Stay at home parents

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Maybe you should just admit that it is easier to stay home when you have financial security than when you don’t. I’m not at all “escalated”. I’m just saying that you sound ridiculous when you say you hate when people with a fraction of your income say they can’t afford to do something. You’re free to hate whatever you want to hate, of course, but it is pretty difficult to take you seriously. It IS helpful to acknowledge that it can’t or shouldn’t be done for some, because it CAN’T reasonably be done for some. Some simply don’t have the resources to do it. If your privilege doesn’t allow you to see that, well, there isn’t much else to say.
 
In this day and age, no one respects anyone anyway. The world is just one big judgement-fest. You may as well just live the way you think is best because no matter what you choose, someone will be judging you for it.
 
Ain’t that the truth. Lol. I’ve stayed at home for 13 years. And I’m hit with tons of judgement. It did take a while to get used to. But honestly I love it and am truly living my vocation. I love what I do. I love homeschooling them and being with them. And I’m pretty manly guy to those that know me. We’ve sacrificed much, and there were times we didn’t know how we would do it. But i wouldn’t trade it for the world. I highly recommend it!
 
It’s totally standard among married fathers who earn the bulk of the family’s income, which is most of them
 
Patience is a must. Honestly, my wife is type A and I love it. I’m more Matthew McConaughey about life. I wake up knowing full well that feces is somewhere in my near future. But I wake up every day excited that I get to spend the day with them. It wasn’t always smooth. My wife made considerably less and when we moved to Indiana she was pregnant with our fifth, worked full time, and got her MBA, I hardly saw her that year. We had crushing debt and lost a ton of money after buying a house in 06 and losing its value. Credit card debt and med Bill’s from a special needs child were tough. I didn’t pay Bills until the notices were pink…
Honestly my advice is very Dave Ramsey like. And while I don’t condone being totally debt free ( we have a modest car payment on a used van student loan debt and a mortgage) but our cc balances are zero and we are ok. The point is, crushing debt is a killer.
Childcare is also crazy. Honestly I believe it to be an attack on the poor and middle class. It takes s 50k a year job and makes it a 25 k a year job. Or worse depending on the number of kids and area of the country. Sometimes that second job costs more than its worth! The important things are to work towards the goal, realize that as impossible as it seems debt can be overcome, and most importantly pray for your vocation!
 
Also, working part time while “identifying” as a stay at home parent just muddies the water and is misleading. Either you do or you don’t. And working part-time is fine, but it’s two working (for income) parents, not one working parent.

There is a thing where people say they are stay-home parents but they work outside the home, just on a part-time basis. I’m not sure this really helps in a discussion of “what’s financially entailed in having a stay-home parent”, because if the answer is “well, having the stay home parent work”, it wasn’t really an answer.

To me, stay at home parent is pretty simple. You stay home and you don’t work for regular paychecks outside the home. This is the definition our government uses and it’s a pretty solid one. The one I see online seems to be “as long as I’m not working full-time outside the home, I get to call myself a stay-home parent”, which is…not helpful for people who want to actually stay home as parents.
 
Yep. Ok here’s the thing. I cant believe how mean stay at home moms are to each other. Or how traditionally minded Catholics look at my family, certainly theologically traditional, as abhorrent!
 
Moms in general, not just stay at home moms. It seems as if no one does anything correctly, even if you happen to work at times when needed, or part time, or full time, or anything else. You can’t identify as a stay at home parent unless you never have to supplement income and you can’t identify as a working parent unless you keep a steady job. It’s as if we are all doing it wrong even if we have found what actually works in real life.
 
I don’t think that’s fair about it being so black and white. A side gig even from home is petfectly comparable with being a sah whatever.
 
How many stay at home parents simply just stay at home? I know my husband, who is not working at all at the moment, is never home! He’s always doing something. Doctor appointments, errands, shopping, helping a neighbor, volunteering at school, sometimes he even hires a sitter if he needs to do something without the girls. Most non employed moms I know do things that way. Very few are home 24/7. Even the ones that homeschool. Here there is a huge co op that the moms each spend a day teaching at. Does that make them not homeschooling stay at home moms?
 
As I said, the government has a pretty simple definition. If you are married with kids, don’t bring in income and aren’t staying home because you’re in school, you’re a stay at home parent. It doesn’t have to do with whether you’re physically at home all day.
 
The whole stay home vs working distinction is lost is if working for pay outside the home doesn’t make you a working parent. I mean, then why even open the thread. Anyone working less than 40 hours a week is apparently a stay-home parent, so what financial aspect is there to discuss beyond “As long as one of you doesn’t have to work 40 hours a week, that one can just say they’re staying home, so it’s all good”.
 
Actually that isn’t what people have stated. People have said to do what works for your family. I can’t see how working sporadically as needed but not working most of the time would make someone not a stay at home parent though. No one considers them working parents either.

Also, parents that volunteer or babysit without pay sometimes are away from their kids more than part time workers or busier than work from home parents, but they would be considered stay at home parents? And parents that are away because they are in school ARE stay at home parents? That seems pretty messed up. I know an awful lot of stay at home parents that apparently aren’t! And a few that thought they were not because they are in school that actually are!
 
But most sahms I know do SOMETHING. Selling crafts on etsy, knitting for the parish Christmas bazaar etc. And working from home even as a side hustle is so technologically easy now. Our local catholic school pays me 350 dollars to coach. Heck, I could do ski lessons for homeschool co ops at the local resort and pull in some dough. Each family can do what works. As the stay at home parent I feel the financial duties should be mine. Paying Bill’s, budgeting, doing taxes etc. I cant imagine placing that burden on my wife as well…
 
ThePCWife said:
Also, working part time while “identifying” as a stay at home parent just muddies the water and is misleading. Either you do or you don’t. And working part-time is fine, but it’s two working (for income) parents, not one working parent.

There is a thing where people say they are stay-home parents but they work outside the home, just on a part-time basis. I’m not sure this really helps in a discussion of “what’s financially entailed in having a stay-home parent”, because if the answer is “well, having the stay home parent work”, it wasn’t really an answer.

To me, stay at home parent is pretty simple. You stay home and you don’t work for regular paychecks outside the home. This is the definition our government uses and it’s a pretty solid one. The one I see online seems to be “as long as I’m not working full-time outside the home, I get to call myself a stay-home parent”, which is…not helpful for people who want to actually stay home as parents.
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I do all of the work of a stay at home parent because I stay at home full time with my child and work part time from home. Maybe there needs to be a specific name for this, but I think I am allowed to call myself a “stay at home mom, plus”, or whatever. I’d be fine with a different term that distinguishes the two, because it’s incredibly difficult and I feel that saying I’m a stay at home mom is not accurate.

I have no help with childcare. I make a pittance. The OP himself said he’d like to work part time. Perhaps the government needs to come up with a better way to characterize those of us who do that, because there are a lot.
 
This is what I found in terms of definition

Stay-at-home may refer to:
  • Stay-at-home dad, a male parent who is the main caregiver of the children and the home
  • Stay-at-home mom, a female parent who is the main caregiver of the children and the home
This is the way that most people use the terms. It isn’t “muddying the waters” at all to use common terms in the commonly understood way.
 
I don’t really see how this is that important, but from my perspective, since the goals of the stay-at-home-parent aren’t usually to stay home for the heck of it, but to keep their young children out of daycare or homeschool their school-aged children. In my opinion, if that goal is met, then they can claim the title of stay-at-home-parent, even if they sell Avon or work a holiday shift at Macy’s for extra money.
 
Again, I don’t see how it matters. You aren’t supposed to be doing it to win some sort of “title” of “most suffering parent”. You’re supposed to be doing it because it’s what is best for your family. Seems a little silly to be nitpicking people like, “You mean you SELL the eggs your chickens lay?! You’re a phony! You are out of our playgroup! That hour you spend a day on chickens will turn your children into drug dealers!”
 
I didn’t know the government had a designation at all. What do you get for this designation? I thought the designation was simply “unemployed”, the same for the “homemaker”, the “retired”, and the “person who can’t stay sober long enough that Papa Johns will keep them on”.
 
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