Once upon a time, feminism gave way to equal job opportunities for women. It brought women out of the homes and into the work force of America. It also meant women with children choosing to leave their children with nannies, daycares, or relatives while they became bread winners. But no one ever spoke about the hurdles that women would have to jump over to get their kids to daycare, to pay for the nannies, and what it would mean by spending so much time away from the children. Nannies and daycares became full-time parents and dinners would be at later hours and the night-time rush to get kids ready for bed and the next day’s activities would be hectic as hell.
But what about the hurdles that women who chose to be stay-at-home mothers would have to overcome? Husbands looking at their wives for financial support while expecting them to keep up the home and do all the responsibilities that are entailed in raising the children are just some of the issues that women face today as a mom at home. Economic hardships are getting worse on families and the costs of childcare for a woman to go to work have risen extensively. Is it really economically logical for a mom to go to work just so that all her paychecks could go towards paying for daycare or nannies? The answer is NO. What woman would want to go to work all day and have someone else raising her kids, just to come home with a paycheck that leaves nothing extra to help out with the bills in the home? A crazy one, that’s who!
Men need to start realizing that in today’s economic climate, there is no point in causing massive stress in the marriage and family so that the woman could go out into the workforce to make mediocre money just to send it all in payment to whom ever is taking care of the children. I’m sure many stay-at-home mothers feel this same way, but just because she does, does not mean that she doesn’t want to work. Many of us would love to work full-time and help financially, but the truth is that most jobs available to moms don’t pay enough to cover child care costs and to pay the bills. What most men today don’t realize is that it is economically more sane to keep their wives home to raise the children at least until all the children are in school full-time.
If you are in a marriage with a husband who doesn’t want to listen, then go ahead and try to get a job. But after a few paychecks and monthly costs of daycare, he will soon realize that it was a waste of time. Ladies, you are paying someone else to raise your children and essentially working for free since you won’t get to see a dime of your hard-earned salary. I think that you should realize that you can raise your own children for free and it would benefit the kids much more.
One major thing that people often over look… jobs are hard to come by these days and unless you land a full-time job with awesome benefits and a salary of at least $60,000 annually, what’s the point? I don’t know what it’s like in other states since I live in New Jersey, but let me break it down to you of how bad it really is out here. I have a college degree and I can’t find a job. The ones that have actually interviewed me, have offered me salaries of about $30,000 annually. That’s about $1,100 every two weeks and that’s before taxes. I don’t know how much in taxes they take out in other states, but in NJ after taxes and healthcare costs, you’re getting between 27 and 29 percent of your paycheck taken. So, by the time you actually get your paycheck, you’re receiving about 830 bucks… that’s only sixteen hundred freaking dollars every month. Hold this thought for a minute, and do the math later on after I discuss daycare and nanny costs below for this state.
Next big point, I live in northern NJ. I have two kids, one who is full-time in grammar school and the other who goes to pre-kindergarten two days a week for 45 minutes per day. I have called about 100 daycares in the area, quite literally, and they all want a fucking mortgage payment the size of house for watching my kid from 7am to 6 pm five days a week. Not to mention, that my other child gets out of school at 2:50 pm every day, so I would also need to hire a nanny to pick her up from school to drive her to the daycare. Or I could just hire a nanny to watch my youngest every day full-time and to take my other kid to school back and forth every day. The average rate of a nanny these days, where I live, is $20 per hour! The daycare rate for two kids full-time and potty trained is about $1300 a month depending on what shit hole you pick. But as with everything, if you want the best daycare for your children, you need to expect a big out-of-pocket cost. I’ve found amazing daycares, but they charge around $1000.oo for one child full-time. Can you believe that! It’s like getting raped up the ass!
Now, combine the salary as I mentioned it above and the costs of say a nanny, first. Most jobs that are full-time here are 8:30am to 5pm every day. My one daughter has to be in school by 8:30am every day. So, I would need the nanny from 8am until 6pm every day, five days a week. I need to leave time to get to work, so for most places by me, it would take about 30 minutes to get to work. Unless of course the job is farther away and in most cases these days, you’re one lucky son of a bitch if you can land a job near your home. But for math purposes, let’s just say that I would need a nanny for ten hours per day, five days a week. Now at $20 per hour for a nanny, that means I’d have to pay the nanny $200 bucks a day, multiplied by five! That’s one thousand fucking dollars per week, to a fucking nanny! Look above, after taxes with a thirty-thousand dollar annual salary, is it really worth it for our husbands to send us to work??!! One thousand dollars a week, and I’d only be bringing home $1600 a month… do you see my point? Honestly, how big of an idiot does one need to be to understand that the basic math supports the statement that it is financially and logically not worth going to work as a mother.
Sometimes, the situation calls for a daycare or a nanny, I fully understand that. But at what cost… The child’s or the parent’s? As a responsible mother, you need to choose at this point, whether it is better to stay home or to go to work. With barely any jobs out there and salaries not commensurate with the cost of living, I would choose to stay at home and be a full-time mother. Oh, wait, I already did and I’m grateful for it. My kids got to have their mother full-time and the minute my youngest goes to school full-time and the situation changes to where I would only need a nanny for three hours a day, then that’s when I will go and hunt for a mediocre paying job because that is when it would make sense to do such a thing.
The only problem with staying home and being a mom, is the men! Because so far, even in today’s times, men are stupid and don’t realize or don’t care to realize, that even a stay-home-mom is a full-time job! Each kid is a full-time job on its own and now add maintaining a home, food shopping, the kids’ extracurricular activities, and everything else that is involved with being a mother as well as maintaining a marriage… You could say that we “mothers of the home” hold several full-time jobs. But even with that said, I still hear from friends and other mothers, that they are degraded into nothing more than just a “lazy bitch”. This is the worst thing to be called or even considered to be because if we are anything, it is definitely not lazy! Recently, even my fiancé got into caveman mode and told me that all I did was ‘nothing’ at home… I flipped my lid at him! And then, I went to work. I went to work at doing NOTHING! I refused to do anything and made him do the ‘nothing’ that he thought I did. I didn’t food shop. I didn’t cook. I didn’t do laundry. I didn’t do the dishes. I didn’t take the trash out. I didn’t give up sex. I didn’t clean or dust anything. I didn’t iron his clothes for work. I didn’t make the bed. I didn’t pick up his fifty million pairs of socks that he always leaves on the floor for me. I constantly forgot to do whatever he asked me to do. After a full week, he took back his statement and apologized profusely for it. Now he is quite understanding of what my job is at home. And, to this day, I will never let him live that statement down! And that’s what he fucking deserves! The work force isn’t the only place that a woman should be assertive or aggressive or a leader… as I definitely just showed how a woman should be the same things at home.
Wicked Smutty 
Exactly my thoughts. I’ve worked since I was 16, but when I had twins 2 years ago, bringing my brood up to 4, it was stupid for me to go to work. Why work my ass off to never see my kids grow and develop and to just hand my money over to someone else? In the UK, average childcare for one is £11,000 a year, for my twins it’d be near £20,000 for both and that doesn’t include after school clubs for my eldest two and travel expenses.
And here I thought it was rough in my state. That’s crazy to have to work so hard and so much for really no point at all. My compliments are to you, for having the courage to make the choice to stay home with your children. It was the best choice I ever made as I’m sure you feel the same way about your choice.
Great write up. Having 5 kids (all grown now), my wife stayed at home. What a blessing but a lot of struggles and hard work. I will never understand a couple willingly leaving their children to be raised by other people, particularly people with no vested interest in their future.
I don’t know how many of our friends indicated how “lucky” we were to be able to do it. No. There was no luck. We decided before we married that Heather would stay home with the kids. She did. And it was hard. We were dirt poor for many years. We made it work for the benefit of our kids.
Once all the kids were in school full time, Heather went to work as a teacher so she kept the same hours as the kids. She dropped them off and was usually home when they came home. Until then, she did pre-shool and day care to supplement our income.