discuss. I hadn't really even thought about what SAHD could look like once school starts since our kids are still a few years away...
My experience socially of being home full time was similar to @FireLane 's: we live in the core of a liberal urban area, and people were over-the-top supportive of seeing a dad out with a small child on a random Tuesday morning.
I do think it might get weirder once the kids go to school, though. We have social scripts for women to be permanent stay-at-home spouses, and in many places we now have social scripts for Dad "taking time off work to be with the kids and save money on daycare."
What we don't really have are social scripts for permanent stay-at-home husbands that don't have to be justified by some immediate need, like childcare.
Even in liberal society I think we're much more ready for the at-home track to be permanent for women than we are for men.
Like being Fired, it's of course up to you how much you care about what people think of not working a job-job.
To be fair, I don't understand why healthy, capable adults don't work if they aren't financially independent or taking care of kids and it doesn't matter whether they are male or female. So I think the weird looks for a stay at home dad with older kids who are in school full time is more about people not understanding FIRE and not related to being a stay at home dad vs mom.
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Really appreciate the ongoing ideas and conversation topics for DW and I to discuss. I hadn't really even thought about what SAHD could look like once school starts since our kids are still a few years away...
My experience socially of being home full time was similar to @FireLane 's: we live in the core of a liberal urban area, and people were over-the-top supportive of seeing a dad out with a small child on a random Tuesday morning.
I do think it might get weirder once the kids go to school, though. We have social scripts for women to be permanent stay-at-home spouses, and in many places we now have social scripts for Dad "taking time off work to be with the kids and save money on daycare."
What we don't really have are social scripts for permanent stay-at-home husbands that don't have to be justified by some immediate need, like childcare.
Even in liberal society I think we're much more ready for the at-home track to be permanent for women than we are for men.
Like being Fired, it's of course up to you how much you care about what people think of not working a job-job.
To be fair, I don't understand why healthy, capable adults don't work if they aren't financially independent or taking care of kids and it doesn't matter whether they are male or female. So I think the weird looks for a stay at home dad with older kids who are in school full time is more about people not understanding FIRE and not related to being a stay at home dad vs mom.
I think the difference is that at least in some parts of society a wife can stay at home for the simple reason that the family doesn't need the money, and so it's something of a status symbol. I don't think that's generally going to work for men.
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Really appreciate the ongoing ideas and conversation topics for DW and I to discuss. I hadn't really even thought about what SAHD could look like once school starts since our kids are still a few years away...
My experience socially of being home full time was similar to @FireLane 's: we live in the core of a liberal urban area, and people were over-the-top supportive of seeing a dad out with a small child on a random Tuesday morning.
I do think it might get weirder once the kids go to school, though. We have social scripts for women to be permanent stay-at-home spouses, and in many places we now have social scripts for Dad "taking time off work to be with the kids and save money on daycare."
What we don't really have are social scripts for permanent stay-at-home husbands that don't have to be justified by some immediate need, like childcare.
Even in liberal society I think we're much more ready for the at-home track to be permanent for women than we are for men.
Like being Fired, it's of course up to you how much you care about what people think of not working a job-job.
To be fair, I don't understand why healthy, capable adults don't work if they aren't financially independent or taking care of kids and it doesn't matter whether they are male or female. So I think the weird looks for a stay at home dad with older kids who are in school full time is more about people not understanding FIRE and not related to being a stay at home dad vs mom.
I think the difference is that at least in some parts of society a wife can stay at home for the simple reason that the family doesn't need the money, and so it's something of a status symbol. I don't think that's generally going to work for men.
Also, even once kids are in school it's incredibly hard to do a good job parenting (and keeping house, and everything) if the adults are working 2 (or 2+) full-time jobs. If one person is working part time (which is my preference) it means that there's a parent around to fill in in emergencies, and a whole bunch of stuff can get done around being available to kids. See: Volunteering in the schools (which always need more help), helping older neighbors, cooking healthy means, driving carpools to/from practices, etc. etc. etc.
It takes quite a bit of stress off the household to not have to try to shoehorn all that stuff in around 2 FT jobs -- which also means both adults can probably do some minimum amount of taking care of themselves, whether that's exercise, seeing friends, therapy, whatever.
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I think the difference is that at least in some parts of society a wife can stay at home for the simple reason that the family doesn't need the money, and so it's something of a status symbol. I don't think that's generally going to work for men.
Lol! My DH is not working right now just to take a break, and we have no kids or other reason that it "makes sense" for him to stay home. I have teased him a bit about being a bum (gently, in private, and with his explicit blessing). I hadn't considered that his unemployment could be a status symbol, but it makes sense: we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't spend less than my income and weren't already 60-90% FI (uncertainty due to unknown future child expenses).
One of my major motivations to pursue FIRE was the goal that we would require zero FT jobs in our household by the time we had kids. This thread is seriously validating that plan so far.
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I sometimes use the term “house spouse” for the half of a married couple who STA with no kids.
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I sometimes use the term “house spouse” for the half of a married couple who STA with no kids.
We like that too, mostly cause we think the rhyming is funny.
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I’ll say this: if you’re going to be a stay at home parent, it’s important that you WANT to be a stay at home parent. I’ve met men and women who were the obligatory SAHP because their income couldn’t justify the childcare costs. They tend to be burned out, overwhelmed, and resentful.
However, if you go into with the attitude that you have been given an absolutely priceless gift, and you can work diligently to maintain that mindset (and of course there will be hard days), then it will be the greatest chapter of your life.
And your kids will be able to tell the difference between a dad (or mom) who CHOSE to be with them, versus one who HAD to be with them.
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My wife has been a SAHM since the beginning, before I knew what FIRE was. I did struggle originally because we lost $7k year one, which lead me to find the FIRE movement. So since you are onto FIRE already, you have a lot of that covered.
I honestly don't know how two income families balance everything. Aside from that here are some things I have noticed
1) One high income spouse with a SAHP is pretty tax efficient. I make $170k am just flirting with the 22% tax bracket. I can max out my 401k, HSA, and contribute to a spousal IRA + Standard deduction you are skimming ($23,000 + $8,300 + 7,000 + $29,900) = $68,200. Now if my wife worked I would loose 22% federal, 7% State, and 7% FICA off the top plus daycare costs and/or summer camp.
2) As they get older, it's in some ways more important. You get a break mid day but it helps to be involved and know the kids families/what they are doing after school
3) Summers are just more fun for the kids. We do one camp but the rest of the time is spent traveling or just hanging out at the lake. Their piers are constantly jumping from camp to camp which sounds not very fun plus expensive. Heck on of the reasons I am pursuing FIRE is because I long for those lazy summer days, watching the world/euro cup on weekdays, etc. If I cant have it now, I like that my kids can at least.
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A topic I haven't seen mentioned yet is how much of a benefit this can have for your spouse's career and the mental health for both of you (while not ignoring the fact that being a SAHD/P is challenging, as is being a sole-source of income spouse). My spouse has stayed at home and it has allowed me to significantly advance my career and earning opportunities. Need to travel for a business opportunity ... no problem. Need to work crazy hours for a few days to take advantage of a significant opportunity - my spouse has me covered.
With two young children, there are so many appointments and sick days. When both of you are employed outside the home, you have to determine who will cover these appointments (split 50/50? Have 1 always do it ... and then are they resentful that it isn't more equal? etc.) I will tell anyone who will listen that being able to focus more on my career and business because my spouse covers most of the household responsibilities is a major factor in my success. As long of you both feel that you're in the best role for each of you, then it can be a huge psychological advantage -- and even the potential to advance one's career more quickly, if that's what they want.
This is a great point. When I was climbing the ladder I was working in person in Boston. I could be pulled into dinner meetings/networking on a whim which would have made it hard to do with two working parents. My wife has a good sense of humor and would say OK, then I'm getting takeout, and send me photos of them eating pizza the ocean.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her. I have noticed that outside of MMM, the SAHDs I’ve met are not necessarily doing it because they wanted to. Most of them were laid off or had a business close in covid and they ended up having to take the primary parent role. Most of them have learned to love it, but our situation is still different from theirs because I don’t necessarily have to do it. I just want to and it seems like the most valuable use of my time.
@MMMarbleheader - taxes were one of our big considerations in the process. We haven’t narrowed down the exact number, but it will be a significant savings for 2025 and beyond. We have also looked into and will continue our investments as is, but put money into a spousal IRA vs my current 401k and then most likely put the rest leftover into taxable investments.
One thing that’s happened that I didn’t realize is the way DW and I are approaching the plan from a financial perspective. We have been lucky to have a pretty high income relative to others our age, and we are in a pretty LCOL area. That has also meant that we haven’t been as frugal as we used to be as low income newlyweds. We save and invest a decent amount, but hedonistic adaptations have definitely occurred. The change in employment has reinvigorated our desire to minimize our outflow, so we plan on getting rid of DWs car and going back down to a one car family. We have a lot of other places we can/will cut spending out of the budget. I’ll probably start working up an actual breakdown of our budget if anyone is interested.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her. I have noticed that outside of MMM, the SAHDs I’ve met are not necessarily doing it because they wanted to. Most of them were laid off or had a business close in covid and they ended up having to take the primary parent role. Most of them have learned to love it, but our situation is still different from theirs because I don’t necessarily have to do it. I just want to and it seems like the most valuable use of my time.
@MMMarbleheader - taxes were one of our big considerations in the process. We haven’t narrowed down the exact number, but it will be a significant savings for 2025 and beyond. We have also looked into and will continue our investments as is, but put money into a spousal IRA vs my current 401k and then most likely put the rest leftover into taxable investments.
One thing that’s happened that I didn’t realize is the way DW and I are approaching the plan from a financial perspective. We have been lucky to have a pretty high income relative to others our age, and we are in a pretty LCOL area. That has also meant that we haven’t been as frugal as we used to be as low income newlyweds. We save and invest a decent amount, but hedonistic adaptations have definitely occurred. The change in employment has reinvigorated our desire to minimize our outflow, so we plan on getting rid of DWs car and going back down to a one car family. We have a lot of other places we can/will cut spending out of the budget. I’ll probably start working up an actual breakdown of our budget if anyone is interested.
I'd like to suggest that you consider starting a journal about this experience, if you decide to do it (which it sounds like you are going to). My guess is that there would be a lot of people interested in the SAHD decision-making process, as well as your financial decisions/intentional reversal of hedonic adaptation going along with it. I know I would, and I'm not even a parent, nor will I ever be one.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her.
For what its worth, this relationship will change hard once your second comes. My son was born in Oct 2019 and I was home with him a lot for Covid from once March 2020 hit. I LOVED spending as much time with him as I could-he'd read books, cruise on his balance bike, build blocks for hours with me etc etc. Once our daughter was born in Feb 2022, it was a really hard adjustment for him AND me...I have to split my attention between my daughter and my son, and he has to split his attention between me and my daughter. There's a gnarly sibling rivalry that's developed, and I think a lot of it is my fault for being so close to my son before my daughter was born and not being that good at splitting my attention.
Anyways, that's not me telling you not to be a SAHD if you want to be. But two was WAY harder than one for us.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her.
For what its worth, this relationship will change hard once your second comes. My son was born in Oct 2019 and I was home with him a lot for Covid from once March 2020 hit. I LOVED spending as much time with him as I could-he'd read books, cruise on his balance bike, build blocks for hours with me etc etc. Once our daughter was born in Feb 2022, it was a really hard adjustment for him AND me...I have to split my attention between my daughter and my son, and he has to split his attention between me and my daughter. There's a gnarly sibling rivalry that's developed, and I think a lot of it is my fault for being so close to my son before my daughter was born and not being that good at splitting my attention.
Anyways, that's not me telling you not to be a SAHD if you want to be. But two was WAY harder than one for us.
I don’t think it’s fair to assume OP’s relationship will have the same outcome as yours if he has a second kid. I absolutely LOVE being a dad, and when I went from one kiddo to two kiddos, it simply doubled the fun.Yes, there is some sibling conflict of course, but there are far more good days than hard days. I’d highly suggest reading “Good Inside” and “Siblings Without Rivalry” for some great tips and insight.
We have individual “daddy days” a couple times each month and many many “boys days” where it’s just them and myself. Having two kids has been absolutely incredible to watch them bond. Today, for instance, they’ve spent 8+ hours outside together, working on inventions, using bow and arrows to hunt rabbits, playing with chickens, and riding bikes. It gives me a chance to work on my own projects while they each pursue their own interests. They’re 4 and 6 now, so I suspect their independence will continue to increase as they get older
OP: You sound like a PHENOMENAL dad. Being a SAHD should not define you or prevent you from pursuing other interests and goals, but it’s a chapter worth dedicating a chapter of your life to. In my opinion, it’s the best investment you could ever make.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her.
For what its worth, this relationship will change hard once your second comes. My son was born in Oct 2019 and I was home with him a lot for Covid from once March 2020 hit. I LOVED spending as much time with him as I could-he'd read books, cruise on his balance bike, build blocks for hours with me etc etc. Once our daughter was born in Feb 2022, it was a really hard adjustment for him AND me...I have to split my attention between my daughter and my son, and he has to split his attention between me and my daughter. There's a gnarly sibling rivalry that's developed, and I think a lot of it is my fault for being so close to my son before my daughter was born and not being that good at splitting my attention.
Anyways, that's not me telling you not to be a SAHD if you want to be. But two was WAY harder than one for us.
Yeah, this is not how it works for everyone. I personally find that the energies in our family balanced out better after we had our second. Everyone involved has to adjust, yes but it can be a good thing.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her.
For what its worth, this relationship will change hard once your second comes. My son was born in Oct 2019 and I was home with him a lot for Covid from once March 2020 hit. I LOVED spending as much time with him as I could-he'd read books, cruise on his balance bike, build blocks for hours with me etc etc. Once our daughter was born in Feb 2022, it was a really hard adjustment for him AND me...I have to split my attention between my daughter and my son, and he has to split his attention between me and my daughter. There's a gnarly sibling rivalry that's developed, and I think a lot of it is my fault for being so close to my son before my daughter was born and not being that good at splitting my attention.
Anyways, that's not me telling you not to be a SAHD if you want to be. But two was WAY harder than one for us.
Yeah, this is not how it works for everyone. I personally find that the energies in our family balanced out better after we had our second. Everyone involved has to adjust, yes but it can be a good thing.
Agreed, when it was only my daughter we were a home of three first borns(me, my wife, and daughter). I was nice an efficient when she was younger and we thought about being one and done but luckily decided to have our son.
So glad we did because now that my daughter is 11, a house with only the three of us would be an intense mess of everyone needing to be right, get the last word in. Our son reminds us multiple times a week to all calm down, he is a good second born haha.
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@FallenTimber - the desire vs obligation piece of the puzzle was easy to figure out. I truly enjoy all my days I get with my son. Even while employed I have been around a lot and the bond the two of us have is super close. My wife can attest that there’s absolutely no one else in the world he’s as stoked to be around. Even her.
For what its worth, this relationship will change hard once your second comes. My son was born in Oct 2019 and I was home with him a lot for Covid from once March 2020 hit. I LOVED spending as much time with him as I could-he'd read books, cruise on his balance bike, build blocks for hours with me etc etc. Once our daughter was born in Feb 2022, it was a really hard adjustment for him AND me...I have to split my attention between my daughter and my son, and he has to split his attention between me and my daughter. There's a gnarly sibling rivalry that's developed, and I think a lot of it is my fault for being so close to my son before my daughter was born and not being that good at splitting my attention.
Anyways, that's not me telling you not to be a SAHD if you want to be. But two was WAY harder than one for us.
Yeah, this is not how it works for everyone. I personally find that the energies in our family balanced out better after we had our second. Everyone involved has to adjust, yes but it can be a good thing.
Oh, no doubt. Everyone’s relationship is different. Every kid is different. I just saw a bit of myself in the OP’s statement there. I guess part of my point was that if the OP is wanting to be a SAHD so he can continue the super tight relationship with his son, he needs to know that it’s going to be different than what he has now. It could be better, it could be way harder, it’s just a repetition of the old phrase, “prior result don’t predict future returns”. Or something like that.
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Good information. Regarding the children and a SAHP, my wife and I are relatively similar.
We have a 2 year old
We have another baby due September/October.
My wife and I have been together about 12 years, and she’s never really worked. I’ve always traveled to new states for jobs and she’s come with. When we got married and eventually started to have kids, we already had the benefit of never having her with an income/something to rely on. This made the stay at home choice easy for us. Regarding the money portion, that’s where the situations would differ.
That aside, being a SAHP is hard work. It doesn’t matter how drained you are. If your kid doesn’t want to nap, you’re not getting a break during the day. Maybe they’ll watch Miss Rachel for a bit while you do dishes & laundry.
With the hard work, I believe, comes even more fulfillment. I was working 55-60 hr weeks when my daughter was born. Stress was well over the top of what was healthy. I was fortunate enough that Jan 2023 we were able to take our first big downshift and I moved to a 40 hr/wk position with 3 days/wk remote. With my remote work (as OP’s wife apparently has), it’s amazing for the working parent to still have some social interaction with their children during the day. When they wake up, lunch, miscellaneous times during the day, etc.
I’d say if you can make it work financially, and your wife has a secure position she can tolerate (and supports the SAHD effort), jump all over it!
My wife has made friends with a ton of other SAHM’s through our local library for the kids events. They do activities several times a week together. Tuesday was the zoo, yesterday was the library, and today they are meeting up at an indoor kids gym. The socialization is beyond important for kids at that age, and it takes a lot of engagement for SAHP’s to find that interaction. For kids in daycare, it happens naturally.
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Any other SAHDs out there that have some good-to-know info?
Any things that you wish you’d have known about being a SAHD or being married to one?
Anyone gone back to work after 3-5 years, or did it become permanent for you?
What kind of issues have you had socially as a SAHD?
I've been a SAHD for 12 years now with my eldest graduating this week and the youngest starting sixth grade this fall. If you can afford it, I highly recommend it. We ran our eldest through daycare and afterschool care for awhile and there were always issues. Not only were the issues affecting our eldest, but they affect both of our careers. We were having to flip coins at who stayed home to look after a sick child and possibly set back their career by missing important meetings, deadlines, etc. We would look forward to the weekends home from work only to spend the entire weekend trying to cram in everything that we didn't have time to do during the week. It was exhausting.
We made the choice for me to stay home because I was burnt out and my wife's career had more future potential. It soon became clear that we should have done it years ago. With 24/7 care vs. care only if crying at daycares, our eldest developed a lot better. Our married life improved dramatically. No longer were we flipping coins on careers. My wife was now allowed to focus on hers and it has paid dividends beyond our imagination back then. Because I am able to do all those things one needs to do to keep a household running during the week, my wife gets to spend her weekends having quality time with both of our kids. All of us are happier as a result.
But there are drawbacks and it might not be for everyone. When you are a SAHD, society tends to compartmentalize you. I was always being asked about "what I did for a job" and then pretty much getting ignored when I said a SAHD. Finally I learned to battle that question with humor. When asked, depending on the crowd, I tell them I am a Child Behavioral Modification Therapist or sometimes a Trophy Husband. Both takes the edge off the conversation and allows it to continue in other directions. When I became a SAHD, I essentially made the decision to retire. When the kids were little, it wasn't much of a problem because I was always busy getting them through life. Now that they are older with the eldest moving out in a couple months for college, I have a lot more time on my hands. All the other retired folks are about 15 years my senior. When I first became a SAHD they were 25 years my senior. They already have clicks with their peer groups. My peer group was still working all day, every day. As someone mentioned above, this can be isolating and lonely at times. I am a man of a 1000 hobbies so I never have a shortage of ways to entertain myself without others around. Other people I know in my position need to be around people more often and literally go crazy.
I don't regret the decision we made all those years ago. As I alluded to, my wife's career took off and she earns more than enough money to support our lifestyle and still save for a full retirement when she is ready. Our kids are well adjusted. I still have hundreds of hobbies I have yet to pursue. I would make the same decision over again if given the chance.
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I was (and in some sense still am) a SAHD for both of my young kids. I was primary care giver for a time when they were infants/toddlers, but we also moved them each into daycare when it opened up. I work part-time from home and this still allows me to drop them off, pick them up, take the oldest to sports, and watch them on days when school is off/snow days, etc. My wife makes the bulk of the income, so it makes sense for us that I use my time for more of the childcare on the margins.
A couple of observations if they haven't already been said:
1. Not everyone has the personality type to enjoy being a full-time caregiver to an infant or toddler. And that includes me. It's not hard at all, but it can be tedious. I love my little guys, but there is nothing especially fun in my opinion about changing diapers, getting bottles ready, getting them to fall asleep for a nap, taking them to the playground where you watch their every move so they don't kill themselves, reading them the same fucking book for the 13th time that day because they refuse to read another one, etc. I was happy to do it because it needed to be done, but I'm even happier to let them be in daycare/school for several hours with other kids their age watched over by a professional who took that job because they love doing that sort of thing. You'll still spend tons of time with the kids in the evenings and on weekends.
2. I think a Dad's Group is a great idea, though I never pursued it. The problem when the kid is really young is that your schedule isn't yours. You can't go anywhere when they are napping, which is frequent, and the naps don't always follow a set schedule (but at least nap times are free time for you). If you take them anywhere, you have to lug a stroller and diaper bag with you and a change of clothing and be prepared to change them in the middle of wherever you are. You have to be prepared for them throwing a tantrum in a public place and possibly needing to retreat back home. It's usually easier just to stay home, but that contributes to your sense of isolation.
We're pretty lucky that we have more than enough money to afford daycare/preschool. If we did not have those resources I would have been full-time caregiver for an infant/toddler for 7.5 years now given the age difference between our kids, and I would have managed a smile on my face despite it all. But I do like having daycare.
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@lthenderson - I really appreciate you taking the time to write that out. Getting to see a glimpse of what it is like at the end of the journey really does help me plan to avoid some of the potential pitfalls that you worked through. I appreciate the few comments from people who have actually stuck it out with long term stay at home parenting. They are overwhelmingly positive, but also present some great considerations.
Overall, I just feel really lucky that I can choose to become a SAHD vs being forced by external circumstances to become one. Pursuing the challenge of helping my kids turn into well rounded people seems like it offers a lot of expansion and creativity into my life. Pursuing my career, even though it is somewhat enjoyable and pays decent, seems stifling. My mind seems open and is filled with a positive attitude about being a parent, which counts for a lot to me. Just one of those gut feeling things that doesn't seem to pay a financial, logical type dividend, but a more incalculable and ethereal one. One of those risks that, if I didn't take it for at least a little bit, I would never be able to quit wondering about in the future.
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Overall, I just feel really lucky that I can choose to become a SAHD vs being forced by external circumstances to become one. Pursuing the challenge of helping my kids turn into well rounded people seems like it offers a lot of expansion and creativity into my life. Pursuing my career, even though it is somewhat enjoyable and pays decent, seems stifling. My mind seems open and is filled with a positive attitude about being a parent, which counts for a lot to me. Just one of those gut feeling things that doesn't seem to pay a financial, logical type dividend, but a more incalculable and ethereal one. One of those risks that, if I didn't take it for at least a little bit, I would never be able to quit wondering about in the future.
You've got a great mindset about being a parent. It is also an incredibly hard job. Last thing I'll mention is that raising children / being a parent requires a lot of "skills" just like any other profession. Some people have more of these skills naturally, but other people need to build more skills, depending on the parent and or/child.
Just because you want to be a good parent does not mean that you'll have all the skills you need. Try to maintain self awareness, continually develop your own skills, and be sure to prioritize your own needs. I'm not going to recommend any books or classes yet, but just know that there is always room to grow as a parent and person to be better.
I wish you the best !
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But there are drawbacks and it might not be for everyone. When you are a SAHD, society tends to compartmentalize you. I was always being asked about "what I did for a job" and then pretty much getting ignored when I said a SAHD.
People ask what your career is because its less awkward way of asking, "who are you and what is your personality like". It tends to be fairly spot on in America, we work so damn much that if we really hate a job we're not going to stay in it long, so our jobs tend to reflect our personalities. Your job happens to be taking care of the kids, they're ignoring you because they've got no way to relate. By joking about it, you're not really helping it be less awkward. Now they just feel bad for not being able to relate to you, so they're extra likely to ignore you.
Its actually pretty similar to the people who have FIRED. There's a couple in my neighborhood that has FIRED (the only non-inheritance FIRED people I know IRL) and they're just so fucking weird about it, they make up weird shit that doesn't make sense as a "joke" but all it does is just make them seem strange. If they had just said, "We were software engineers and hated it, so we decided to save our money and live cheaply and now we don't work anymore". It seems like the SAHD response should be, "I did xxxxx, but I hated it and didn't make much money doing it, so when I had to opportunity to stay at home with my kids, I took it" or something like that.
However, I think a big compounding problem is not only that the "normies" can't relate to FIRED people/SAHD people, but the reverse is true also. Could that be true for you too, @lthenderson? I think the FIRED people I referenced just can't wrap their own heads around not working, so they feel ashamed by it, and that causes them to act in a way that makes them seem sketchy. Or maybe they're just making and selling methamphetamine in a lab underneath their house.
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@rothwem I am guilty of joking about it too. For me, it comes down to the perceived intention of the question. Often, I can tell people seem to be asking about my choice to be a SAHD (or other frugal lifestyle choices in general) so that they can bash my answer or give me some kind of negative mindset about it. To those people I have taken the route of saying "I have a huge trust fund, so I am just spending my time doing whatever I want to do when I want it". Do I have a trust fund at all? Absolutely not. Is it really their business? Nope. I will give them whatever answer I decide gives me a giggle at the moment. Does that make me childish? Absolutely. If you met me, you'd get it. I always choose to be that guy.
But, have people also been truly inquisitive about how I can make this all happen? For sure. I will sit with them and go into as much detail as they want to hear about. Many people that have been interested know our household income, the price we paid for our house, how much we aim to save each month, or how we tailored our jobs to have time freedom. They see that I have a 12 year old car with nearly 200,000 miles, no fashion sense, no boats, no vacation houses, no expensive bad habits, etc. We are not the most frugal on the forums by a long stretch, but we have made conscious choices about our future, which is more than most can say.
If they want to learn, I am an open book and will give them as much time and assistance as they want. If I think they're trying to be negative I'll just send them away with a confused look on their face while I laugh my ass off while I drive home by myself. I'm game either way.
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SAHD UPDATE!!!
I wanted to hop on here and provide a life update since so many of you were willing to give helpful input when I was first considering quitting my job to stay at home. I put in my notice on July 1 and my official last day of work was July 31st. The 31st was also our nanny’s last day, DW flew out of town for a four day work trip, and our long time neighbors moved away. Those first few days with just my son and myself were overwhelmingly isolating, but we have been smooth sailing since then.
DW and I decided that quitting sooner was better than later so that we have August-October to get used to the new routine before DD arrives. Oct-Jan will have DW and I both home on 12 weeks maternity leave, and then Feb onwards will be me and the kids while DW works from home. We also made a big step and sold off our two rental houses to the buddy that I owned them with. We used the profits to pay off the end of our student loans and boost our savings account to a larger amount than we usually have for the transition period. We are also paying off DW’s car and selling it, so we are downgrading to a one car family MMM style. Now, the only debt we have is our $2,500 monthly mortgage payment. Our savings rate will still be pretty significant even with one income, which is something we really didn’t want to give up.
Unexpected benefits so far:
-With me off and DW working from home, we get to pack up and leave pretty easily. We have had family come visit, taken a couple long weekend trips, and get to work our schedule around fun stuff we want to do.
-DW loves that she can take a 5-10 min break every couple hours and come snack with us or play a bit. We didn’t intervene most of the time when DS was with our nanny because he would always be bummed when we had to go back to work and we didn’t want to make it tough on her either.
-I had time to go through all kinds of places in our house to get rid of stuff we don’t use. DS room, coat closets, garage, attic, and most of our drawers have been emptied and purged.
-Grocery/restaurant spending is way down. We both enjoy cooking and I really have a good time taking DS shopping now, so we are eating at home and cooking a lot more often on our own.
-We have had people over nearly every weekend. Now that I don’t work and am home, it’s been pretty easy for us to be the host house for all of our friends. My friends and I did a 100k relay race and we hosted the big pre-race meal. It isn’t too much to manage doing them weekly until DD gets here and it gets me around more adults.
Personally, I have had a pretty easy time maintaining things that give me energy in my schedule. I am up at five every morning, going to jiu jitsu classes M, W, and F. I lift on T, Th, F, and Sun. I usually get out for a run 2-3 times a week with a close friend as well. I also get out with DS to mountain bike as often as we can. I have always had a pretty heavy athletics schedule, so staying home but still getting 10-12 workouts a week is a huge positive. Cooking mostly at home and having the quality and quantity of food that I enjoy right on hand is awesome too.
For our split of the chores at this point I am doing all work-hour childcare. DW usually makes breakfast before work and cooks dinner after she’s been done with work and hung with DS for a couple hours. I do all the shopping, house cleaning, dishes, laundry, potty training, etc. for the most part. We both feel like we are doing a pretty equal part, both have time to ourselves, and both have solo time with DS.
Overall, we are very happy about our choice. Ending work earlier than possible was a good choice for us. Our house feels clean and ready for DD to arrive. DS is glad to have me around all the time. DW is loving how often she sees us and loves having our home clean and peaceful. We feel very fortunate and constantly thankful that we are able to choose an alternative lifestyle compared to our peers because of good fortune and decent frugal habits.
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Congrats -- that all sounds fantastic!
I'd suggest you and your DW keep the communications lines open -- something that feels totally awesomely fair now may mutate to feel sucky to either of you in the future, and if you're both comfortable, it's NBD to discuss those things as you go.
Good luck going forward!
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Do you have a shotgun seat for mountain biking with DS?
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Badass!
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My experience:
We have three kids, and when the youngest (twins) were about 6mos, I became SAHD. Several reasons: Mom wanted to return to work; I wanted to quit; She made more money than me; and I thought I'd be good at it.
And I did pretty well. I wouldn't say it was easier, but it was more uh, straightforward. Baby needs fed, feed the baby. I enjoyed it, and I look back now on that time as a high point in my life. I may have been a slacker in all other parts of my life, but this was one thing I did right.
I wanted to speak to the social effects, which apparently have brought out the woke police on other commenters. This is not a derail... the OP did ask about the social issues, and this is one of them.
You will get stares. A grown man hanging out at the playground in the middle of the day is just suspicious on its own.
You will get comments, apparently designed to make some sense of the incongruity of a man pushing a stroller. "Your day with the kids, huh?" "Giving the wife a break, huh?" I should say that I never, ever got stares or comments in playgroups or organized community activities for children.
My oldest, now 17, was filling out his college application, and checked the box for "gender non-conforming". (They have a box for that). I had never heard him mention any such thing to me before, so I asked him what he meant by it. He told me -- somewhat nervously, like he wondered how I would react -- that he doesn't conform to traditional gender roles. I said, I understand. I was gender non-conforming too.
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@jeninco Our lines of communication are very open on this one. Even once we get used to it we decided we'd set a recurring calendar invite ever quarter or so where we would both take some intentional time to chat about whether this is still the deal we want it to be or not. Of course either of us could say anything at any moment, but having that calendar invite open kind of gives the freedom to think about the previous months and make sure it's still the way each of us is wanting to go.
@WorkingToUnwind We do use a shotgun seat on my MTB. I tried a couple other cheaper brands, but ended up getting the shotgun seat as a birthday gift and have loved it. Even if we don't make it to the trails we ride nearly everyday in our neighborhood to go check the ponds around us and look for birds, snakes, and fish. Probably my most cherished item as a parent that loves being outdoors.
@phildonnia I know what you mean about the stares. It's kind of a daily thing at this point and has been for a while. It doesn't really bother me much, but I definitely notice the side eye from moms when we are at the park or museum or wherever. I kind of get it honestly. I'm a big guy, shaved head, covered in tattoos, and usually wearing a jiu jitsu tank top or t shirt with a backwards hat. I stick out as an individual in the South already where most of the people are more "put together" than myself in khakis and pastel polos and whatnot. Most people loosen up pretty quickly when they realize I am an engaged parent just trying to play with his kid. The skepticism from strangers doesn't bother me too much, but I know it will continue to be a thing.
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Overall, we are very happy about our choice.
As an 11 year SAHD veteran, the list of benefits is quite long and the negatives have been nearly non-existent.
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I'm glad that it seems to be everything you hoped it would be.
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Overall, we are very happy about our choice.
As an 11 year SAHD veteran, the list of benefits is quite long and the negatives have been nearly non-existent.
I want to tag on to this: I do consulting, so have been able to arrange to be around when the kids are around, and as Laura said, just being there when kids are ready to talk is so awesome! Kids who don't usually chat about their day might be chatty at some random time: on the way home from school, on the way to soccer practice, while you're making dinner, whenever. Being able to be there and engage with them when they're ready and willing to engage is such a privilege! And being home to meet their friends when they start bringing friends over is also huge -- both from a knowing who they're hanging out with perspective, and sometimes from a "I get to parent your friends, too" perspective.
I've told this story elsewhere, but I was working at home one day when my kid and three friends came home from HS for lunch on a long-lunch-period day. One kid pinched another, who yelped, and I walked through the dining room to the kitchen, refilled my coffee cup, and on my way back said "Talus, I didn't hear Miles agree to have you pinch his ass. Please make sure you've got consent from your pinch-ee before you do that." The most amazing part was that they were all back at the table the following week!
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@jeninco Our lines of communication are very open on this one. Even once we get used to it we decided we'd set a recurring calendar invite ever quarter or so where we would both take some intentional time to chat about whether this is still the deal we want it to be or not. Of course either of us could say anything at any moment, but having that calendar invite open kind of gives the freedom to think about the previous months and make sure it's still the way each of us is wanting to go.
@WorkingToUnwind We do use a shotgun seat on my MTB. I tried a couple other cheaper brands, but ended up getting the shotgun seat as a birthday gift and have loved it. Even if we don't make it to the trails we ride nearly everyday in our neighborhood to go check the ponds around us and look for birds, snakes, and fish. Probably my most cherished item as a parent that loves being outdoors.
@phildonnia I know what you mean about the stares. It's kind of a daily thing at this point and has been for a while. It doesn't really bother me much, but I definitely notice the side eye from moms when we are at the park or museum or wherever. I kind of get it honestly. I'm a big guy, shaved head, covered in tattoos, and usually wearing a jiu jitsu tank top or t shirt with a backwards hat. I stick out as an individual in the South already where most of the people are more "put together" than myself in khakis and pastel polos and whatnot. Most people loosen up pretty quickly when they realize I am an engaged parent just trying to play with his kid. The skepticism from strangers doesn't bother me too much, but I know it will continue to be a thing.
DH and I each have a shotgun seat for the two kids and we have so much fun with them. We just rode with them to a friend's pool party. The kids just chat away the whole time. It's the best way to connect.
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Congrats on quitting!
Family time, friends, exercise, travel, decluttering, cooking - you've got all the best parts of FIRE already. And it sounds like you transitioned into the new routine effortlessly, which is a good sign. I haven't regretted becoming a SAHD, and I doubt you will either.
I really like your idea about the recurring calendar invite to have an intentional discussion with your wife about your arrangement and whether it's still working. It's a great way to keep the lines of communication open in your marriage and head off any issues that would otherwise linger.
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@FireLane It's funny that you mention how we are getting to enjoy the best parts of FIRE already, because that's been a big conversation with DW. She has always really enjoyed her work, especially at her current employer for the past 5 or so years. They pay well, she's always been 100% remote (even years before covid and WFH becoming more common), there's opportunity for expansion and pay increases, there's enough work that she is not realistically going to be let go, etc. As far as jobs go, hers has been unconventionally pleasant and seems like it will continue to be. I, on the other hand, was more interested in FIRE and never really enjoyed going to work. I'm not lazy by any means, but I have enough outside of work that I love to do that I had always appreciated that FIRE would give me the ability to do those things sooner.
The new SAHD scenario really hits a sweet spot for us where we are both getting fulfillment in multiple places, and it feels like what I hoped FIRE would feel like decently far down the road for us. She gets to enjoy being a mom that is heavily involved in her kid's lives but also making good things happen in the world in her career. I get to enjoy being a completely present dad with literally close to zero obligations outside of raising my kids. No more job tasks, rental houses to worry about, debt to payoff, etc. I get to narrow it down to just developing the best version of myself and teaching my kids to do things that let them offer their best versions as well.
All that to say, I feel happy knowing that I have stuff I am retiring TO vs a job I am retiring FROM. It isn't completely FIRE in the typically understood sense on MMM, but it feels really damn close. Both of us being completely free will be nice someday, but we became completely okay with how long that may take now that I don't have an income and our savings rate takes a small drop. Our lives are close enough to FIRE with a "retired" dad and a WFH earner with a really flexible schedule that we really aren't feeling as rushed to get to $1M or a 4% safe withdrawal rate or any random number that we decide may be "the end". Our life seems like 90% of the way to FIRE because of what we decided we value and putting our pursuit of a definite end on hold a little bit for a more intentional present. I imagine it will continue to prove its worth over the next few years.
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I'm a big guy, shaved head, covered in tattoos, and usually wearing a jiu jitsu tank top or t shirt with a backwards hat. I stick out as an individual in the South already where most of the people are more "put together" than myself in khakis and pastel polos and whatnot. Most people loosen up pretty quickly when they realize I am an engaged parent just trying to play with his kid.
This is absolutely my favorite mental image of the day. Thank you for that. ;-)
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@FireLane It's funny that you mention how we are getting to enjoy the best parts of FIRE already, because that's been a big conversation with DW. She has always really enjoyed her work, especially at her current employer for the past 5 or so years. They pay well, she's always been 100% remote (even years before covid and WFH becoming more common), there's opportunity for expansion and pay increases, there's enough work that she is not realistically going to be let go, etc. As far as jobs go, hers has been unconventionally pleasant and seems like it will continue to be. I, on the other hand, was more interested in FIRE and never really enjoyed going to work. I'm not lazy by any means, but I have enough outside of work that I love to do that I had always appreciated that FIRE would give me the ability to do those things sooner.
The new SAHD scenario really hits a sweet spot for us where we are both getting fulfillment in multiple places, and it feels like what I hoped FIRE would feel like decently far down the road for us. She gets to enjoy being a mom that is heavily involved in her kid's lives but also making good things happen in the world in her career. I get to enjoy being a completely present dad with literally close to zero obligations outside of raising my kids. No more job tasks, rental houses to worry about, debt to payoff, etc. I get to narrow it down to just developing the best version of myself and teaching my kids to do things that let them offer their best versions as well.
That's very similar to my situation. In my marriage, I was the one who was more interested in FIRE. I didn't hate my job, but there were so many other things I wanted to do with my life. I retired in 2021, and I haven't been bored for a moment.
On the other hand, my wife has a nonprofit job that's mostly remote, low stress, and very stable. We have enough of a stash for her to quit if she wants to, but she's decided to keep working for now.
When I quit my job, we naturally fell into an arrangement that works well for both of us. Her salary supports us and pays our expenses, so I haven't had to withdraw from my investments yet. In exchange, I do most of the parenting and housework. I take charge of our son whenever he's on breaks, but when he's in school, I have the days to myself to do whatever I want. I get lots of exercise, plan and cook delicious meals, read books, work on my garden, and do projects around the house.
Meanwhile, she gets to have plenty of involvement in our son's life without having to compromise on her career. She also does volunteer work for several community groups, and I'm happy to watch him on evenings and weekends when she has an event to attend for one of those.
It's a true win-win, and we've both been very happy with how it's worked out. But I hope I can talk her into quitting sometime in the next few years so we can travel the world together. :)
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My only tip is to line up your kids naps so that you get at least one window during the day when they are both knocked out
Glad to hear things are working out well for you OP
I encourage everyone with little ones to stay at home with them until they go off to school, you won't regret it!
I think that basically everyone has the same regrets on their deathbed - I wish I took better care of my teeth, I wish I took better care of my skin, I wish I didn't work so hard, I wish I spent more time with my family. By learning from the mistakes of others I have had quite an outstanding life
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What a lovely thread to read. I have been friends with a few stay at home dads - alas circumstances mean the friendships didn't last (e.g. one of us moving away). I know they have found it hard to make friends sometimes, but I think mainly in groups. I think finding 1-to-1 friends is easier because you get to know the dads as individuals and there isnt that weird mum-group dynamic going on. I've not found any serious friendships in mums groups. My husband has also done short stints as a SAHP, but it's mostly been me.
I think having a SAHP is a really great thing for a family. It's been so relaxing for us to not have to juggle schedules and negotiate who's going to do which dropoff and pickup or appointment. As my eldest peers have started school (we homeschool) I just don't know how 2xFT families manage it. They're always ill or there's some half day or it it's the holidays or you have to go in to watch a play or something. How do these parents ever manage to spend any time at work, I wonder?!
I've found it's got easier as my eldest has got older, even though I am now due with baby #4 soon. I can have actual conversations with the eldest two (6 and 4) and truly share some of the things I love (history and art). Having more means they play better together, so I have had time to work on my own projects, flexibly around the needs of the family. I like that we have a low pressure lifestyle. We're all introverts, so I like that we can rest and recharge at home after outings, and they don't have to be in go-go-go-super-social nursery or school all day and come home exhausted.
We moved last year and have found a wonderful community where I have made good friends and our children get on too (not always a given!) When I was sick a month or so ago, two different friends had all three of my children for a morning so I could nap. One took my children to church so I could nap. Next week a friend will drop her children off at mine for an hour so she can go to an appointment. Cultivating this kind of community is hard work but so worth it. If you look for opportunities to serve others, they will reciprocate. I started a toddler group at my church. I brought dinner to a family with a newborn. Give, and you will receive. Ask, and it will be given to you.
Having a new baby is haaaaaard. Unclear why I am doing it again ;) But having slightly older children is delightful and once they can amuse themselves without imminent danger, being a SAHP has been lovely for me. I still sometimes resent all the chores and cooking and bottom wiping, but I know it's a lifestyle choice we are/I am making and everything has trade offs. I wouldn't want to go back to work in my old field. I like having projects to work on, but I like that there is no deadline and no pressure. I earn a miserly amount of pin money from them, but if I stopped tomorrow, no one would care. They really are just for me, and I like that.
Because we homeschool my kids are around all the time, and I think they like that. They certainly say they do! It's a different dynamic to if they were at school in the middle of the day, so I have to declare when I'm having a break, but we figure it out. People say, "I don't know how you do it!" But I don't know how people cope with school and work dictating their family's schedules.
ETA: One of the biggest benefits to all of us is that my kids can be ill whenever they are ill. It's not some huge production of exactly how ill they are, whether they might make it through the day with some medicine, whether they might get worse later so someone will only have to go and pick them up, how many days they've already had off school/parents have had off work so far... If they're ill, they're ill and I'm here to take care of them. Again, I don't know how 2xFT families do it. It was so difficult for my parents, and my dad worked from home so at least he was mostly in the house if we just needed to spend the day in bed. But I could never just "be ill" without some massive family summit about it.
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I’m sitting here napping my six month old daughter while my son plays in the next room over and realized that I made this post a year ago. Just an update for those that offered so much good advice:
We pulled the string and I quit work in July 2024. I stayed home with my son from July-October and it was absolutely epic. We had four months all to ourselves before DD was born and we created a really strong bond that has continued to grow even with DD around. We went mountain biking, took trips locally and over state lines, visited the local children’s museum nearly 4 dozen times and probably visited every playground in a 30 mile radius.
Once DD was here DW took 12 weeks paid leave to be home. We had family and friends come from all over for those months and we were able to take life at whatever leisurely pace we desired. Some days were packed full of good times, and others were so empty we never changed out of our pjs. It didn’t matter, because there was nowhere to be.
Now, I have been home with the two of them for almost four months on my own. Spring has sprung and we spend our days doing the same things DS and I did this summer. DW has gone in to further increase her compensation at work and received a big and unexpected bonus this spring. Finances continue to improve and we feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to take this risk. My health has improved having so much time to lift, run, and train jiu jitsu, and my wife is now working out for the first time in years, which is awesome for her.
We owe a lot to the advice we get here on the forum. We are by no means the most mustachian folks here, but we have made huge improvements because of the willingness of you guys to share your wisdom.
I’m up for questions if anyone has any! Otherwise, thanks again to all of you for your time. It was not wasted.
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Thank you for the update @poetdereves and so happy to hear things have worked out well for you and your family.
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I don't think I'd have been a great full time stay at home dad, though I was home for quite a few days each week (in our kids' early years I worked 48 hour shifts, then was home for 3-5 days at a stretch).
I do think I'm going to be a fucking fantastic stay-at-home empty nester however.
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Thank you for the update @poetdereves and so happy to hear things have worked out well for you and your family.
+1
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+2
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Congratulations! I'm glad it is working out to be as wonderful as you hoped. I'm always encouraged here when I see people going out and living the life they want -- makes me very, very happy.
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Congratulations! That was an excellent update. It made me happy to read it.
Being a stay-at-home parent is deeply rewarding in its own ways, as I've found for myself. Still, I'd offer up this advice: Even if you're FIREd and don't have other responsibilities, it's OK if you need a break now and then. Taking care of little kids can be isolating if you're with them all day and there aren't other adults around.
Hopefully your wife is willing to be the primary parent on occasion, so she has an opportunity to bond with the kids one-on-one and you get a chance to see friends or pursue your own hobbies. Or you can hire a babysitter so the two of you can spend time together. We do both in my household, and it makes both me and my wife able to be better parents when we get the chance to recharge.
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DW has gone in to further increase her compensation at work and received a big and unexpected bonus this spring. Finances continue to improve and we feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to take this risk.
When one spouse is allowed to dedicate themselves to their profession instead of splitting it between work and family, usually good things happen as a result. I know if did in our situation and yours as well. It is one of those things hard to quantify ahead of pulling the trigger to be a SAHP.
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I'm glad this worked out for you and your family.
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My brother is a SAHD and loves it. However, he also takes it extremely seriously, and I want to encourage you to do the same.
- Every day, he gets up before his wife to make her hot breakfast, coffee, and a packed homemade lunch.
- He manages ~100% of the kid stuff.
- He does a lot of DIY work around the house to save money on the trades.
- He does 100% of the errands and provisioning for the family during the week so that the weekend can be completely focused on having fun.
- He also handles 100% of the housekeeping and almost all the evening cooking.
- He takes personal fitness extremely seriously. He has commented only half-joking that he means to be a trophy husband, and he has very much accomplished that.
He would not have it any other way and I'm incredibly proud of what an example he is. When I retire and become a SAHD myself, I want to emulate what he does. (Although my wife also won't be working.)
I should also say that parenting attitude matters a lot in this. Being a parent of little kids can be a lot of trouble or less a lot of trouble depending on your attitude. In our families we practice benign neglect. We do stuff with the kids and take them fun places sometimes. But when we're home and daddy's working on the laundry or the food, the kids are the kids' responsibility. You're bored? I'm glad! Kids should be bored sometimes. Hungry? Good! Dinner's in an hour. Etc. If you're someone who feels it's very important to entertain your children, this kind of thing can be pretty stressful. Things gradually become much easier as they get older.
Edit: I see that you've already pulled the trigger and have been at it for more than a year. That's amazing. You probably don't need any advice then. But I'll leave this for anyone who finds the thread later.