The High Cost of Stay At Home Motherhood
Stay at home moms are economically vulnerable
A few months after her controversial Salon article, Regrets Of A Stay At Home Mom, was published, Katy Read hasn’t changed her tune. She was on NPR today telling Robin Young of Here & Now that she’d warn any young woman contemplating becoming a stay-at-home mom to rethink her position.
Katy’s reasoning is primarily financial. She quotes Ann Crittenden saying that having a child costs the average college-educated woman a million dollars in lifetime income. Those tender afternoons at the playground may seem priceless, but is staying home with your kid really worth a million dollars?
About 5 million moms (and 150,000 dads) have decided that being a stay-at-home parent is worth the costs. But do they know what those costs really are? Katy says no, and I think she’s right.
Like Katy, I left my newspaper job to be a stay-at-home mom. Like her, I’ve built a career for myself freelancing part-time. Most days, I think of this as a pretty idyllic life: I get to do what I love in the comfort of my home, while always being there for my kids. I never miss their school plays; I get to volunteer in their classrooms. I’m well aware of the incredible privileges I enjoyed as a stay-at-home parent. I’m grateful for my awesome deal as a work-at-home parent now.
I rarely think about the costs. Yes, I realize that my husband is the only person in this family earning any meaningful social security benefits. I’m aware that without he’s job, we’d have no health insurance, no retirement savings and no way to pay most of our bills. I’ve become an expert at the careful budgeting we needed to survive on just his salary. Now that I have an income, too, I’m careful not to depend on it too much. Freelance money varies a lot, and my first priority is always my kids.
They’re worth it. Right?
Day to day, of course they are. But looking at that million dollar price tag makes me a little queasy. I wouldn’t sell my children for a million bucks, of course. But I could buy some very fine therapy for them to work out their attachment issues later in life. If they even had any. While some parenting experts believe its essential to care for children at home with a parent for at least the first three years, other studies show kids in day care do just fine.
Even if day care kids do have some slight disadvantage in learning or behavioral development, is sparing a child that extra hurdle worth a million dollars of the mother’s lifetime income?
Framed that way, the answer is probably no for most women. A rational decision would be to earn the money and use some of it to overcome the disadvantages to the child. By paying for the best childcare, by providing tutors and therapists, whatever the appropriate tools were. That would be the economically efficient thing to do.
The thing is, motherhood isn’t just about being rational and efficient. When I left my newspaper job, I did it because I felt like I had to. The long workdays were brutal on my toddler daughter, and I’d come home so exhausted by the end that I was useless as a housekeeper, wife or mom. I’d put the baby to bed and collapse. Worse, I was terrible at my job, too. I’d show up late, tired, distracted. I’d leave in the middle of the day unexpectedly at a call from daycare. I was never available for overtime, couldn’t respond to breaking stories that happened after hours.
Eventually it seemed clear that being a news reporter and having a young child were mutually exclusive, at least for me. I couldn’t exactly quit motherhood, so I quit my job.
The formative years with my girls really were priceless. We’ve baked hundreds of batches of cookies, spent countless hours on the swings. I’ve loved it, loathed it, found it fascinating and boring and every emotion in between. Being a stay-at-home mom has been my whole life for five years, and it’s shaped the people my children have become. While I can make an imagined economic case for paying professionals to fill gaps left by more distant parenting, I can’t really imagine that anything could replace the time and energy I’ve put into my kids. Unlike Katy, I can’t regret it, even looking at the costs.
Of course, I’m still married, to a man with a stable job. Katy is recently divorced, and staring in the face the stark reality of post-divorce finances. Stay-at-home parenthood has transformed to unemployment for her. The economic vulnerability of my personal situation feels much less immediate than hers. I was raised by a single mom, though. I remember what it felt like to have Mom working long hours for never enough money. If somehow my kids and I ended up in that situation, we’d weather it the best we could. Thinking back on those years with my own mom, I imagine it would make me treasure all the more the years I’ve had to indulge in being home with them.
Photo: wsilver
In other countries where you don’t have to pay for health care and college education the equation is much different. Just saying.
I’m at home full time and it is still a smart financial decision. I’m giving up 100K per year to be at home, but it’s not like I could just put that money in the bank and watch it pile up. I would pay a huge chunk of that in tax, and then lose another huge chunk to pay other women to do the work I am now doing myself. I would only have a small fraction of my salary left after paying taxes and the expenses of working, and how on earth could I attach a price to the sheer stress and unhappiness that would cause both myself and my family?
Instead, I put a huge amount of effort into assisting my husband with his career, which is also my former career. I do ressearch and analysis for him, and no other employee can compete with how quickly he can put together a results presentation. He can get data in the morning and have a presentation ready to go wtihin hours, because I do it for him at home. This is in no way unethical – I am absolutely qualified to act as a research assistant for him, and his colleagues are free to pay someone to do the job for them.
I entertain his superiors and colleagues with lavish dinner parties and cocktail nights, and I relieve him of all responsibilities at home. I also have sex with him pretty much every day, so he is in peak physical condition, relaxed, happy and calm. I cook fantastic meals, shield him from stress and just generally be super nice. And I love it! I am blissfully happy to be a First Officer on our Family Ship.
The result is that he earns a premium that exceeds what would be left over from my salary, and will soon take a promotion that more than doubles his salary. We have a clear and transparent family financial plan, and most of all, we have a fantastic life we both utterly love.
Being a housewife is a terrific job, but it is a job. It has a skill set that not every one has. But it can make eneormous financial sense for the right couples.
You never here anyone on their deathbed wishing they’d spet more time at work.
Love the article and the comments.
@Steph – as someone living in one of those countries where health care is paid for and college is subsidized, the amount of taxes my family pays would blow you away. I guess nothing is truly free.
“Those tender afternoons at the playground may seem priceless, but is staying home with your kid really worth a million dollars?”
Yes, or 10 million, or 10 billion… but for me it’s only until they start school, so it’s a real bargain.
“In other countries where you don’t have to pay for health care and college education the equation is much different. Just saying.”
YES. Also, it’s miserable that employers make so few concessions to moms that would allow working women to continue being financially independent and keep the jobs they care about without cheating them of getting to spend any time with their kids (and cheating kids out of time with their moms). It’s sad that it has to be an either/or proposition – part-time and work-from-home jobs would be so much more reasonable.
Staying with my kids was something I prayed for and dreamed about for years. Even on bad days, it feels like the most unbelievable blessing. I am working two part-time jobs from home, but it is a huge improvement in my quality of life and the lives of my kids. If this leads to our financial ruin and we are forced to eat rice and beans every night and move in with my in-laws, I’m sure I won’t be thrilled, but I will never look back and regret this decision. It is the best thing to ever happen to me.
I’m wary of those statistics about the financial cost of staying at home. I have two degrees and was prepping for my PhD before deciding it wasn’t financially worth it. Liberal Arts PhDs are notoriously underemployed (even if not unemployed). Plus, the cost of childcare can vary greatly depending on whether you choose daycare, a nanny, or some combination thereof. Working for me actually makes little financial sense, despite my education. I wouldn’t be banking that million and let’s be honest, over a lifetime, a million isn’t that much. More and more studies show that the best emotional and intellectual compromise for women involves some sort of part-time work (this is true for men as well). Of course this points to the same issues others have noted. Work life in America isn’t set up to help women achieve as both workers and as mothers. Instead of regretting staying at home, perhaps she should resent the system that made her choose one or the other.
I stay at home too and while I don’t regret it, it is HARD! It ‘s saddens me that we as mothers in America HAVE to chose. Other countries do not…
Wow… this really hits home with me. I currently am a full-time working mom & quite honesty, I hate it. Like you, I’m always stressed & exhausted. I don’t feel like I’m a good mom or a good employee. Somehow, even hearing $1,000,000 stop me from wanting to be home with the kids. It’s definitely not enough to convince my family that all the stress, exhaustion, chaos, take-out food, messy house, or grumpy parents is a good thing… or even bearable.
“is staying home with your kid really worth a million dollars?”
YES. A million times over.
This equation is a lot different in Germany, where I had my daughter and where I spent the first year at home, paid 2/3 of my salary by the government to take care of her. Though there are other issues in the country (including higher taxes), I think this debate of money vs. kids is one distinctly American and it makes me sad that this debate seems to stay only within the mamacircle and hasn’t actually been something taken up by politicians.
I work full time and my sons spend five days a week in daycare.
Why? Daycare eats my take home pay so it isn’t money.
It provides my family with excellent health care which we, my eldest son especially, desperately need.
I kept my job in a field where there were 500 applications for every position when I got mine the year before I became pregnant and that was before the recession; it is possible that had I given up my job I would have remained unemployed as long as we stayed in this state.
My retirement is protected.
And I”m not going crazy. I would have at home full time.
My boys are happy. I couldn’t provide the kind of structure and activity they get at school.
It works for us.
@Andrea, here’s a little etiquette lesson for you. Other people aren’t interested in your salary, your husband’s salary, or your sex life, and classy people don’t brag about such things. You sound like a fictional, hyperbolic parody of a real person at this point, and if you are, I’m pretty sure I could guess your creator and be spot on.
I also “just generally be” really happy that you and your husband were able to find six figure careers which require neither mastery of the English language nor the ability to spell common words like “research”, “within”, and “enormous.”
Andrea=Android
As a hospice nurse I actually have seen several people on (or at least near) their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at work. Why? Because they’ve sacrificed a secure retirement. Some are forced to rely on their children for support or placed into a nursing home because they’ve lost their home. Many can’t afford their medications or doctors bills. There’s many senior citizens who are struggling because they didn’t adequately provide for their (or their spouse’s) retirement. I’m not saying that every case is directly caused by stay-at-home parenting or that it’s not possible for some families to achieve financial stability on only 1 income BUT if you are skimping on retirement contributions to stay home that can have pretty hefty consequences down the road.
My friend, a single wage earner, was killed in a car accident recently. He had a very small life insurance policy, and not much else, as they couldn’t afford to set aside money for “extras” like life insurance, retirement, college funds, etc. The widow hasn’t worked in years, and is a cancer survivor still receiving follow up treatment. Health benefits continued for her for only 3 months before switching to COBRA. The widow is not sure she has any marketable skills to offer in such a competitive work environment. The decision to stay at home inevitably involves a cost analysis of whether it will work out month to month given a “best case scenario,” but hopefully there is at least a mention of what would happen if the unthinkable were to occur and the family lost its breadwinner.
If you are your family’s sole supporter then an appropriate amount of life insurance is not an “extra.” I know I get kind of annoyed being lumped in with people who are irresponsible or have bad marriages or whatever,
Well, Jennifer, I hope you and other members of the community will rally around this widow and help her as you can.
This really is a wealthy person’s dilemma.
I still cry sometimes as I drive to work on Monday mornings, my son saying “Mommy, don’t leave.”
But I know that if I quit my job, we can’t afford our rent. I won’t have health insurance. We won’t have a 401K.
It would be lovely to stay at home with my children, but not if it puts me in the poor house.
@Linda. Bring on the girl bully, bullhsit, Linda. You think you’re going to make me crawl away and cry? Ha! Think again. And my! How intelligent you are to recognize the difference between a keyboarding error and and spelling error. Gee whiz, you’re just so on top of this internet thing.
And FWIW, the professional geologists who live next door to us do the exact same thing, except it’s the husband who stays home. The wife sends rock sample data home, and has a full analysis before the helicopter lands. She’s senior management, because her husband puts his effort into her career. Happy kids, happy life and no financial penalty. My husband’s oldest friend is a physician, and he married a physician who can interpret MRI scans for him and prioritize the ones he needs to deal with first.
Even if you worked at WalMart, if your wife is at home, you can pick up those extra shifts and probably earn more money than would be left over from two workers paying other people to do what a full time parent at home takes care of.
It can make a huge amount of financial sense to put all the effort into one person’s earning potential, and then yes, you will have time left over for great meals and lots of sex! It’s a terrific life.
I actually think it is unethical (not maybe in the hard legal sense, but in the spirit of the law sense), this weird job arrangement you have with your dear husband. You both are doing work for what someone managing this and funding this thinks is one person, thereby raising the bar falsely. You’re taking away paid work from someone else who could be his research assistant. I could go on. It just sounds completely unkosher to me (not to mention gross). If you’re a research team, why not get both of you officially on the books as employees? Note, I had the same complaint about some other poster on another thread among whose HR department had an “unwritten policy” where they came and went as they pleased as needed for their kids. If people did things above the table, it might raise the tide for all workers. But, sounds like you only care about your (silly) life and doing your supposedly fabulous husband (who can’t seem to do his job without your help?). I don’t really have a dog in this fight, since I am a work at home mom, but I work in my own name and my husband does his own work. Your comments just skeeve me out.
Amber, we are not wealthy by any stretch, but staying home still made more financial sense for me. I can’t make enough money to pay for child care for two children where we live. When you have to pay someone else to take care of your children while you work, the financial benefits of working aren’t a given. I wanted to be with them anyway, but if I couldn’t have afforded to work if I wanted to.
Okay, that last bit should be “…but I couldn’t have afforded to work if I wanted to.”
My husband and I both work full-time in the public sector, so we don’t make as much money as we could in the private sector, but our health insurance is 100% free for us with very small premiums for our kids. Plus, we’ve got good government pensions waiting at retirement. This set-up works for us and our kids are happy, healthy, and well-adjusted even though they’ve been in day care/preschool the majority of their lives. One of the biggest benefits is that both of us get to spend lots of quality time with our kids in the evenings, weekends, and holidays. If one of us had to work in a different capacity (in a private sector job with longer work hours) so the other could stay home, the working parent would miss bedtime routines, weekend fun, etc. That doesn’t seem fair.
Why should only paid labour be considered valuable? I am perfectly qualified to be my husband’s research assistant, and I choose to trade my skills for affection, love, care, security and all the other things marriage brings, rather than trading them for cash. Why would I use my skills to advance someone else’s career? Lots of smart couples do this.
Sierra, thank you so much for reading, listening and posting such thoughtful comments. Your life as a newspaper reporter sounds exactly like mine, when I was still a full-time newspaper reporter and my sons were very small. The work-family balance wasn’t working on either side.
I’d like to correct one common misconception arising from my essay (and the headline it was given on Salon): that I regret my time at home with my sons. On the contrary, that time was and is precious to me. Would I make the same choice again, knowing what I know now? Maybe not. But I never look back and feel sorry I did it.
What I DO regret is that our system doesn’t offer the supports for families that are common in Europe (as posters mentioned above), that we practically force parents to choose between work and family and then offer no safety net for those who choose the latter. I regret that our employers are so unwilling to offer good part-time jobs with benefits, that they’re biased against job candidates who have taken time out of the workforce on behalf of their families. I regret that family responsibilities are not more respected in the workplace and in American society as a whole.
I’m very glad this discussion is taking place. There’s far too much misinformation out there, too little attention paid to these issues. Talk and debate can only help. Thanks!
There are many jobs which I think are incompatible with having kids. I’m from Canada, and I work in the public sector. I’m coming to the end of my year-long maternity leave, going back to work 3 days a week. My son is and my daughter will be in subsidized, very high quality part time care. I get excellent benefits for all of us, a protected pension and retirement, and our family is protected if my husband (who has a higher paying job in a much more volatile field) ever loses his job — or worse, gets sick or can’t work etc.
It’s a good compromise that works for our family, but we are lucky in many many respects — that I have a job and profession where this is possible, that I have access to care that is excellent, that our family can cope on my reduced salary. There is just not enough support for families, and it seems in many ways the choices facing American moms are worse than most. All in all we need to re-evaluate what working parents need to have a healthy and productive society.
“Why should only paid labour be considered valuable? I am perfectly qualified to be my husband’s research assistant, and I choose to trade my skills for affection, love, care, security and all the other things marriage brings, rather than trading them for cash. Why would I use my skills to advance someone else’s career? Lots of smart couples do this.”
Because your studly hubby could die in a car accident, or put all your money into stocks that crash, or leave you for a secretary, or any number of other things. Nothing in life is guaranteed, and being 100% dependent on your husband’s income is risky for you (and your kids).
At the very least, the job experience you say you’re racking up by helping your husband should be paid, and it should be on your resume, lest studly hubby disappear – so you can feed your kids if/when he’s gone.
http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/116998/lesson_12_working_moms_vs
“Lesson 12: Working Moms vs. Stay-at-Home Moms — Worst Cage Match Ever”, by Jenny Lawson (i.e. the Bloggess)
I’m just going to start posting this for EVERY single Babble article on the so-called “Mommy Wars,” which are stupid and pointless and meaningless and idiotic and designed to make us judgmental bitches, when instead, we could just read the above article and laugh our asses off. Jenny Lawson is a freaking genius.
P.S., this one will work for a bunch of Babble articles/reactions to articles as well:
http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/114390/lesson_eight_im_judging_you
bahahahahahahaha! I love Jenny Lawson.
All your financial eggs in the basket of one spouse’s job … has a number of effects beyond the loss of ten years’ worth of $100k annual income to the stay-home spouse.
If you are divorced after less than 10 years of marriage you have NO rights to any Social Security income based on the income of the other spouse, even though you have lost those years in terms of Social Security’s computation of your individual retirement check. When you’re 30 this may look like a long way off, but now at 65 I’m seeing the impact of exactly that situation back in my 20s.
Today, perhaps, employers are okay with gaps in resume, but when I went back to the workforce they sure weren’t. Not to mention what I’d lost in terms of know-how in the social environment of work.
During my first years back at work, in my early 30s, one of my male coworkers died unexpectedly. His widow, a stay-home wife with four children younger than high school, had worked only one year after college. He had what looked like a lot of life insurance to them, their friends, his coworkers. But in reality it was only five years of the income he had been earning. Even by immediately stopping all his work-related expenses, even by stopping all the different savings plans they had in place, they still had to move out of the family home to a cheaper house in a lower-quality school district. AND she had to get an entry-level job at a salary intended to support one person or a small, young family, not four kids ages 4-13.
My father, a civil engineer, was often heard to remark “I could have money, or I could have children. I prefer children.” I adhere to that philosophy myself. If you were going to make all your life choices based on what’s economically strategic, you’d never have children in the first place. They’re expensive little buggers. But I don’t live my life that way.
I don’t know if you spell checked your article, but there are some spelling mistakes. His job, not he’s job…. Hey if you got to work as a freelancer that means that hopes are high for me!!
I was under the impression that Crittenden was calculating the cost of having children, period, and not just of staying home? Maybe I’m wrong. Regardless, having children is indeed going to cost women (well parents, but women especially) whether they stay home or not. As far as I’m concerned, the biggest risk of staying home is not the lost immediate salary, b/c many of us would not necessarily bring as much home once we shelled out for daycare and other expenses, but it’s the time out of your career- not advancing, not increasing your salary, risking that you may not get back in. That is the problem, which to me is not just about staying home. Society has to fix that. It’s not like working mothers who divorce don’t also struggle financially. I didn’t quite follow Katy’s conclusion. Ideally we could get maternity leave so more women could ease back into the workforce without choosing either/or when their baby is born.
And of course not all moms who stay home are unskilled, with no education, no life insurance, no plan to get back in. The stories of those instances (wage earner dies, mother has no skills, etc.) are indeed unfortunate but are not typical examples.
What no one has ever taken into account, that I have seen is the cost of education vs being a stay at home mom. Many girls I went to school with way back when in a very rural area said they would absolutely not go to college, or only use their free federal or scholarship money, and that was it, because they probably would not work much of their lives, they planned on staying at home. Now I see lots of young professional women with college debt in the six figures staying at home when they need to go to work. To get through my own Bachelor’s I put down maybe 3 or 4 grand right at the end, but paid in my own cash, everything else was scholarship money I earned from being a good student. If I was in the position that I would have gone into debt to pay for an education, I would not have done it, I always wanted to stay at home. I don’t see how many women see it financially responsible of having 6 figure student loan debts, and then choosing to work part time or freelance, it’s economically stupid.
@ Andrea: “I also have sex with him pretty much every day, so he is in peak physical condition, relaxed, happy and calm.”
Sorry, this comment in context with the rest of your post made me a little sad. You certainly *seem* intelligent enough to be aware of and avoid becoming a Stepford Wife. Nonetheless, I certainly hope for your, your children’s, and your husband’s sake that you haven’t subjugated ALL your needs & desires to your husband’s. We women give up so much already–finding that balance between ours & our family’s needs is important to keep from burning out. I hope you’re able to find that balance and joy for yourself…and that activities like sex are enjoyable for YOU, not just to maintain your husband’s peak work performance…and that this healthy message could be passed on to your kids (especially your daughters).
I was fortunate enough to have the kind of career that I could continue part time by teaching and consulting. Even though I am in a happy marriage where my husband makes enough to take care of most of the bills I still think (somewhat wistfully) about where I could have been had I chosen to focus on furthering my career instead of gearing down my career to make more room for family needs. However, if I had the same decision to make again I would make it the same way. I do think all women need a plan B though – they need to know that they can get a job and support their children if needed. For this reason I think that any woman not well educated enough to do so should question her choice to have children until she is adequately prepared to care for them by herself if need be. For those families who have no choice but to have both parents working don’t feel guilty – you are doing the absolute best for your family and some day your children will realize how hard you worked to make sure they were provided for.
Angie, on the contrary I would consider it economically stupid to start a family and become a financially dependent spouse with no education and job training. Not everyone starts a family with college debts in tow, either. (I’d say starting a family and not working with ANY huge debts would not be wise). I absolutely loathe when people infer that an education is wasted on someone who is “just” a mother. Sure, don’t get a doctorate or MBA if you don’t intend to use it, but an education is always an asset. The obvious reason is so that you are actually employable if you go back to work after a few years, or a divorce, or a spouse’s death. You’re also assuming that once someone opts out, they stay home forever. And beyond that, anyone is better off educated. Just because I’m not using what I studied specifically at home, doesn’t mean that my education doesn’t benefit me. I run a household, manage the finances, research everything. It’s even made me who I am and given me experiences that I can convey and teach to my children. I wouldn’t regret it for a second, even if I didn’t intend to return to work.
I take issue with the idea that daycare children are behind. They are, in fact shown to be more school ready than others. Also, there really aren’t enough differences to conclude that these children will need tutors or therapists. It felt like a slight against mothers who place their children in daycare. Please fact check, otherwise you are feeding into the guilt of the whole thing. A quick glance at the well researched book by two working moms is here: http://www.gettingto5050.com/facts.htm
I don’t really care if people work outside of the home or inside the home, for money or for hugs and kisses. We all make the choices that we must out of necessity and choice. We must all support one another because we all HAVE THE SAME JOB – MOTHER. It is the hardest and most important job any of us have. So, the next time you want to talk about the choices you’ve made, be proud that you are doing the best job that YOU can do as a mother, but don’t compare it to another’s experience. It keeps us from the important job, being good mothers to ALL the world’s children.
I decided to stay at home with my daughter because I figured if I was only going to have one kid, then I was going to enjoy being a mom. My mother warned me not to, but I didn’t listen. I had my daughter when I was 38. Now I’m almost 52, my daughter is 13 and I can’t find a job to save my life, even with an advanced degree. Keep your foot in the door somewhere if you want to keep working later. The odds of finding work later are so stacked against you it is unbelievable.
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