<p>As Sportsmama said in post 18, don’t worry too much about the future; things change. When I was in h.s., a group of friends predicted that I would be married early and stay at home with the kids. That was a really weird prediction since a. I was a nerd in h. s. and b. I didn’t have any serious relationships during h. s. I graduated from college, worked, finished one graduate degree before I married. I was nearly finished with my second degree before I had my son when I was 42. I have not had a paying jobs since that time. I enjoyed working and occasionally miss it but it just wouldn’t have worked well for our family. I was fortunate that we had enough $$ for me to stay home. My H is a wonderful person but would not have done a good job with primary parenting; many times I felt like I was a single parent. Our lifestyle wouldn’t work for many but it pretty much worked for us.</p>
<p>I’m a teacher and am very fortunate that I’ve been able to make changes in my teaching career that has allowed me to have a lot of time with my children.</p>
<p>I went back to get my masters after working for a year. Getting that done right away made my future choices easier. I was married for 10 years before having my first child at 34. I had my second at 36. I worked in special education and continued to work in this field until my children were 1 and 3. I had a wonderful home daycare that they stayed at during the day.</p>
<p>When they were 1 and 3 we moved to a new state. I eventually ended up working at a morning JrK program where my children go/went to school. It’s been perfect. So for me, getting grad school done right away, having my children in my mid 30s, and finding a job within my teaching field that gave me some flexibility in the afternoon, has made being a working mom much easier.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We live a variant of this formula. For both of us, family comes first and career second. To achieve this, we conceive of ourselves as a team/partnership at every turn. Each year the solution is slightly different, but in essence my spouse has worked fulltime in a high-stress career with unusual, heavy, flexible hours. My work (following marriage) was in teaching and I made of it whatever I could in each given year, some better than others. My spouse declined some opportunities that were career-wonderful but family-unfriendly. That’s just what our values are, so think carefully about that when you consider whom to marry. Neither of us is acquisitive on a material level, but we were both raised that way, too. </p>
<p>Because of this, he recognizes the monetary and emotional value of every hour I spent at home with our children. Also because of this, we both maximized the benefits of having a bizarre schedule where we were almost never home with kids at the same hours! His work is mostly late/afternoons, every evening and every weekend. Mine more typically ran very early morning-to-4 p.m., M-F with some home preparation I squeezed in around the highchair scene. Because our hours were “incompatible” we never did engage in a daycare center, although those can be great, too. </p>
<p>I think good preparation now is to learn to be happy socially when alone, independent in your social self-concepts. It’s no disaster to go alone to a movie, travel alone; learn to walk into a restaurant solo and when they say “just one?” you are fine with that. Then if you find a partner whose hours are weird, you will be able to shift over children so that you can enjoy being the sole adult taking care of 1-3 children without resenting his absence for work. </p>
<p>I made it a priority to keep teaching (my career) even if it was some part-time courses, during the transition years. That way when I wanted to balloon it up to full-time teaching some years, there were no glaring gaps in my resume. “Keep a hand in your work” at all times, in other words, even if you do something just an evening or several a week. </p>
<p>Never imagine future spouse “babysitting” or “helping you with” the kids. Instead, conceive of it as him “home taking care of his kids right now” regardless of how many hours per week that is. </p>
<p>Also we used joint accounts; all money earned went into that single pot. Some weeks he earned it by his work and I earned it, too, either by working my job (part or fulltime) OR being home so no day-care costs were needed OR by having more domestic time so we ate home-cooked meals that much more often and ate at restaurants/fastfood/convenience take-outs that much less often. Your non-working hours (and his, too) have tremendous monetary value. There are $ equivalent charts on these homebased tasks on that 'net. I was not consoled as I drove someone to a lesson that a “chauffeur” made “$x” per hour, but it did cause us both to recognize the economic value of so-called non-working hours by each of us. </p>
<p>If he can truly value your work (home and professional) and not regret your lesser paycheck, and if you can cope and thrive when he’s not present alongside you and the kids are noisy/nasty/wet…in the long run you can both balance things so you have satisfying work and he has a satisfying relationship with his children and you.</p>
<p>The hardest part for us was never being able to live close enough to either set of parents to ever have that grandparent help, or exchange among brothers of group-family time with young children. It’s hard to be all alone as a couple with kids far from family, due to careers. But we couldn’t do anything about that one except call “vacations” a sweaty visit to our childhood homes a few times each year.</p>
<p>Also, don’t buy retail. Discover ebay; bargain; consignment clothing; funky bed-breakfast getaways instead of cruise-vacation; live in smaller spaces than your parents; downscale your expectations about what you drive and how many vehicles you really need. That won’t turn you into a one-earner household but it will help stretch whatever you both DO earn, considerably.</p>
<p>I was able to take a lot of time off when my girls were younger then after they went to school I was able to have a work schedule that was part time 3 days a week so I was always able to take them to school and pick them up afterwards to help with homework and be involved in their afterschool activities. My H is in engineering and worked high stress jobs including upper engineering management for many years.</p>
<p>I work in accounting and have been extremely fortunate to have worked for the same company for over 20 years. I have been able to work at home whenever I needed to and have now been back working fulltime for a year and a half. My H lost his job a year and a half ago when the start up he was working for ran out of money. My company was very happy to have me back as a fulltime employee because of all the years I had worked and contributed on a part time basis. My H is now doing consulting work from home so he is much more involved this summer with the girls and their activities.</p>
<p>I have told both my girls that if they want to have families they need to find a career where they can have a good balance between work and family life. My H and I were also in our 30’s before having our D’s and we owned our home for several years and had no other debt.</p>
<p>Adding: there is no one right way to any of this; it’s very personal and hopefully mutual. There’s nothing inherently better about being at home more hours with children. Daycares sometimes make the best balance for a family, both emotionally and financially.</p>
<p>You can be really creative at times. One year I joined with a next-door neighbor working mom; together we hired an early-childhood education student and began a neighborhood nursery school in our own homes. That took care of hers and my kids, plus some others, and worked for that year…and I hope that young lady now runs her own nursery school as she was our “intern” before there was such a word. Count on your creativity to break into new solutions. Your entire generation will be grappling with this all at the same time. You won’t be alone. </p>
<p>Some women genuinely don’t feel happy in the at-home times, as it can be truly discombobulating and isolating by its very nature, although many find groups and fabulous creative solutions to all of that.</p>
<p>But my mom, for example, hated domesticity and 50 years ago (long before the modern Women’s Movement) paid someone the exact same wage she could earn outside the home, just to keep her sanity! The above poster who mentioned looking out for her own well-being, and not just what’s best for the kids all the time, had a lot of wisdom there too. My mom said to her, it was a “wash” and if she worked (in those days) at ANYTHING outside the home for $5.00 an hour, only to pay a domestic caregiver that same $5.00 an hour, in the end she was happier; she had created a job for someone else. And somehow my brothers and I managed to grow up okay.</p>
<p>So watch out for you in the balancing act, ok?</p>
<p>
And what may be right at one phase of life may not be so great at another. So it’s important to give yourself a life check-up from time to time and make sure you’re in a good place.</p>
<p>Let me add my voice to those that say everybody is different and what works for me, may not work for you.</p>
<p>I was all prepared to have a career and put having a family off until later, but it didn’t work out that way. So I embraced the change in my life and made the kids my focus. Luckily I had a husband who agreed with that choice and supported my decision. I had my first at 24, and my last at 28. I never worked full time while the kids were home. I worked part time, or on a Saturday when their father could be home. I know I could have while they were in school, but what would we have done over the summer? So I worked part time until they graduated high school and then went back full time. It’s been wonderful for me. I know the kids appreciated that I put them first, and I guess I always felt that the career could wait.</p>
<p>I know others here have expressed the opinion that you should get your education and career established and then have kids, but I don’t see how you put an important career on hold. I heard a very famous fashion design who had a few kids first, and then started her career say that she never regreted it for a second, and you can always start a career, but sometimes putting having kids off too long means it doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>I think you have to decide what your priority is, and how it would work for you.</p>
<p>All of the above is made possible by having a reasonable, fair-minded spouse who cares as much as you do about the family and is willing to make compromises when necessary.</p>
<p>If you’re seeing a guy, and your closest friends and family think that he is bad news, dump him. It doesn’t matter how much you love him or how sure you feel that he is the one. Love is blind, but your friends and family are not. If the people who you love and trust the most think that his character is not what it should be…run.</p>
<p>Work/life balance is different for everyone. I’m a much better mom leaving the house everyday and coming home everynight. My kids were in day care and grew up into basically fine young people. Ironically my husband burned out on work and now has what more or less amounts to his own business and he stayed home with the kids during middle school/high school years doing the doctor appointments, braces, sports, carting/hauling etc… you can NEVER underestimate the need for your marriage to be important and to work with each others differences. I miss his salary but I’m happier with a happy husband. I was working from home one year two years ago and miserable so clearly I’m still not ready to “stay home.” With regard to babies, I really don’t think any woman “knows” how she’ll feel about returning to work until after the baby is born. I’ve known many a woman who said she was “going to stay home” only to see her back in the workplace before the 6 month checkup and I’ve been around high powered woman who to put it bluntly were leaking milk and crying their eyes out in their offices, in meetings, in the cafeteria, in the bathrooms who thought with all certainty they would “return to work.” You just never know. The other hard path is to find out what that balance is and how it will impact you as you advance in a company. I notched it back at one point where I was traveling all over the country, up all night writing and returning e-mails and just generally was in my “dream job” of my youth and was in the office one morning at 5 AM realizing that the title and the salary weren’t really the two most important things. Now I have a step-down down with a decent salary, little travel and I’ve been happily working “at that level” for the past ten years and even now with the two of the three kids leaving home I really have no desire to promote myself into a 24/7 work life. 50 hours is about my limit. Travel corporate plane only is my travel motto. The order of importance to me: my husband, my kids, my job.</p>
<p>Oh I married at 29, first child at 32…last child just before 39th birthday. Grad school done by 26. I’d be all about my boys not marrying until their very late 20s or even 30ish and I tell them that every chance I get.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the great advice so far! :)</p>
<p>I think you have received a lot of good advice. Keep in mind how you feel now may be different than how you feel when you actually have the kids. I was sure I was going to work full time. And I did for a while. It worked because I had a flexible job and great child care (long time friend of my mom’s—completely trusted her–my mom was ill and couldn’t help). Eventually, I wanted to be home. DH and I worked together to make it all work.<br>
I’d advise keeping your options open. Buy a slightly less expensive house. Finish grad school and have a nest egg. Consider alternatives to the typical career path in your field. Choose your partner–pay attention to your friends and family as a PP noted. It takes flexibility to balance it all.</p>
<p>I have been working full time, having family and going to school until I turned 40. There is no problem, it is fun. I did not need to go to school, I did because employers paid for it, I got my MBA. My kid benefitted greatly, since although I did not need degrees to perform my job, it was much easier to find a next one with MBA. Found most of mine 9 jobs by using ads in local newspaper. Kid was very happy to graduate from college debt free because we were able to pay from our 2 payrolls. Have fun, do not plan too much, it takes away the excitement. I love my job, family and I used to love going to school especially that it was free.</p>
<p>When you get married, don’t buy your house based on two incomes. That in itself will destroy other options.</p>
<p>My husband has been a stay at home dad for 20 years. I would not recommend it for most. As I recently said on another thread, we all need a wife - wives cook and clean and buy the kids’ clothes and volunteer at school and send Christmas cards. Most husbands don’t so the wife is working and still doing almost everything. We have a cleaning lady and I cook most meals. H does mow the lawn and take care of the pool. Since the kids are in school all day and he doesn’t cook or clean, he’s got a pretty darned sweet life and I don’t.</p>
<p>If we bought house based on one income, we would be living in slams with bad public schools. We waited for several years until both of us were working and bought house in nice school district and other benefits for kids. And nobody is required to cook, clean, do lawn, paint, fix …etc. You could hire help for everything and most foods you can buy half ready in a store, like washed lettuce, cooked chicken… we eat lots of fruits and vegies with very little prep. time or no prep. time at all. I did lots of garage sales kid’s purchases, saves tons of time and $$, you can buy at couple houses everything that your child needs. I always had many more than needed, so if winter coat gets dirty, we have another one. Rule is never do laundry more than once a week or even 2 weeks.</p>
<p>I thought it got harder to work full-time when the kids got older. There were more demands to chauffeur them around, more opportunities for them to get into trouble. Telecommuting made all the difference in the world to me. I was just lucky that technology developed enough so quickly that I could just hit send with a mass e-mail to distribute documents instead of packaging up a bunch of fed ex envelopes.</p>
<p>I took D. everywhere after work. But I was not going to school at that time anymore. When she was 7, she was in 5 different activities, they lasted for several years, I was waiting patiently until she dropped couple. She did when practices in her sport got to be every day. She was involved in 3 all the way until she graduted from HS, but after 16 everybody drives in our area. I also was exercising for at least 1,5-2 hrs/daily, but this was easy, while kid is at practice. We did not have sit down dinners, mostly ate in a car, but we never went to fast food either, was not fast enough for us, every 5 min. counted. I just packed everything to work, kept it in fridge there. Well, everybody is different. But with positivie attitude and cooperation and understanding that we are not superheroes, but ordinary people who cannot possibly do everything and need to hire out some house maintanence activities, it is very doable. I cannot imagine myself at home. It is very depressing, I felt very disconnected 8 time periods that I was between jobs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you’re going to do this – and it’s what my husband and I did – it needs to be clear from the outset that both people’s contributions the family are equally valued. </p>
<p>The compromise parent is likely to earn less money than the other parent – but that person should not have less of a role in family decisions. This becomes especially important, I think, as the kids grow up. In an empty nest household in which one person previously put work second, you may have two people working full-time and giving great effort to their work, but because of past career decisions based on family priorities, one is earning far more than the other. It takes real effort to consider the two people “equal partners” in that situation.</p>
<p>Another thought – Although one person may put work first, it’s important for that individual to stay as informed as possible about what’s going on in the kids’ lives. Both parents may have to work together to make this possible. When it comes to making major family decisions, two heads are better than one. Both of those heads need to be well informed.</p>
<p>Don’t let your spending grow to the size of your income, so you cm have flexibility abort the kind of work you take. Hopefully your partner cm see the value in this.</p>
<p>One thing we strive for is sitting down to dinner as a family at least 4 nights/week. The easiest night is generally Sunday. It is tough with 2 teenagers in sports, etc, but if you read & believe the studies your kids will be better for it. This does not have to be home cooked food - pizza or leftovers are just fine!</p>
<p>Sit down dinner has never worked for us, everybody just eat too much, including me, there is always pound or 2 after sit down dinner. With 2.5 hours daily practices could not fit it in. But it was lots of out-of town weekend meets, that lasted several days. We were together for many hours in the same room, on the stands, restaurants…we did not miss sit down dinners at all. As I mentioned everybody is different, as long as everybody is flexible and open minded, it will work out one way or another, do not worry ahead of the time.</p>