The Luxury of Staying Home

Since when did staying at home with our children become a luxury?

In this day in age, we hear many acronyms for dual earners, most notably, D-I-N-K (double income no kids). These are the hip couples who made the choice to either abstain from having children or to wait until they are more set in their careers or have “lived” life enough as a couple. Alec certainly wanted to live the DINK lifestyle far longer than I ever imagined, but we made a decent compromise and ended it after about 3 years of marriage (together for 7 years).

Oh, and here is a fun fact: children do not ruin your lives! Children can travel. Your life does not have to stop being adventurous and spontaneous once you decide to “settle down.” Yes, they make things a bit more expensive, but just learn to budget better J

I started being a stay at home mom in April of this year. Before that, I had worked both part time and full time with my daughter, both at home and in day-care. We decided it was best for me to focus on Lili and the home. Now when people ask me what I do I tell them I raise Lili. They usually want more but that is all I say, and lately I have been getting surprising responses such as, “What?! You don’t work at all!? How do you do that (financially)?” or “I wish I could stay home, but we need both incomes.” The thought of it being financially unattainable for a parent to raise their own children in their own home is very discouraging.

I have always been an advocate for one parent mainly staying at home with the kids until they at least go off to school, if they aren’t homeschooled. However, I am not against day care, by any means. I see the appeal of working to afford a “better” lifestyle for your family, but my point here is that more and more families simply do not have that option.

Daycare standards are increasing (which is good) as well as demand for quality, thus driving cost up. In my area, a “good” in-home daycare (cheaper than institutional) is at least $200 per week, per child. That comes to at the very least, about $10,000 per year for one child. You would need to pull in at least $13,000 (depending on your filing status) just to cover daycare. Don’t forget to factor in commute, gasoline, and of course time off for the mandated 2 weeks off per year the daycare provider gets. The average institutional daycare in my area is $15,000, meaning pulling in around $17,000.

It is unfortunate that even college-educated families are having a hard time living off one income. It may be, in part, due to starting relationships with double incomes, becoming accustomed to that lifestyle, then having a hard time scaling down once kids come along. I can fully understand that, as we went out almost daily before kids and ran up quite the bar tabs!

I do not have much advice to offer, except to do what you feel is best and right for your family. If that means getting rid of a nice car and cooking at home more, so be it. If you want children, do not let money stand in your way. If you want to stay home, look into all of your options for cost-cutting and making money on the side. If you want to work full time, so be it.

Society gets to dictate far too much of our lives, and how or if we raise children should be completely our decision!