<p>A friend of mine who is dealing with an empty nest, wants to renter the workforce, but is flummoxed because her skills have not been kept apace with the current market.
She also is wanting to give her own kids advice as how to not repeat her position, but at the time, she didn’t know what else to do.
We both married men who were traditional in that money = value, and if you weren’t bringing in much money, then you were the one who spent more time making up for it. ( i.e. being responsible for the house and the kids as well as your out of the house responsibilities)
Her husband worked swing shift and required overtime on weekends ( 3 wkends a month)for about 15 years while their children were growing up.
They didn’t have available family to help and didn’t feel they had enough income to hire assistance. ( plus special needs kids, but didn’t qualify for respite)
So essentially she was a single parent, but she made the decision to stay home most of the time with the kids ( while attending school in hopes of becoming more employable), because otherwise she wouldn’t see her spouse at all.
Now she sees advice columnists advising young women with disparate incomes to their husbands, to consider the hours worked, and not the pay.
Which makes sense except how do you quantify the hours required to raise children?
Specially ones with special needs who don’t sleep?
I told her that she did a great job, and that she has many skills that make her employable as she had to discern what was needed and then learn how to do it.
But she doesn’t want her kids to be in the same predicament as being an empty nester with outdated skills.</p>
<p>* My kids* aren’t planning on children, but I don’t know what I would tell them if they were.
Although they are both with men who aren’t likely to work swingshift mandatory overtime jobs, and are pretty likely to want to have lots of hands on with their children.
I love the millennials.
I think we did a great job raising the next generation!</p>