Working mom to be :(

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MrsE1022

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So I’m having a really hard time with something and I’m wondering if anyone is struggling like me.

My husband and I are expecting our first child in May and I’m completely excited and freaked out all at the same time. My husband has told me over and over that we cannot afford for me to stay home with the baby. He feels it is completely normal for me to just leave my newborn with a babysitter for 9 hours a day. Even the idea of it makes me soooooo depressed and I haven’t even seen the baby yet! Not only that but I almost feel like he secretly thinks I want to stay home because of some sort of lazy fantasy where I want to sit and watch TV all day. To be honest I already have so much trouble keeping up with the house and its just the two of us. I have told him repeatedly that I cannot work and do everything in the house. Every time I bring it up he helps do a chore or two and then goes back to normal. I don’t mind caring for our house and future children, In fact I want nothing more than to be allowed to do that!

I guess the idea of trying to be wife, mom and working woman feels overwhelming and depressing. I hate my job already and have been applying to new ones for 2 years with not even a call back. I feel trapped by our financial situation and my husbands “couldn’t care less” attitude to the whole situation. Anybody can relate? Anybody know how to start earning real money at home?:confused:
 
What did you all decide before you got married? You must have talked about this before, right? What did you agree to?
 
It is always different on the other side of having a baby. And each baby brings a change to family roles, housekeeping plans, finances, etc.

May is still a few months off so you have time to figure some things out. Have you taken a close look at finances and tried to get your budget in line with your husband’s income? Have you also added up childcare costs, commuting, and seen how that compares with your salary? It may be a wash for you to go back to work, but you need to do the math and see.

Ifyou can trim your expenses now, you’ll have these next months to save up an emergency fund or pay of bills if necessary. You’ll also have time to get into some new habits.

Have a good sit down with your husband and divide up chores. When you do so think about how much time you each spend a work, commuting, and chores you each already do. Does you husband handle yard work, car up-keep, house repairs? Those do count, but are not daily tasks. Once you’ve divided things up, his chores are his. Don’t fuss about how he does them and don’t take them over from him.

Things will change after the baby of course, but having both of you taking care of things now, will be good practice for later when things get hectic. If your house is cluttered and your don’t have good housekeeping routines, now is also the time to fix that. Without a bunch of clutter, a house is easier to keep clean - and safer for baby!

Make a prayer routine now also, and always pray daily for your husband and family! :hug1:
 
Why not ask your husband for a test period? Ask for the first year of your child’s life. That is also when childcare is the most expensive and the hardest to find. Use money as the reason for you to stay home. A lot of people don’t realize that is can often cost less to be at home as a parent. Do the math and approach him with that.

My husband and I never really decided for me to stay home. There wasn’t any discussion. It just happened. We found that we were all happier with it like that. My husband found that he loved being the bread winner. It just fit.
 
Don’t forget about gas and childcare. You may realize that the final financial outcome is negligible between the two situations.

You may end up going to work simply to pay for for you to go to work! 🙂
 
I am not sure what you do but is there any way to do the following?
  1. work on an alternative shift
  2. work part time instead of full
  3. work out with the employer some kind of flex hours where you can work from home.
having a new baby is wonderful and scary and life changing. Your husband may have suddenly realized that if you just “stayed at home” you would take a big financial hit.
Again, I am not sure what condition are your finances either. Likewise, you are pregnant and going through some big changes. Again, I am not sure why you both didn’t discuss this issue before you got married and/or pregnant. Instead of both of you having knee jerk reactions to work, maybe you both can go to a good financial advisor that can help the both of you look at your finances, look at other ways to work at home or alternative hours or part time and work this out together because you have a little one that now needs the both of you to work together.
 
First, congratulations on your child.

Second; ditto the above. We found that for new born care it was going to cost us about $1,200 - 1,300 per month just for day care when you figured in income taxes (we didn’t have pre-tax child care flex spending accounts at the time), extra gas for driving to a day care center, etc.If you were not planning on bottle feeding and now had to buy formula that can also add a significant cost.

I would suggest calling day care centers in your area now and start figuring out how much it would cost for a new born and what the cost is for an infant (and what age the rates change at). When we did that several years ago we found that day care cut her income by about 60%. In the end she would have essentially been making minimum wage. Now that we have 3 under 5 years old all her income (plus some) would have gone to day care. For us it was a no brainer. Why go to work simply to have someone raise our kids?

The point is depending on what your income is and how much day care is in your area it might be a wash. It’s best to know this now rather than when you go back to work.
 
Usige said:
First, congratulations on your child.

Second; ditto the above. We found that for new born care it was going to cost us about $1,200 - 1,300 per month just for day care when you figured in income taxes (we didn’t have pre-tax child care flex spending accounts at the time), extra gas for driving to a day care center, etc.If you were not planning on bottle feeding and now had to buy formula that can also add a significant cost.

I would suggest calling day care centers in your area now and start figuring out how much it would cost for a new born and what the cost is for an infant (and what age the rates change at). When we did that several years ago we found that day care cut her income by about 60%. In the end she would have essentially been making minimum wage. Now that we have 3 under 5 years old all her income (plus some) would have gone to day care. For us it was a no brainer. Why go to work simply to have someone raise our kids?

The point is depending on what your income is and how much day care is in your area it might be a wash. It’s best to know this now rather than when you go back to work.
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This. Sometimes, it is best to stay home and be with your children and when they are off to school, go back to work. Time goes by faster than you think.

Do your homework now on costs and show them to your husband. It isn’t always all about the money. May God bless you and your baby. 🙂
 
Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Obviously being pregnant makes me just a *tiny *bit more emotional in my reactions sometimes. I will do all the homework and see what we can work out. I also need to be more trusting of God, he has shown me time and time again I can’t plan life ahead.

And yes, obviously we talked about everything before we got married, but talking about hypothetical situations when your engaged and then actually LIVING life and being faced with some very scary financial times globally, is a completely different story.
 
MrsE1022 said:
And yes, obviously we talked about everything before we got married, but talking about hypothetical situations when your engaged and then actually LIVING life and being faced with some very scary financial times globally, is a completely different story.
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Oh yeah, you got that right! 🙂
 
This happened to me :(. Yes, I am now working full-time. The only concession I got was to take an extra 6 weeks or so off of unpaid leave from my job, so I went back to work when the baby was 4 months.

It’s not as bad as I worried it would be. We do have significantly more money this way. And I absolutely adore my daughter and have a great relationship with her. I still wish to stay home, but I have found ways to deal with the situation.
 
MrsE1022 said:
Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Obviously being pregnant makes me just a *tiny *bit more emotional in my reactions sometimes. I will do all the homework and see what we can work out. I also need to be more trusting of God, he has shown me time and time again I can’t plan life ahead.

And yes, obviously we talked about everything before we got married, but talking about hypothetical situations when your engaged and then actually LIVING life and being faced with some very scary financial times globally, is a completely different story.
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You will be alright! i just wanted to encourage you that I believe that you both can work on this together. I think in pre-marital prep, things are often talked about in abstract as you said and it becomes different once reality arrives and it is decision time. God Bless your family!
 
MrsE1022 said:
Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Obviously being pregnant makes me just a *tiny *bit more emotional in my reactions sometimes. I will do all the homework and see what we can work out. I also need to be more trusting of God, he has shown me time and time again I can’t plan life ahead.

And yes, obviously we talked about everything before we got married, but talking about hypothetical situations when your engaged and then actually LIVING life and being faced with some very scary financial times globally, is a completely different story.
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Your husband may also change his position when the baby is smack-dab in front of him and he has to actually think of him/her spending 8-9 hours a day in the care of a total stranger. Also, with both of you working, who stays home when the baby gets sick (because being in day care, the baby WILL get sick)? My husband never had to take ONE DAY off work because the kids were sick. He only took our older son to the pediatrician ONCE in all those years, and that was when our younger one was born, we were both still in the hospital and the older one had an ear infection. He never missed any work. I went to all of the parent-teacher conferences - he may have gone to one or two. I don’t know how working couples manage when the kids get sick. Then there is all the grocery shopping, cleaning, house maintenance, etc. Who stays home when a repairman needs access to the house? All of those things add up to a lot of value to having someone home, especially when the babies are little.
 
As a working mom with two children, I definitely understand your concerns.

You don’t specify your current financial situation, so I won’t speculate, but I will instead point out that some couples DO need both adults in the house to work in order to live. Sometimes no matter how many nooks and crannies you cut back on, there still is a necessity for both parties to work.

What sort of job do you have currently? Are you in a field where working part-time when your husband is home, or working in a position where your child can accompany you?

When our first child came along, I was a part-time youth minister. 18 of my 20 hours per week I was able to bring our daughter with me. It was wonderful initially (when all she did was sleep or play contently on a playmat) but when she got mobile it was no longer an option for us. Childcare cost too much but we couldn’t live on one income in our HCOL area, and moving wasn’t an option as my husband had a stable job and was knee-deep in his college education.

I left my job as a youth minister and started working for a gym daycare where our daughter could accompany me. I also picked up a PT job doing data entry for the leasing office of our apartment complex, and they let me set my hours. Many days DH would come home from work/school and we’d do a “hand off” with me leaving as he was coming, and when I’d return he’d head out again. Not ideal, but it solved the problem at the time.

When my daughter turned 2 and childcare costs decreased significantly, we moved into me working FT while she went to daycare FT.

When we had our son, I took the maximum amount of time that I could for my leave, and then returned to work when he was 15w old. I had no idea how to leave a child so small in the care of someone else, but what helped exponentially was that we had a home daycare lined up run by two wonderful women who adored him. Were they his mother? No. But they mothered him for the hours when I was unable to, and I will always be so thankful to them for their love to him. Finding such quality childcare CAN be challenging, no doubt, but it is a blessing when you find it.

As for juggling work/home/life… you and your husband will find a way. It may take him actually seeing what housework gets neglected when baby is here to cause your husband to pick up whatever slack there is. My husband and I have been married for 9 years, our daughter is 8 (honeymoon baby) and I will admit I don’t think we truly found a balance of house chores until she was 4 and we were married for 5 years.

Good luck to you, and I’ll be praying for you. It’s not easy to work but when it is necessary, it CAN be done. 🙂
 
CatholiCaliMom said:
What sort of job do you have currently? Are you in a field where working part-time when your husband is home, or working in a position where your child can accompany you?

When our first child came along, I was a part-time youth minister. 18 of my 20 hours per week I was able to bring our daughter with me. It was wonderful initially (when all she did was sleep or play contently on a playmat) but when she got mobile it was no longer an option for us. Childcare cost too much but we couldn’t live on one income in our HCOL area, and moving wasn’t an option as my husband had a stable job and was knee-deep in his college education.
I actually work in a job that would be completely doable from home with just two days or so in office for meetings, however the Catholic Diocese I work for has a policy against any working from home, which I was very disappointed about since we are encouraging families to grow but it seems not allowing mothers to realistically continue work. I am trying to look into some types of jobs where I would be able to bring baby along or work from home, but I don’t know where to start! Any suggestions anyone?
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MrsE1022 said:
I actually work in a job that would be completely doable from home with just two days or so in office for meetings, however the Catholic Diocese I work for has a policy against any working from home, which I was very disappointed about since we are encouraging families to grow but it seems not allowing mothers to realistically continue work. I am trying to look into some types of jobs where I would be able to bring baby along or work from home, but I don’t know where to start! Any suggestions anyone?

PS thnaks for all the encouraging words everyone, I’m feeling a bit more emotionally ok with just accepting what will happen will happen.
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Without knowing what you do right now, it’s hard to say.

I loved working in a gym daycare and bringing my daughter along. It wasn’t a chain gym but a family-run gym. Employees were very valued. Not sure if a chain allows employees to bring their kids for entire shifts.

Work-from-home I’ve done data entry for a leasing office (started out working in their office, but then they put the program on my comp at home so I could work at home), and proofreading/editing/writing (but that was more freelance).
 
At this point, getting hired and getting through training to a proper job while pregnant may be a bit much. You may be able to do something that’s not too skill based. You could also drive school bus if you can get that certification…it’s not from home but in my state you’re allowed to drive with one buckled in child of your own.

Sit down with your hubs and ask him about money, division of labor, etc. These are important things to cover. Perhaps he dosn’t get the idea of how much work a baby is.

You could also see about babysitting for another working mom…or trading off with a part time job…they used to have a program at a nearby store called “job share” which 4 stay at home moms covered a 40 hour shift. They’d sit for eachother and worked togeter to bring money home. They would each do a 10 hour shift of sitting and working…or trade off depending who needed the money. It’s probably not legal anymore but it was pretty cool.

Also don’t put the “SAHM” pressure on yourself. Give yourself you 6 weeks of maternity leave and see how you feel. You may be itching to get back into the adult world. There was a poster on here with 1yo twin girls who was beside herself wanting to work but her husband wanted a SAHM. Each child, situation etc, is different.
 
“Working from home” while a baby is there with you is really not realistic. You would need to hire someone to look after the child while you worked in another area of the house. It does cut down significantly on “work time” because you don’t have to commute (2-3 hours a day for me), so it is worth it, though.
 
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