Career advice: spouse edition.

Alright guys, here's the scoop.

My wife works at a convenience store chain, and our plan before the baby got here was for my wife to come back from her maternity leave and immediately put in her two weeks notice, and try to be out before the year ends (to avoid a 2014 W2, just to simplify taxes that year.) Our childcare situation is one of the reasons we wanted to take this route, but more on that later.

But then, her boss got fired! (this is a good thing.) My wife is currently their assistant manager, and she pretty much runs the store as it is anyway. Now they don't offer jobs to people directly, but they "post" them, and they've already posted it.

Thing is, my wife is on maternity leave until mid December. We don't know if that will affect anything, she may hear from her disctrict manager tomorrow. Several months ago, another one of these stores in town came open, and she was one of three considered and interviewed for the position, and was beaten out mostly because another guy had a ton more tenure.

Now, one reason we wanted to have her stay at home is because her job now has her on second shift. I work days, and we don't see much of one another. Her current assistant manager gig will only let her work second or third shift. The general manager gig is day shift, 45 hours a week, salary. Good benefits, retirement, and the company is actually a pretty good bunch of people that really do care about their employees.

Now, about our childcare situation. Right now we have two babysitters, my mom and my mother-in-law. My mom watches our 4 year old on her days off, and my MIL doesn't work, so she watches her the rest of the time. My MIL also has two other small children that she watches, they're her great neice and nephew. One is almost five and the other is three. She has full custody since their parents are constantly in and out of jail and lost them due to drugs. Those two kids, plus mine rattle her nerves bad enough (shes shiziophrenic, and draws disability for it.) plus a newborn would absolutely frazzle her nerves.

With the added income, we could afford a day care, but would really rather not take that route. My wife wanted to stay at home, and we haven't ruled it out, but this is an opportunity to earn much more money.

We do however realize that money is not everything, and that raising our kids is the most important thing of all. With additional income though, we can save for their future much more than we could with just a single income.

What say you GRM, anyone been through this? Sorry if this kind of rambles on, I don't have much time and I'm still kinda shocked that this has even come up.

I'll answer any questions you have when I get a chance. With a toddler and a newborn, time is in short supply.

My wife was working when we had our first. She ended up staying at home and keeping another couples child for $100 a week. It let her stay at home with ours and make a little money on the side. I'm all for stay at home if you can afford it.

Have your wife stay at home. Absolutely DO NOT have your kid raised by strangers, only close relatives. Day Care workers generally don't care as much as you do about your kids, plus it's so expensive you probably aren't gaining anything by having her work.

Raise your own kids. Dare to be different. Your kids will thank you.

My last day of work was two days before my first kid was born. I've never regretted it, but I'm not your wife. I think having a parent stay home is a good thing, but only as long as the parent staying at home is happy doing it. I've seen some terrible pissed off stay at home parents who really should have been working. I've also seen some parents that would have been wonderful staying at home but were working so they could afford their truck payment.
In the long run, a baby is only at home for five years or so before full day school kicks in. It's easier to make up for that lost income than it is to get those years back.

I am eternally thankful that my dad was able to make enough that my mom was able to stay home with the kids while we were growing up. Once my younger brother (the youngest) was in 1st grade, Mom got a job at the elementary school. Just saying, I am going to try hard to do the same for my kids--doesn't really matter if I'm the one staying at home or the wife, but that is my goal.

my wife stayed home and raised our 2 kids - we dealt with less "stuff" and stretched our dollars. my son now makes $28,000 a year as a grad student (free tuition) as he works towards his doctorate. those are critical years.

mazdeuce wrote: In the long run, a baby is only at home for five years or so before full day school kicks in. It's easier to make up for that lost income than it is to get those years back.

It depends on the specific details of the career of the parent. In some cases taking 5 years off is trivial, in others it will pretty much completely derail the career and make it impossible to ever get it back.

Before our kids were born, my wife did temporary office work. It wasn't anything she particularly cared about, and it paid little enough that it would have been pretty much a wash as far as money goes (child care is really expensive around here). She is very happy to be a stay-at-home-mom.

This is very much a YMMV situation. :)