Trialbyfire Posted December 18, 2008 Posted December 18, 2008 This happens to women as well but proportional more to men since they are still generally the higher earner in the family. So it is not always whining and I think less and less men want SAHM. With your history, I'm not surprised that you don't want a SAHS. In retrospect, cutting off the financial purse strings would have done the job to force her back to work. How do you amuse yourself at home, when you can't go shopping?
flc Posted December 18, 2008 Posted December 18, 2008 With your history, I'm not surprised that you don't want a SAHS. In retrospect, cutting off the financial purse strings would have done the job to force her back to work. How do you amuse yourself at home, when you can't go shopping? I have a beautiful girl friend and I don't miss my x for sec. While retirement may never happen now my cash flow is really unchanged as she was spending this as a SAHM anyway. Good news for me is that the money is now tax deductible, if you get lemons, make lemonade.
CommitmentPhobe Posted December 18, 2008 Posted December 18, 2008 Yes, yes he should, for his own sanity.
Meet 4 Coffee Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 A stay at home mom is contributing to the household just as much as a man who is the "breadwinner." How about the men who would like their wives to work to bring the family income up but he wife wants to stay at home? What about being the sole earner for 20 years sacrificing things because your wife wants to be a SAHM and then she says she no longer loves you and wants a divorce. Then you give her 50% of the assets and 30% of your income as alimony for the rest of her life while she goes and now gets a job and new boyfriend. This happens to women as well but proportional more to men since they are still generally the higher earner in the family. So it is not always whining and I think less and less men want SAHM.
Lizzie60 Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 OP.. I'm confused.. does she already has the child? or would that be YOUR child? Don't you have paid maternity leave there? As far as the SAHM... I think it's the ideal situation for the child.. but not all women can do that... and not all couples can afford it. A child is a big investment.. short and long term.. so in order for the mother to stay home and raise the kid (ideal situation) the household income must be accordingly sufficient.. I know there are lots of ways to save money.. but still.. food is expensive, you can't get that from thrift shops... health, mortgage, bills.. etc.. Think hard about it before... it's a decision BOTH partner has to seriously consider.
Lizzie60 Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 I don't know where you live.. but here in Quebec, we have the best possible benefits for young families. We have the paid maternity leave (12 months). Ex. my daughter works for the Feds.. she has the option to take 5 years, without pay, once in her career to raise her children. Same for him, once in his career.. so he might take a year or two, depending on how it goes. She is now on leave without pay to raise her children... she doesn't want to leave them in daycare... they want to raise them themselves. In Quebec, (the only province in Canada) we also have paid paternity leave (a few weeks)... Next summer, when my daugther will have her 2nd baby, he will get the paid 'maternity leave' (9 months) since she's on leave without pay, he is entitled to it.. less 3 months. It's perfect. In Quebec, we also have the $7/day daycare.. for the mother who works.. and it doesn't matter how much money you make annually. You should move in Quebec..
Meet 4 Coffee Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Taking care of a child and home full time IS working. The woman should have the option to continue doing the fulltime mom and homemaker thing if that is what is best for the child. Uh, maybe you missed this little tidbit in his first post: "She said she is looking for a guy that can support her when she has a child for at least 2 years (so she can take time off of work). " AND "But she's wanting to find a man that is able to support her and her child DURING that time she's taking care of her kid." He didn't take anything away from her. She wanted it that way because she didn't want to work. I was in the same situation. I wanted my xW to work, but she did not want to. So I sacrificed so that she could stay home with the kids. I was honoring HER wishes. In divorce she did ask for alimony. My attorney said in the negotiations, "you have a degree of which my client paid for do you not?" She said "yes". Then my attorney said, "then it looks like you have some applications to start filling out."
Isolde Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 And then some people complain that women are too professional these days. *rolls eyes* The whole point of women working is so that when the time comes, there will be two incomes and the woman can take off for a while to raise kids. In my view, anyway.
Meet 4 Coffee Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Yeah but obviously you're younger and not married that long, doesn't count. Also, she was still working....at home raising your kids. Uh, maybe you missed this little tidbit in his first post: "She said she is looking for a guy that can support her when she has a child for at least 2 years (so she can take time off of work). " AND "But she's wanting to find a man that is able to support her and her child DURING that time she's taking care of her kid." He didn't take anything away from her. She wanted it that way because she didn't want to work. I was in the same situation. I wanted my xW to work, but she did not want to. So I sacrificed so that she could stay home with the kids. I was honoring HER wishes. In divorce she did ask for alimony. My attorney said in the negotiations, "you have a degree of which my client paid for do you not?" She said "yes". Then my attorney said, "then it looks like you have some applications to start filling out."
porter218 Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 We have the paid maternity leave (12 months). Wow!!!! I wish I lived there (minus the colder climate). That is incredible, I only get 2 paid weeks and 4 more allowed but unpaid. The best I have ever heard of is 6weeks paid and up to one year allowed unpaid. I am beyond jealous.
MN randomguy Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 First time through reading this thread. Back to the OP. I think its good that she's honest and upfront about it. To me there's a difference between wanting to raise your own children and being a desperate housewife. My buddy made 40K lived in an apartment, had one car and walked to work. They planned, budgeted and worked through it as a team. There are many women that think they're going to go shopping with their babies. They're pretty easy to ID and disregard.
sb129 Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Wow!!!! I wish I lived there (minus the colder climate). That is incredible, I only get 2 paid weeks and 4 more allowed but unpaid. The best I have ever heard of is 6weeks paid and up to one year allowed unpaid. I am beyond jealous. In the UK if you work for the National Health Service (i imagine other industries are similar) you get 80% of your income for six months and you can legally take another three months on no pay or have nine months half pay or something like that, AND you can have an additional three months of unpaid leave taking it up to a years entitlement. Fathers get two weeks paid paternity leave too. Its incredible. (I think I have some finer points wrong, but its definitely a great deal) here in NZ you get six months statutory maternity pay from the government and the dad gets two weeks paternity, I think Australia has pretty good packages too.
Cherry Blossom 35 Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Canada's like that too. I think they can take of up to a year, but I'm not sure how much of that is paid.
Meet 4 Coffee Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Back to the original poster.....if you can't step up to the plate, don't get married and don't become a father.
sb129 Posted December 20, 2008 Posted December 20, 2008 Lots of people get married and have kids on all kinds of budgets. People make it work because they have to. You can over-analyse these things.
Cherry Blossom 35 Posted December 20, 2008 Posted December 20, 2008 My sister is staying home with her kids while they are little. They don't have very much money in the bank, but they have a lot of family time. My bro-in-law works down the street. He comes home for lunch, he's home by 5:30 at night. They make dinner, buy some inexpensive wine, watch movies or play games together. They have so many riches in their life. These are memories that are forming the young men these little boys will one day become. Eventually she will go back to work. That is the plan, and she said she will be ready. A lot of it is planning. What are the goals of the couple and the family? What are they willing to live without? What are the savings goals that need to come first for college/retirement? They met and fell in love and created a family. They didn't think to themselves, well, this person is X number of years old and has X number of years of fertility. My brother in law didn't think, well, that's not fair, she gets to stay home while I work. What do I get out of this? Sometimes love just happens, and the sacrifices you make are not about giving up, but about getting more in the end.
blind_otter Posted December 20, 2008 Posted December 20, 2008 I think people confuse quality time with quantity of time. When a SAHM is busy at home, doing domestic chores, where is the focus on the kids? It's no different than not being there at all or working from home and having domestic help come in. The odd comment here and there, isn't going to necessarily raise effective children. I'm not entirely convinced that men who want SAHS, have as much concern about the children v. personal luxuries of having someone take care of everything for them. Well, the thing about quality time is that you can't force your child to fit into your schedule all the time. Especially babies. My S/O complains about not getting enough time to just be with the baby. He sees him for a total of 1.5 hours a day during the workweek, and those times are early in the AM, when baby is still a bit sleepy and out of it, and late in the evening (for the baby who goes to sleep at 7:30-8pm or so) when baby is pretty dern cranky. It's not like you can make the infant wait until the weekend to achieve various milestones. They happen when they happen. My son's best times are between 9am-11am and noon-3pm, mostly. And some mothers may sequester their children to some area of the house while they do chores, but I tend to just wear my son while I do some things (like dishes and laundry) or he sits beside me while I do others (floors, tidying up, that sort of thing). And of course you know, if you do your cleaning every day it really shouldn't take hours and hours. My sister has older children - they are either helping her to do chores or running about the house and stopping by her to ask her questions/talk to her every 15 minutes or so.
Touche Posted December 20, 2008 Posted December 20, 2008 I agree, BO. The quantity of time is sooo important. I mean it's not like most of us beat our kids while we're with them, so for most us the quantity and quality are tied in together. A child who gets shortchanged in the quantity of time is just shortchanged all the way around. No amount of "quality" will make up for that, in my opinion. You're so right about this, BO. That whole quality/quantity time thing was probably started by working mothers who had a guilty conscience. I too always had our baby right with me whenever I was doing chores. I'd talk to him the entire time. I'd describe to him what I was doing and let him touch, and feel (like the vacuum air) and smell things. I described, with lots of adjectives, everything. And when I went to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping, I'd sit him in front of me and describe everything and talk to him. People would stare at me sometimes because our baby was less than a year old or older...well before he could talk. I'd say things like "look at these gorgeous, big red apples" etc. etc. To this day I think that's why his vocabulary has always been ahead of most of the other kids. I think only mothers who have stayed home (for at least the first few years) of their kids' lives can really know what I'm trying to convey here. Bottom line: Quantity=quality. ALL time spent bonding with your child is quality. Quality alone=shortchanging and depriving your child.
Dexter Morgan Posted December 24, 2008 Posted December 24, 2008 A stay at home mom is contributing to the household just as much as a man who is the "breadwinner." I agree. but it still doesn't change the fact that this woman didn't want to work a job and was looking for a man to "take care of her".
Dexter Morgan Posted December 24, 2008 Posted December 24, 2008 Taking care of a child and home full time IS working. . While it is a worthwhile contribution to the child's well being, I beg to differ. I stayed home for 2 weeks vacation with my children and took care of them and the house while the X was with her mother at the mayo clinic. the house was cleaner than it ever was, the kids had a blast, and I didn't work nearly has hard as I do at work. I'd take staying home with the kids and having a cleaner house any day.
moonshadow Posted December 24, 2008 Posted December 24, 2008 Yeah..but the thing is...she has old-fashioned values..and I like that...and I think she likes the fact I have old fashioned values as well...but I don't think it's possible to live back in the days where fathers could support entire families one their income alone. We're old fashioned, but can't LIVE old-fashioned-like. Know what I mean...today's society isn't conducive to that...esp with our current state of affairs. Well in today's world it's often difficult for a man to be the sole breadwinner, particularly if he doesn't have a high-paying job............so if this the case, then prior financial planning should take place.....and to me, that should include the woman working (2 jobs if she has to) and doing all she can to help save up money so that when she's a mom and they're living ONLY on his income for 1-2 yrs, they can draw from the money that's been saved up. Bells - is your GF willing to do this? What are her views on this? Does she "get" the need, if she wants you to support her and the child for the first couple of years, to get out there now and work really hard and set financial goals together, to financially plan, save up money now, for her to work really hard now?
Dexter Morgan Posted December 26, 2008 Posted December 26, 2008 Back to the original poster.....if you can't step up to the plate, don't get married and don't become a father. You sound like a woman that expects a man to take care of you so you don't have to take care of yourself.
stillafool Posted December 26, 2008 Posted December 26, 2008 Well in today's world it's often difficult for a man to be the sole breadwinner, particularly if he doesn't have a high-paying job............so if this the case, then prior financial planning should take place.....and to me, that should include the woman working (2 jobs if she has to) and doing all she can to help save up money so that when she's a mom and they're living ONLY on his income for 1-2 yrs, they can draw from the money that's been saved up. Bells - is your GF willing to do this? What are her views on this? Does she "get" the need, if she wants you to support her and the child for the first couple of years, to get out there now and work really hard and set financial goals together, to financially plan, save up money now, for her to work really hard now? Yeah, this is what I want to know. Is she willing to work hard now to save for her SAHM position?
blind_otter Posted December 26, 2008 Posted December 26, 2008 While it is a worthwhile contribution to the child's well being, I beg to differ. I stayed home for 2 weeks vacation with my children and took care of them and the house while the X was with her mother at the mayo clinic. the house was cleaner than it ever was, the kids had a blast, and I didn't work nearly has hard as I do at work. I'd take staying home with the kids and having a cleaner house any day. Maybe you are just a better person than I, or your job outside the home is more difficult than mine was.... but personally I find that staying home and taking care of my baby is actually more difficult than working at my job at the accounting firm I used to work at. At my job, the work I did had a beginning and an end, though the quarterly tax returns I prepared were a little more cyclical. At home, every job is endless and there is no gratification or reward. Just more stuff to do. Endlessly. And also, I could actually reason with my co-workers. You just can't do that with a 5 month old infant. Then again my S/O seems to be able to tune out stuff that I simply cannot. Maybe it's just gender differences.
Dexter Morgan Posted December 26, 2008 Posted December 26, 2008 Maybe you are just a better person than I, or your job outside the home is more difficult than mine was.... but personally I find that staying home and taking care of my baby is actually more difficult than working at my job at the accounting firm I used to work at. Oh I stayed home during the early baby phases too a few times, and it was more tasking. But that only lasts a couple of years where as I have to stay at what I'm doing the rest of my life. Once they get a little older, say about 3, I absolutely loved staying home and taking care of them and the house. At my job, the work I did had a beginning and an end, though the quarterly tax returns I prepared were a little more cyclical. At home, every job is endless and there is no gratification or reward. Just more stuff to do. Endlessly. Well you must have had one hell of a stye then. Once you have a clean house, it doesn't take much to keep it that way. Once my xW left for that 2 weeks, the first day was alot of work because she never did anything around the house except whip up a couple quick meals. I had to clean things when I got home from work. But once I got the house in order after the first day, it was smooth sailing from then on out. And the reward was my kids and I had great fun, and the house, for once, was clean and orderly.
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