My wife and I went through that in a way but it ended up being a mutual decision for her to stop working. There was no way that I wanted my wife working when the kids came along. She stayed home with the kids until they were in their teens and then she became a RN. It ended up being the correct move for all of us.
I was born in 85 and back then that was the norm, when I came in my father told my mom to stay home to raise me since he could cover the bills. Later on my mom told me many times how she regretted that decision. I also had many aunts, grandmas living that same reality. Growing up in the 90's in the middle class/lower middle many of my friends from school and neighborhood were also in that same reality as I said it was the standard and I realized the ones who would move to better schools and move to a better house/neighborhood had mommy and daddy working. And since then that became the reality here where I live , Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Given this background I grew up with the mindset that I wouldn't work to sustain a housewife with no occupation or desire to have one. I believe sometimes in life you can step aside from the market for a project, degrees etc.. and raising kids certainly is a big project and depending on the cost of daycare/schools etc sometimes it makes more sense really. We are now facing that situation with a 9 month old.
To be continued below...
Good to know. My wife and I are talking about that, too, since my salary and bonuses easily pay the bills, invest, and save. She’s a Speech Pathologist who works part time for the schools, and we started a business for her a couple of years back that has been pretty successful on its own. Now that we have two, we’re thinking about testing the waters and having her step away from the schools while concentrating on the business. The kids can then go to daycare part-time (3 days/week) while she stays with them the other two.
Was it more stressful at first, or was it clearly the right move right away?
EDIT: Feel free to PM me if the answer is more personal than you want to put out there.
My wife is a school teacher with some specializations in kids with disabilities, she worked for years taking care of 1 kid at a time, now she's back at the classroom taking care of 30/40 kids with 4 years old screaming all day, she's going nuts and dragging herself to the job everyday. She desperately wants to quit but it's not a possibility really, neither on the financial side (I could squeeze things here and there and make it work) nor on the career side. She works, how can I say, in the public service, for the town hall so she has some benefits for retirement, job stability, things that aren't available in the private sector. The money is not much but you can live with it and there's benefits. Knowing you will never lose your job is one. It's not 8-9 working hours a day, more like 5 plus the traffic. It's the only job she can perform really as she has no talent/skills for the demands in the private sector.
So it's not easy to quit and then rejoin the market let's say 2 or 3 years down the road. It would need to have this kind of job opening available, go through admission exams again (not a gimme) and lose all the career progression and start over. Once she took a year of license to get through her masters degree and that set her back for more than a year in their system of career progression.
So it's kinda sad but I believe it's in her and our best interest that she keeps working. First and foremost I want her to have her money and independency. From a personal point of view after more than 2 years staying both home full time (pandemic + pregnancy license) the level of stress was through the roof, I strongly believe that doesn't work for a young couple, either both work during the day, or one of them works, well there has to be some occupation and distance for mental health reasons. My field of work (software development) after the pandemic shifted to remote full time, some companies are demanding people to put their azz on the office 2 or 3 times a week but it's not my case and if the company I work decide to come back to the old model I will have to look for a remote opportunity. This has been so good so we didn't need to put our 9 month boy in daycare, we hired a nanny so I can do my job without distractions, for a moment I thought I could work and take care at the same time, it was a wise decision not to go that way.
One thing with moms is that normally there are other people around (friends, relatives, coworkers) also becoming parents and then the comparisons starts. In this stage of life it can cause some heavy influence. In our case many people around went through this route of the mom quitting jobs, temporarily or not. My wife is in a chat group like "moms February 2021" with 200 or 300 moms from different places, different realities, a ton of them quit jobs. Some are rich and can quit, some don't have a degree or career whatsoever so they quit from ****ty jobs they can get back in if needed, many are already pregnant again and my wife comes up with this comparisons, I hate that, I told my wife in a Belichickian way to stop with these distractions. These chats can be helpful for a while when the kids have colics, teeth, fevers, vaccines (maybe not) etc...at some point you have to move on and look inside your home and reality.
Sorry long post but this is a good talk.
