The Stay At Home Husband
Monday through Friday, both parents in many households rush to get the kids fed and dressed for school, and then hurry their separate ways to different workplaces. Lots of planning, money, and stress go into coordinating all family member schedules so no kid is sitting on a curb for hours waiting to be picked up. And the more kids you have, the more complicated it gets. You have to pay for daycare, arrange carpools and figure out how to get someone out of work when it’s your day, squish everyone’s dentist visits into the same morning, and hopefully not collapse at the end of the day before you make dinner. If your car gets a flat tire, or school gets delayed for half an inch of snow, or your kid breaks a bracket in her braces and has to get to the orthodontist, it’s a nightmare. Or so I imagine. I recognize I am very fortunate, because the truth is I experience relatively little anxiety when little things like this pop up, largely because Mr. Sense is a stay at home parent. And even before Kid Sense, he was a stay at home husband!
I recognize the enormous privilege it is for Mr. Sense to stay home, which erases huge piles of stress from our lives. While this is not always possible, having one parent at home is within reach for more families than most people think. It’s all about tradeoffs. If you and your spouse are both working, it may be that one of you can already retire, forever, with less impact on your finances than you think. Many of us learned about opportunity cost as kids– the idea that the cost of something is whatever you give up to acquire it. Mr. Sense and I decided we weren’t willing to trade eight hours of his time per day for the money we could reasonably expect him to make from full time employment. Could we have used tens of thousands more dollars per year? Well, of course– couldn’t you? But this choice has led to incredible benefits for our family, worth far more. Most obviously, we have been able to be foster parents and have someone available to handle everything childcare entails. We could pay someone else to do this job, but the costs would easily eat up most of the extra income we’d have from Mr. Sense’s job. Having Mr. Sense at home allows us the flexibility to make choices that are best for our family. When Kid Sense was struggling in public school, we were able to bring her into a more structured environment by switching to homeschool. This led to a considerably more peaceful home environment, and a better education for our daughter. Looking beyond the parenting benefits, having Mr. Sense at home lowers my stress level because he is available to handle all the little events and tasks that pop up. He makes appointments, fixes things around the house, and handles the cooking and cleaning. We use the ToDoist app to track what needs to get done, and it makes me so happy when I get an alert on my phone that Mr. Sense just paid the water bill or fixed the bathroom doorknob. He is also able to volunteer with a program at our church to help disadvantaged locals. This brings him a lot of joy, but it might be a source of stress for him if he tried to squeeze it in between work meetings. Having a stay at home parent also serves as a kind of employment insurance for our family, because if I lost my job or we needed extra funds quickly, Mr. Sense would be able to find paid employment to fill in the gap.
All of this is possible through the grace of God. We are fortunate to be able to trade a few luxuries for forty hours a week of Mr. Sense’s time. We are blessed that I have a well paying job that I enjoy, and we have avoided inflating our lifestyles too much. Even so, there are many things we have built into our lives that are certainly wants, rather than needs. We were happy in our somewhat smaller house on a less fancy street, but we still upgraded. We favor international travel over camping trips, even though we live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. The public schools here are definitely better than what many kids in America have access to, but we choose to homeschool. We are not stingy with our money, but we try to consider how much time and effort goes into funding our non-mandatory spending. I urge you to think carefully about which expenses you pay each month, either on autopilot or mindlessly browsing. Calculate expenses related to your job: work clothing, lunches out with coworkers, de-stressing activities. You may find that if you add it all up, you are spending more than your income, or your spouse’s income. Keep in mind that if your household income declines, your tax bill probably will too. You may find that a few minor changes make it possible for one spouse to leave the workplace immediately. Even if you’re not ready for that step, you can use your new knowledge to fuel your saving and giving rates.
Several people have expressed their surprise to me that I’m so pleased to have my husband stay home while I’m employed. This is still relatively uncommon, though it seems normal to me. My father was a stay at home parent, and when Mr. Sense and I planned out our future, the choice was clear for us. Why did we do this? Is it biblically acceptable? Do I submit to my husband, or my boss? Stay tuned for a future post on the ups and downs of being a stay at home dad, with input from both my husband and father!
