An article in the opinion section of the newspaper caught my eye this past week. It was titled: Priceless (but with a cost). She delved into the whole working/non-working mother issue, and I of course was all ears.
Basically, she went into it about how she worked, had her first baby and kept working. But when her second came a long she decided she couldn't do it any longer and decided to stay at home. Fast forward 10-12 years and she finds herself a divorced mother of 2 teenage boys, working 3 part time jobs to pay the bills. She is not uneducated, she is just un-experienced. She dropped out of the work force, and went part time, right when her career was about to take off. So what does that leave you with? Not much.
I don't think choosing to stay home is a bad idea. Not at all. I did it. I wanted to do it. I enjoyed it. But I'm only 27 and most of the people showing me how to do things and who are a level above me are 25. There is no way that I could have stuck around at home longer, and still been able to get my feet off the ground professionally.
And while some may say, who cares about a professional career, I have to say what about divorce, death, or injuries? I mean, yes it sucks to think about those things but you just never know what life may hand you. Bad things happen to good people everyday. I am sure we could all list someone who life has been unfair to. At least I know I can.
So where does this leave you? I don't know. I would just say, it was a good reminder for me to think about. Our economic system makes staying home an expensive choice, and I don't just mean living on a tight monthly budget. I mean that while you're sacrificing the eating out and the new clothes to make ends meet, you are also sacrificing professional advancement, and while no one cannot hire you because of your age, I am sure they can find someone a lot younger than you with a lot less responsibilities, with the same, or better, qualifications. It's a tough world for mothers, everyone knows what is best for us, but only we can really know what's best.
4 comments:
Definitely a good point and one I've thought of myself. I remember hearing from Steph that her in-laws were in the same predicament early on in their marriage/family: Dad worked, Mom stayed at home with two small kids. The way that they provided security should something happen (in the event of death) was to pay for a million dollar life insurance policy. That would pay off everything they owned, send the kids to school and set the mom up. But I'm sure that was $$$.
Yeah, we have 1 M policies on both of us right now. I'm starting part-time after the baby, rather than full-time, but the bottom line is that either of us would have to pay for child care and other things would the other pass away. Don't know how much their policy was then, but ours now is a 20 year term and totals around $800/year with us young and in good health. I'm happy to have the back up policy, but I'm super stoked about part-time status right now! (If the baby ever. comes. out.)
In regard to Michael's parents, his mom did and still has professional ramifications...she's in her 50's with a master's in TEFL but has a really hard time getting jobs because of lack of experience (and probably other factors). For what it's worth. She didn't go back to school until the kids were in middle school.
We should up our life insurance policies! I think we have about 400,000 on each of us. Enough to survive, but barely...
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