“You’re so lucky you can afford to stay home”

M

merekas

New member
Is anyone else a SAHP because you can’t afford NOT to be? I love being a SAHM but I also have to be bc if I was paying for daycare, it’d cost about 75%+ of my income. That’s assuming I could even get a spot at a daycare. I’d rather be home with my baby myself than make a little bit more money than we do now.

My husband and I are super frugal. I keep a pretty strict budget, shop for groceries based on coupons/sales, we don’t go out or get takeout, I cloth diapers to save money. I put a lot of effort into limiting our spending so we can live on one income as comfortably as possible. I get so irked by comments about how lucky I am to afford to stay at home, partly bc of my effort to make it affordable, and partly bc if I was working we’d barley have more money than we do now!

Can anyone relate?
 
@merekas I've been a SAHM for like, 7 years now. And to keep myself from going crazy over comments like that, or feel the need to justify with what we do to make it work, I just assume things about them right back. Like, maybe they're barely making it by with a two income household, maybe they're jealous they can't stay home, maybe they don't want to go deeper and say "You must sacrifice a lot in order to make that happen for your family." Maybe they've never stayed home and literally can't comprehend how much work it is to make a 50s budget work in 2024. Basically, ignorance is bliss, and that helps me not to get angry at these comments, because I know, and you know, and every other SAHP knows, that it's not easy. Instead of a retirement fund, we get to see all of our kids' firsts. Instead of a paid lunch break, we get to hear our kids' laugh and grow. Instead of eating take out, we get to learn to cook better, and teach our kids those absolutely vital skills, as well. Instead of ____, we get ____. And the people who have never experienced this, literally can not understand it. Simple as that. No need for their validation or the need to defend yourself and all that you do in order to pull it off. You do a lot, and you know it. Own that shit!
 
@jlt83 Being a SAHM is definitely teaching me how to let things roll off my back! I’m only a little less than a year in tho, so I’m still working on it lol
 
@jlt83 Honestly, this. My husband and I had this conversation today because I became a SAHP about 2 months ago and had a lot of preconceived notions. In doing our budget today, I had to reflect and challenge my old way of thinking (he works = his money)
 
@jlt83 I agree with this. However, the woman (in my case) who asks about me staying at home would get highly irritated and upset if I ever pointed out I got to be home for their firsts. However, that might not teach them to be so rude in the first place.
 
@amyk I never verbalize these things. If their ignorance hurt me, it's best to just internally make peace with it by assuming it comes from a place of hurt within themselves. Because you could go back and forth all day. But bottom line, we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Some people just have blinders on and make bold assumptions that make them unknowingly (hopefully) look like asshats.
 
@jlt83 Yeah agreed. My own mom had to work through our childhoods (though being a SAHM would’ve driven her nuts because she’s not the most motherly woman) and I made one comment about how be ling a SAHM is no joke…. She got instantly offended and was about to yell at me for DARING to suggest that anything other than her experience as a working mom could be hard/er.

She also, throughout most of my life, makes comments about how her MIL got to “stay at home and play with babies all day so she shouldn’t have needed to hire someone to come clean for her…” that was after my Nana had TWINS….
 
@merekas I started off as a SAHM out of desire. Then our circumstances changed drastically and now I can’t afford to not be home but I also can’t afford to be home. The ultimate rock and hard place scenario.
 
@merekas For real. There’s no winning. I’m attempting to start a business from home to maybe boost our income even just a bit but with a 3yo and a 7mo home it’s not easy. It’s a lot of late late nights and early mornings.
 
@gtdispomed9093 Same! We need extra income but if I get a job, our subsidy for health insurance goes down so our (already hard to afford) premium goes up… and we would have to pay for child care. Definitely rock and hard place.
 
@merekas It's not that I can't afford not to be, but it's the financially responsible choice to stay home even though I miss work.

My husband's job pays well, but it's an executive job with teams in different countries/time zones. It's a 24/7 job that includes last minute and international travel. There is literally no time chunk during the week that my husband could consistently watch the kids.

If I were to go back to work I'd need childcare and backup childcare for any and all hours I'd work. There's no way my salary would cover that.
 
@dmcaturan I’m in a similar situation. My husband frequently gets 30 minutes notice that he has to be gone for 24-48 hours. My job also had irregular hours and on-call moments, so it was a no-brainer.
 
@merekas Yes, mostly. I had 3 under 3 by the time we were done, and it made no sense to put all three in daycare at the cost vs me staying home.

It only part of it in our story re: finances.
 
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