Can I afford to not work?
Hi Penelope,
I’ve been reading your blog since I was 16? 18?. It was a big contributing factor in purposefully deciding against big career ambitions. So after my undergrad in [redacted] (stupid major unless you want to purse a PhD) I did my teaching qualifications to teach high school math. Had my daughter 2 weeks before graduation and have been a stay at home mom ever since. Also moved from [expensive city non US] to [expensive city US] bc husband is American.
I would love to homeschool? Who are these women who are working for fun? I definitely prefer to stay home bake bread and not send the toddler to daycare. Hubs come from a double income family. MIL thinks the kind of income required to have a SAHM is 500 000. Hubs works in computer science in big tech but is still fairly junior (we are late twenties).
So anyway I’m going to work next year as a teacher.
We waiting to have kid number 2 bc housing prices are insane.
I underestimated how much of an outlier I would feel socially. I am the youngest mom I meet everywhere, by at least 5 years if not 10. And most families we meet can afford 30k/year daycare for 2 kids and international vacation for toddlers etc. (usually dual income families in tech who are senior or principals.
Am I crazy?
Location matters a lot. You need to live where there are people having lives you’d like to have. In an expensive city most people are dual-income until they get into a senior role. It’s too expensive not to be. But you don’t need to live in an expensive area if you homeschool.
The families that live in expensive cities do not have one spouse teaching. it’s not worth it — the teaching salary doesn’t make a big enough difference for a family of four. So figure out how to stay home by figuring out where to live. If your husband ends up making a ton of money, you can move closer to the office. But right now, you need to live far so you can live with people who are making the choices you made.
And I purposely use past tense. Your husband chose someone with a lot less earning power than him. And he wants to work in an field and location that’s very competitive. So he needs to compromise and he’ll have a long commute for a while.
Ignore your mother in law. And writing this is a good reminder for myself when I’m a mother in law.