<p>
That’s it in a nutshell. We decided together to make the choices that made sense, which this did, in terms of the best possible childcare. We didn’t take into account the fact that this is the only life I will ever get and the way I wanted to spend it was with my kids. We have both come to know that we didn’t do a good job in creating happiness for everyone.</p>
<p>
Not everyone is wealthy enough for that.</p>
<p>And if/when you changed jobs, did you move, or deal with a different commute/work schedule? Not everyone can afford the nanny/au pair/housekeeper option, even on 2 salaries. Many choose daycare but need to be available when the kids are sick, etc. Sometimes one kid participates in a travel sports team and the parent has to accompany them. The other kids need attending. If the spouse has a job that keeps them from being home during the week, its a challenge. Parents make it work, but it isnt as simplistic as you imply.</p>
<p>I think IP’s solutions are not taking “happiness” into account. Not at all.</p>
<p>It is a matter of choices. When we changed jobs, we made sure it is in the same city. We had to give up many good opportunities as a result, but it was a choice. We also made sure to get high enough paying jobs to afford quality childcare and household help. Which meant prioritizing some jobs over others. We also chose to have just one child. We planned everything down to the T and executed.</p>
<p>For me the decision to stay home with my children was this: I had children to experience the joy and delight in seeing them grow and learn. To give them MY love. I didn’t have a child to give a nanny all those experiences. Children are not just a nice accessory to go with the new house and the new neighborhood. </p>
<p>For the first several years of their lives, I worked. I missed so much. I traveled. I was away from home too much. Like that Harry Chapin song “they learned to talk while I was away”. Working for those years was a bad decision that I will regret for life. I cannot get those years back. Ever. So I quit. And although money is tighter, and I gave up some freedom, the kids are much better off for it.</p>
<p>Part of the point is that those creative solutions will also bear a cost, to someone. If businesses offer more flexible hours, they might need to have more personnel, or a different structure: cost to them, cost that must be offset in profit, etc. If people choose to stay near their extended family for the possibility of childcare, that childcare is still provided by someone who is not doing something else: cost to them, cost to society. If people choose to take jobs that they can drop at need, there is a cost in responsibility: cost to their career, cost to the company that can’t count on them absolutely, cost for covering their job. If highly-educated people drop out of their professions because their professions are too time-consuming to combine with parenting, cost to their careers, yes, but also cost to society that trained them, spent resources that cost money, on teaching them skills they aren’t using. We’re not talking about an individual who might be able, given his or her talents, to somehow combine raising children at home with earning money: society cannot be made up of entrepreneurs. We need doctors and nurses and teachers and salesmen, and their jobs cannot be made to adapt to the needs of a parent and child–not, that is, without a great deal of cost.</p>
<p>
It is absolutely a matter of choices and priorities. Happiness should be a much higher priority than convenience.</p>
<p>
There are no circumstances under which that would have been acceptable to me.</p>
<p>Has it occurred to you that not everyone’s lives can be so “planned”? What would you have done if you had triplets? If you/your wife became gravely ill and could not work, or if there were not good job opportunities for you in your area?</p>
<p>If the intent is to facilitate the woman’s continued place in the work force, a nanny does not help a bit when the woman is on bed rest.</p>
<p>I actually * was a nanny* when I became pregnant,which would have be OK, but then I was placed on complete bed rest at 14 weeks until delivery, 16 weeks later.</p>
<p>Paying for household help was not an option and in any case would not have kept me in the workforce.</p>
<p>Who took care of your child when he was little? What about during school vacations, holidays? Summer break? Were they outside caregivers? How many changes did you make in caregivers? Were there ever any problems that arose?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That would be true if we could control all aspects of our lives, which we cannot.</p>
<p>We basically made a plan and executed it as well but that was only possible with a huge portion of good luck. I find it humbling that we were able to do it, I don’t berate others about not being able to do it.</p>
<p>I’ll also add that at any time the grand plan can fall apart. If you live long enough, it’s only a matter of time. My parents were doing very well until my mother’s parents were both diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It created a lot of chaos in our family and we dealt with it but that as not something planned, not something one can plan for. Yes, my mother and her parents had made plans for their eventual care but for both of them to be struck down early by a devastating disease? No, there is no plan that includes that.</p>
<p>So, yes, tradition keeps us bound by these unrealistic expectations in the work place. Other countries have managed to factor in children, elderly parents, sick spouses and the like. We can do it too and have made some progress but there is a long way to go.</p>
<p>My mother was a stay at home mom</p>
<p>Her brother became a doctor.</p>
<p>She had the intelligence to certainly at least be a nurse.</p>
<p>But she came from the old school, and was a good mother.</p>
<p>My brother today is a multi-millionaire because of her good efforts and tutelage.</p>
<p>Success can be measured in many ways.</p>
<p>My brother’s wife, an architect, was also a stay at home mom, and her kids have all gotten into top schools.</p>
<p>Since when has motherhood become a subject for denigration.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wonder if your help felt/feels as in control of their lives as you do? I cannot help but speculate that their lower economic status left them in not such a good position.</p>
<p>“Getting a nanny” is also a cost: hiring a person to take care of your children means that you are not able to be with them, personally. That is a cost, to the child. If it’s a good nanny, it might not be a huge cost, but it is a cost. It’s a cost to the parent, in missing time during which to connect with the child, to be a parent. And, of course, it is maddeningly simplistic to say that by choosing a smaller house and/or a more lucrative career anyone could afford a nanny at all. Society could not survive without workers of all kinds, whether they are well-paid or not. Should people who are not well-paid–like teachers–not have children? That’s some cost. If we as a society want children, value children, we must collectively pay the cost to bear, raise, nurture them well–or we will pay the cost of not having done so.</p>
<p>I’ll add that my mother and father both worked. They’re both good parents. Sure, we’ve had our issues over the years but none of them had to do with their employment status.</p>
<p>My sister and I both chose to be at home mothers for the first years of our children’s lives. It annoys me to no end that people have asked me if that hurt my mothers feelings. As if I made my choice as a rejection of how I was raised and that only my mother would take it as a rejection of her choice when my father also worked full time!</p>
<p>I’ve worked for stretches and been stay-at-home for stretches. Financially, I’ve had the option to work or not work for the last 15 years or so. Right now I’m not working and may very well just be retired permanently.</p>
<p>Have I stayed home because I’m dumb? lol, as I wave to DH pulling out of the driveway each morning and go sit down with a second cup of coffee and the morning papers, I feel like I’ve been rather smart. By stepping away from the career a bit when we had kids, my spouse sort of surged ahead. It made him happy to do so. It made me happy to have the financial latitude to work or not work according to what was best at the moment for the family – and for me.</p>
<p>I really hope my DD is this fortunate.</p>
<p>For that matter, I really hope my DS is this fortunate! He’d make a great stay-at-home dad.</p>
<p>
And who watches the nanny/housekeeper’s children, if she has any? </p>
<p>I haven’t read “The Help”, but I am looking forward to seeing the movie shortly.</p>
<p>Jym, she’s not allowed to choose to have children, because she chose a less-remunerative career. Problem solved!</p>
<p>marysidney,</p>
<p>Ahhh… the caste system at its best!</p>