NYT Article

[kona]

www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/upshot/stressed-tired-rushed-a-portrait-of-the-modern-family.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=pay&smvar=mapreg2&_r=0

I came across this on my Facebook newsfeed tonight.  I realize that it talks about hetero couples only but I feel a lot of the issues ring true for my experience.

I feel like it's really tough to do anything well now. I feel a lot of pressure as the primary breadwinner. M will be cutting her hours even more after the first of the year.  It just feels wrong when she wants to be home with O that she should be forced to work.  After being a 2 full time income household it will be an adjustment.  Mostly it will mean me working more but I think it's worth it.  I think there's a lot of social pressure to keep up the lifestyle after having kids.

We joke frequently about moving to Canada.  We live very close already and we both have family there. ( I do realize it's not all gum drops and rainbows but the grass is always greener)

Anyone have any thoughts?

[kekaellypula]

Move to Canada!!! We love it (other than the weather). With my wife starting her military career and my career as the primary breadwinner it will be interesting to see how we balance having kids. I would love for her to be a stay at home mom but I know she wants to work and have a career plus the government owns her for at least 4 more years.

[healz413]

Yup that article seems right and we are only 3 months into this parenting thing and I'm still on parental leave
Both M and I would love to work part time and be home part time. The cost of living in toronto is so high that, especially given our student loan payments, we couldn't afford to do that unless we lived in a small basement apartment and cut all flexible expenses ( car, cell phones, eating out). Even then it might not work.
I think a move out of toronto is in out not too distant future.

[wittyandwaiting]

I can definitely feel how pieces of the article could ring true, especially for those living in larger urban centres.

I moved out of Toronto when DS was just under a year old (FYI healz413) and found that the decrease in cost of living and the lack of competitiveness for childcare spots afforded me a lot more flexibility, even when commuting back into the city for work.

[2brides]

Yup, this is us. We were fortunate to be able to afford a nanny for the kids first 3y (though, OMG is was expensive) and we both have jobs that can be somewhat flexible. I've been at my job for so long that it isn't a big deal when I need to leave early for a doc appt/sick kid/etc, but I do feel guilty because my work falls to my co-workers as I can't work from home. But I have never felt as though I was in jeopardy of losing my job for doing these things. L's job has waxed and waned in terms of flexibility. She has a lot more "can't miss" meetings, but also has a lot of flexibility to work from home. And as the kids get older, it is easier for her to actually work when the kids are home sick or don't have school.

We do a pretty good job of dividing and conquering the day to day stuff. L tends to deal with the kids' school stuff (teachers, is active in PTA, etc) and I deal with all medical related issues (scheduling appts, making sure all of their health forms for school/camp are done. etc) and ordering the stuff the need for various activities. And we both know what is happening when and what is needed on a day to day basis.

That being said, I never wanted to be a SAHM mom. I really love my job and I think I would be miserable staying home all of the time. I was really ready to get back to work at the end of my maternity leave (4m.) There are things I wish I could change (the length of my commute (hour each way), ability to work from home 1-2x/week, etc) but while it is hectic, I feel it is manageable - especially with 2 parents who are heavily involved and know what is going on.

[kh826]

This article was interesting.
I guess that I am in the minority in that I work FT outside the home and J is a SAHM.
I can't relate to the stress of two parents working FT, but I can definitely still relate to the feeling of "the rat race," and the stress of being the sole breadwinner. It's tough. It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders sometimes, but it works for us mostly right now.

We always planned for J to be a SAHM. Her income had always been less than half of mine when she was working FT (she is a social worker), and since we planned to have at least 3 kids and to try to have them close in age, it just didn't make sense in the long term for her to keep working and then pay for childcare (which would have likely been more than her net salary once we got to 2-3 kids). In addition to that, she has always WANTED to be a SAHM -- so it felt like a no brainer.

This actually all played a big role for us when deciding who would carry our children and who would have the biological link. Since J is a SAHM, and since we are also very close to her family and I (and our children) have her familial last name, it became increasingly important to me that I have an important well-defined role in our family other than just as the breadwinner. ... So it ended up being that I carry the babies and J stays home with them while I work. It was a compromise for her in the beginning (she initially wanted to carry before we started our TTC journey, but she has since changed her mind), but for me it felt like an important role in the creation of our family that I felt I needed to play. I feared that if J carried, had the bio connection, the children took on her last name, and she was the SAHM while I worked... I worried that I would feel like a 3rd wheel in my own family. I worried that I would be nothing more than a check book. I think those fears would have absolutely NOT been realized, and that if J ever wanted to carry that would be just fine, but it definitely was a consideration for us in the big picture planning.

OK, that was tangential -- sorry!

With regard to household/child care roles, we are honestly still figuring it out as we go. J doesn't like to clean. She also is a horrible cook. I love her dearly, but she would admit that she can make maybe 2-3 things decently and the rest is a pretty big crap shoot. I also hate to clean (HAHA), but I do really enjoy cooking. I also like grocery shopping, which J hates. In an ideal world, we would hit the lotto and hire a housekeeper and our life would be exponentially better!
I hate asking J to do certain things that tend to fall to her as the at-home partner (i.e. Can you make sure you wash my black dress pants tomorrow? I need them for Thursday) -- I HATE that. So I often don't articulate things like that and hope that she can read my mind, or I will do it myself (which become inefficient when she does all the other laundry and I have to wash my black dress pants in a load by themselves!). That's a silly example, but the point is that I don't want to treat her like a housewife. I also feel the need to overcompensate a lot when I get home from work to "give her a break." This has gotten WAY better in the 17 months that we have been at this parenting gig, but it still exists.

I will admit that I do have passive-aggressive, resentful thoughts on occasion when I get home after a 10 hour work day, being in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, and J seems tired or frazzled, so I pretend like I'm not tired and put a smile on my face and give the boy a bath solo, feed him dinner, take the dog out, clean the playroom, read him books, put him to bed and then make dinner for J & I. That isn't every night, but there are certainly nights like that, and I try not to feel resentful, but sometimes I do. I'm not good at asking for help, and I'm not good at letting her push herself when she is tired/annoyed/frazzled. I like to be the care taker and she lets me. As we add more kiddos to our family, this is likely going to have to change...

J is a phenomenal SAHM, and I wouldn't change that for the world. So I guess all the other less than ideal parts for me are well worth it.

Regarding cost of living, etc., if it weren't for student loan debt (mostly mine!), we would be in a MUCH different financial position. My monthly student loan repayments are equal to our mortgage payment currently. Once I get those paid off, we can maybe hire that housekeeper!

[kona]

I read all of your responses and I feel even more discouraged. We don't live in a high cost of living area. We have no debt other than our mortgage and it still seems like we don't have enough to do everything we want. (I'm not talking extravagant vacations, just a gym membership for the family or really just not feeling strapped and not able to save anything).

I struggle with feeling like I am the primary breadwinner but also my job is impacted by our childcare situation. I have to leave in order to relieve our nanny now. Before I had more flexibility to stay when I wanted/needed. I feel so torn in so many different directions that nothing gets accomplished well.

kh826 I can't imagine doing all that you do! I think you are a rockstar and just reading about all you do in a day makes me tired...and I'm not pregnant!

I have thought about how I would feel if M did stay home and how we could work around me feeling/treating her life a housewife. Because childcare and housework are not the same. I feel really strongly that if she is home, she is caring for O and will still share housework. I'm not going to lie though, I would love to have dinner made every night! I'm really trying to not just assume that the grass is greener but something has to be better than what I've got now!

[2mrsks (mrs&mrsk)]

We have amazing help- mil and sil and soon to be my mom too.
We make a good household income for our area but don't live extravagantly - mostly bc of housing markets, timing (we married older so wanted to have kids faster). Sure I want to go on vacation but I also desperately want to move and know that we need savings etc Etc.
One day dw will be home with our kids due to necessity and cost of daycare, but right now she "could be" but we prioritize our future and what we have now works. Plus she likes working.
We've been so back and forth - since day 1 of even planning. We are keeping status quo as long as possible now.
We both would rather be home, I feel a big disconnect with both of them. But it's right, right now....