For those that have started a family where your wife (S/O) earns significantly less than you I.e $60k a year. Did she continue to work or become a stay at home mom permanently? Did you get a nanny? Looking for opinions as I embark on this next chapter where I’m the high earner (>$200k a year)

While I understand people value their careers, I cannot fathom why you would have a stranger raise your kids over 50k/year if the other partner is able to cover all the expenses. You will never get that time back, it’s the most valuable thing you have. Just my 2 cents.

Women loose out big time financially if they become SAHM and then relationship doesn’t work out in few years. So if you want to be fair to her, figure out a way to put money in her retirement savings (and not just little bit) while she stays at home to take care of kids.

Why do you want opinions from strangers instead of just talking to your wife to figure out what works for you?

Here is one way to think about it which people often miss/forget. Sometimes it makes sense for the lower earner to continue working even if childcare is more expensive than what they bring in - because you avoid a gap in work experience and avoid a gap in salary progression. Your kids will start going to school full time and you’d be able to both work - the lower earner is essentially investing in themselves. Avoiding a 5+ year experience and salary progression gap may be worth much more than whatever you had to pay a nanny over the same period. This is strictly the financial/career side - you decide what you’re comfortable with and what’s best for your kids.

my wife makes 50k by the time we pay tax the rest covers daycare and spending money.. that being said she loves her job and we prefer our daughter going to daycare. but our money is pooled we each keep a bit for fun money but the rest is our money, we are just condsiderate of each other for big expenses

My wife makes $30k or so working at home as a voice and piano teacher. She took a brief break after our son was born, but was working pretty much the whole time he was little. I also WFH with a flexible schedule, so it's been a dream come true in terms of WLB. We don't need her to work to pay bills, but she enjoys what she does, and we live a more comfortable life because of the extra income.

I wouldn't trade that time with our young son for anything, and I certainly wouldn't want my wife to have to go to the office for any of it either. We would have held off on getting the nicer house if it meant my wife would have to go to an office.

My spouse makes 4x my salary and I was a stay at home parent for 3 years but it took a toll on my mental health and I came back into the workforce before it got harder to do so. Do we technically need my salary, no. But you have to look at many factors. Being a stay at home parent isn’t for everyone

I make approximately 3.5x what my wife makes, she will not be a SAHM despite my income being all that's needed for the family. She also does not want a nanny.

It really depends on what works best for your family and long-term goals. In our case, my wife initially took some time off when the kids were young, but she eventually went back to work part-time. For us, her staying home full-time didn’t make sense long-term because she values her career and wanted to stay connected professionally.

That said, hiring a nanny or using daycare can also be a great option if both parents want to keep working. It really comes down to what makes you both feel fulfilled and whether the income trade-off is worth it. Just be sure to have open conversations about how you’ll split responsibilities at home and make sure both roles (whether earning or caregiving) feel equally valued. There's no perfect formula—just what works for you two.

Partner lifestyle of 60+ hours a week led my wife to become stay at home for the kids. I truly respect her for her commitment to our family

It feels like you already know what you want to do based on responses. So make sure your SO actually agrees and go forth with that. I’d recommend setting a timeline to check in with them to make sure they still feel the same 3, 6 months later.

It's a tough choice to make and it feels kind of overwhelming at the time. Just remember none of it is forever. I was actually making *more* than my husband (both of us were Big 4, I was a Manager, he was a senior) when our first child was born. I went part time, on a flexible work arrangement just to save my sanity. 32 hours, with 8 hours from home (this was a HUGE deal in 2005...) Two years later when our 2nd was born, I became a SAHM because the cost of daycare for two and the lifestyle adjustment would have been really difficult. I stayed connected to our industry, and did some freelance work on the side, and then had our third child two years after that. I kept all my connections within industry, developed some new skills slowly, working 10ish hours a week while managing 3 kids under 5. Once all my kids were in school full time and their schedules were a bit less erratic, I started lookin for full time work. It took some time, but after 12 years out of the game, I took a full-time position back at EY. Luckily I mostly work from home, but my kids were all older and in school full-time so daycare wasn't a consideration. It is a big financial consideration to stop working full time, but it was a real gift to have that time with my kids. Working full time, working part time, or staying home with little kids is all pretty exhausting for parents and new moms in particular. But you absolutely can have different setups at different parts of your life and make it work. I think things are much better for women returning to the workforce now than they were in the past. Being a SAHM for my littles was important to me, but so is my career. I think you can make both work, you just have to be patient with your progress.

In my experience, SAH mom is fraught with issues. It has one benefit, that you save on day care costs.

But that’s exhausting- more exhausting than an office job, IMO. You would still need to help in the evenings.

She loses out on a lot of adult interaction. Career development. Sometimes self esteem takes a hit.

And of course, you with the “provider” job can often cause resentment, both ways.

None of this is a foregone conclusion… but they’re common risks and issues.

Might be a little late to this thread, but wanted to share my story.

Single, no kids, but… my parents had a big income gap. Dad was a lawyer / businessman, mom was a journalist.

By the time I was ~4-5 yo, she decided to quit her job to be a SAHM to raise me and my sister.

Her income at the time was roughly the same what my parents spent with nanny, cook, cleaners, and we’d probably have to add a driver in a few years once we started doing more extracurriculars, so she decided to quit her job to focus on us.

Instead of all the support staff, we reduced to only one maid that mostly cleaned and cooked, and I do have a lot of great memories from childhood with my mom taking me to all the sport activities and really being present

Even if it was a bit much at times…

There were a few things that she didn’t see it coming, though:

- after two years out of the job market, she struggled to find a job for her years of xp
- her reality and my dad’s became so disconnected: while my dad was worrying about solving complex legal issues and running his businesses, she worried about her yoga class, organizing class gifts to the teachers, negotiating rates with directv
- eventually my parents got divorced: they didn’t have that much in common anymore
- her career was totally stalled and she had basically no savings (at the time, roughly $20k while my dad had millions)
- she was divorced, but still financially dependent on my dad
- she couldn’t find her footing again and to this day she feels like she hasn’t accomplished much in her professional life. Despite years of therapy, it is still an issue that she hasn’t really made terms with. She tried all kinds of random careers and side hustles, but all for naught (webdesign, MLM, life coaching, I think now she does “multidimensional therapy”, whatever that means)

Of course everyone is different and there are definitely nuances that pertained to each one specifically (including a lot of big mistakes from my dad), but just want to illustrate that the decision shouldn’t be a purely mathematical one

There are no easy answers to this. Compromises have to be made and for most people there isn’t a perfect solution. If you are looking for examples - I’ll throw in. At the time of kid 1, I prob made 2-3x what she did (which was still in six figures). Absent her making it to the exec suite or accelerated career, today I am prob at around 5-7x what she would have made if she stayed in the workforce. After maternity leave, at times we were both working FT, her PT, or her not employed. A combination of getting overwhelmed with kid stuff and her unhappiness with certain things that developed at her FT job lead to her leaving. She definitely would rather have a job dealing with adults, but also definitely wants to be very involved in raising our kids (yes, I am also very involved). Lots of things with kids are going to go beyond day care / nannies - helping them study, teaching values, volunteering at school. There isn’t an easy answer and everyone needs to find the best solution they can. It’s not great feeling like your job is getting in the way of you being 100% focused on your kids success, and for many people it also isn’t great to be dealing with kids stuff and sacrificing a professional career, and for that matter it isn’t that easy working as a consulting partner and still figuring out how to handle many of the kid needs (school pickups mid-afternoon, play dates, study help, sports…). If life was easy, we’d have nothing to complain about on Fishbowl.

I’m at 350k total comp. Wife is a nurse at 120k.

When we had our first kid, she took mat leave for 3 months then was itching to go back. After our second kid we needed more help, so she was full time sah mom, plus a nanny about 10 hours a week so she can run errands. FWIW we have no family or friends nearby to help

My wife is a teacher by trade. Undergrad and masters in early childhood education. She ended up dropping teaching and pivoting to a nanny gig(s) for high net worth families for double the pay which has really helped us out. Families will pay top dollar when you position yourself as a tutorial nanny certified 1st to 5th to get kids ahead in school throughout the year.

I make significantly more than my partner and our plan was always to put our kids in daycare; that’s still true even as they have transitioned from an industry role to more blue collar / lower paying work. We have had a fantastic experience with our daycare, both kids are thriving and benefiting significantly more from that environment than they would at home solo with either one of us - I would also say that’s true vs a Nanny, for our family .

If the roles were reversed and she out-earned you, would your opinion on the options change? Ie would you give up your career, at least temporarily, to raise your kids while your wife earns the income?

We were in this situation and my wife quit and works a chill, part time job with our local church and they’re friendly with letting kids hang around. She just does it to get out of the house. As BAH2 alluded to, while money’s tighter, I can always make more money (getting a higher paying, more stressful job, multiple jobs etc). I can’t get that time back.

Lastly, give the book “The Two Income Trap” a read. We both read it and that was the nail in the coffin on our decision, even though that’s not really the conclusion the book comes to

BAH2 - I became SAHM when my kids were little and I basically had to start my career again from the ground up and lost 7-8 years of experience because whatever experience I had before kids, does not get counted. Granted it was 14-18 years ago so world was not as understanding of the mom’s as it is now. People who were in school with me progressed much farther in terms of level as well as salary progression than me due to my gap. I also have much smaller retirement nest egg.