Do kids develop harmful gender expectations when they have a stay-at-home mom and a working dad?
I stopped working when I had kids. This was a decision I didn’t take lightly. I have family money of my own that I knew would allow me to support myself if anything ever happened between me and my husband. If that weren’t the case, I would have made different choices.
My kids are 9 and 6 now and have a slew of questions/observations/beliefs about the fact that Dad works and Mom stays home and takes care of them. How and when do I introduce the financial calculus that went into that? The last thing I would want is for them to draw gendered, simple conclusions — which would be very easy for them to do since there are a lot of stay-at-home moms in our community.
This approach stakes out your position for future conversation. If they’re ready for it now, then they’ll probably follow up with, “Why?” Then you go ahead, say that choosing not to work means not having money coming in for now or for retirement, and that was okay for you because you have enough money saved.
One thing to keep in mind: You don’t want to build judging into that structure. We used a “some people do X, others Y, and we chose Z” construction for so many things, to establish there wasn’t just One Way to live. That plants the seeds for their agency, too, and can even get them thinking of people who make different choices. If they can’t find any in their orbit, then, well, there’s your next social-emotional-educational conversation prompt.
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