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

[joe4live]

@merekas I could have written this myself. Same thing. Like I am fortunate I am not a single mother that has to use head start or whatever to wait tables. But these comments almost always come from people that drive 30k$+ cars and live in brand new suburb houses, eat out a lot, buy the brand new clothes monthly for them and their kids. I choose to sacrifice material things so I can spend more time with my children. Truthfully, historically child care has been such an extreme luxury for the ultra rich and elite. The fact that most families in America use it IMO is a major symptom of something wrong because economically it does not make any sense.

 

[seabiscuit]

@merekas I also relate to this. I live in a HCOL area. Daycare is super competitive to get into an expensive. I have 2 toddlers. Daycare would cost more than what I'd earn. Financially, it doesn't make sense for me to not be a SAHM. I also prefer it and it's what I always wanted to do.

My husband had 2 working parents. When we first got together he never imagined or wanted me to be a SAHM. But then financially, it's what made the most sense. And after 3.5 years of this, especially with our first being born at the height of the first pandemic lockdown (May 2020), he's so thankful and relieved that I'm a SAHM.

The plan was initially for me to go back to work when #2 hits kindergarten, but we're quickly realizing that between school hours ending by 3, teacher in service days, holidays that most jobs don't get off (like yesterday), snow days (like today), sick days, and school breaks, it might not even be feasible for me to go back to work until our girls are old enough to stay home alone.

 

[darkfirefly]

@merekas I've been a stay at home dad for 5+ years now. I just let comments like that roll off my back. Because ultimately it doesn't matter. If they're saying from a good place I appreciate the effort. If they're trying to be a dick about it then that's most certainly more a problem with them and I refuse to give those type of people power over me.

 

[patewins]

@merekas I’ve been a SAHM for 8 years. My salary barely covered daycare. I also would have probably been fired because I had health complications after my oldest was born that would have required multiple sick days I didn’t have. So I stayed home. For a while, we were fine financially. Money is tighter now and I’m picking up contract work where I can to help. We shop smarter, limit our spending, and make sacrifices. My youngest has a year and a half left of preschool. After that I plan to return a least part-time, but we’re trying to avoid it because of how often they’re out of school.

We just finished winter break, and they caught strep. Then they were back half a week and school closed for records days. Then MLK. Today is a snow day. Tomorrow might be if it doesn’t get above 0 on the windchill. My husband was like, thank goodness you’re home.

I’m worried because I’ve been out for so long. Our hope is I can find writing opportunities. I’m looking for freelance jobs while I work on my novel.

But OP, I get it all the time. People don’t understand that it isn’t always a choice. I didn’t have flexibility then, and I’m struggling to find it now outside of freelance or things like Instacart. The way I see it, we’re doing what works for our family. And it’s none of their business.

 

[choidaga]

@merekas Yeah I get this a ton too. My first pregnancy was surprise twins and the cost of daycare for two newborns... I don't think "sticker shock" can effectively communicate just how gobsmacked I was! We also knew we wanted one more, so it only made sense for me to stay home. I admit this is what I wanted anyways though! I always dreamt of being a SAHM and didn't know if we could afford it, but now we can't afford not to, lol.

 

[hiskid47]

@merekas ftm and i have a career that i miss dearly and going back to that would be breaking even unfortunately if we decided to go the daycare route. i might go back on call for my sanity to get out of the house but why? to miss my family time on the weekends? luckily my husbands income is more than enough but it’s not about that really

 

[colmustard]

@merekas Daycare costs more than I was making a month. My position was eliminated while on an unofficial mat leave anyways. Too few employees for FMLA where I was working and the only woman to ever work there so they didn't have any mat leave policies in place so there wasn't anything I could really do about it. It was remote work too, I loved it. I won't lie I really miss working sometimes, I think it would feel like a break at this point. It's just me and the baby at home most days since my partner travels for work mo-fri, it becomes groundhog day too often.

Hopefully once he's old enough for some sort of preschool program I can go back at least part time. Those seem to be cheaper and have more openings than daycare.

 

[seekinghope]

@merekas When we decided to have a kid, I was working an on campus job but they also had on campus daycare that was INSANELY cheap. Like, my on campus job would have covered it just fine for one kid.

Then we got smacked with the news of twins. We could not afford childcare for 2 kids at the same time. Then by the time they were a little older, we figured out they both had autism and later, ADHD. Basically, there are no jobs out there that would work with the limited schedule I have so it makes no sense for me to work at this time.

 

[psh2124]

@merekas This is us exactly! Between gas money and daycare it cost more than I made a month, we would have lost money for me to go back to work. I had a friend go back because they have so many bills but they’re in more debt and they don’t understand why. I tried to tell her why I didn’t go back because I know she made less money than I did but I almost feel like she didn’t want to hear it so I dropped it. I am also super thankful this was our decision but I agree, this comment gets under my skin.

 

[mem5]

@merekas I have always framed this sentiment as “having the choice is a privilege,” for this exact reason.

 

[christianguy03]

@merekas I became a sahm out of necessity. I was working when my husband was off, but home all the other days. My paycheck barely covered all the fees of daycare. So when I got laid off during covid I just never got a job.

Now my kid is in kindergarten. And I still don't have a job. Between getting him to and from school, my husband's ever changing schedule, sick days (so many so far), and school days off, I don't think I could hold a job.

So I'm looking at other projects and volunteering to fill my time and trying to be more of a homemaker.

It's still not ideal for me, but I'm going to make the best of it. Luckily we moved to a new state less than a year ago and I have no friends here, so no one to ask me why I don't have a job.

 

[markoni]

@merekas I think to a degree it's a face saving move. As in the reason they don't stay at home is it's expensive not that they really don't want to do it.

 

[theweebabyjesus]

@markoni Yeah I think women know they're damned if they do damned if they don't. So they say "oh I have to go to work" because that mostly shuts it down.

 

[markoni]

@theweebabyjesus You should see some men justify it.... I'm a sahd!

 

[tanananana]

@merekas Yup. We were in a different place financially when I first started staying home when my daughter was a baby than we are now, and it was basically because of daycare costs that we wouldn't gain much monetarily if I'd returned to work right away, if we gained anything at all. I worked for a few months when she was a toddler and paying for daycare still was a struggle that we decided wasn't worth it.

I got store brand/less expensive everything, bought a lot of her clothes second hand, we didn't eat out much, we didn't go on vacations, we did without whenever possible, and we scrimped wherever possible, but there were still times that I was buying smaller packs of diapers, smaller cans of formula, and partial tanks of gas to make our dollars go farther and/or we borrowed money from our parents to stay afloat. So people telling me things like "you're so lucky you can afford to stay home" and "staying home is such a luxury" was like a slap in the face when we were only doing it because it was more expensive for me to work also.

 

[roland7777]

@merekas Yes and I still have to freelance to make ends meet. I move being home but it’s hard financially.

 

[texland0002]

@merekas Absolutely can relate. We are the exact same situation and have dealt with the same comments over the years

 

[uniquetexasgirl]

@merekas Yeah, I live in Los Angeles and daycares here are expensive (as well as everything else). Luckily my husband makes enough to support us all but almost my whole paycheck would be the cost of a daycare so it doesn’t make sense. Plus I always wanted to be a SAHM for at least the first couple years.

 

[shinn]

@merekas When I got pregnant and we started looking for daycare options they would have taken more than half my paycheck. So I would have been working for minimum wage or less when you consider missed time for days the baby was sick and couldn’t go to daycare. It just wasn’t worth it for us.

 

[andykc]

@merekas Yes. I'm a stay at home Mom because we can't afford day care. I don't feel lucky. I don't get anything new ever because we are poor. I don't get nails done or hair did. Forget a new pair of jeans. I buy the $20 shoes at target.

I am happy to see my baby grow every day, but I really miss being able to take care of my own needs too. I don't feel lucky. Even if we decided to do day care, my entire check would go to it, or I may not even be able to afford it at all.