Wife and I just had our first kid and now we’re considering going from two salaries to one so she can be with them full time. Realizing the potential financial considerations, any dads out there that have done this? Thoughts?

To avoid any feelings of inequity, we have found you have to go beyond being grateful for what your stay at home partner does in the home - you also need to acknowledge that it makes your career trajectory possible. She enables you - she’s not just ‘helping out at home,’ she’s actually helping you at work too. It’s a real advantage for that working partner to have someone at home handling all your household stuff day in and day out. And language matters so suggest you be thoughtful as you talk about your choices with family or friends. For instance, my partner isn’t ‘taking a break’ or eventually ‘going back to work’ - and I wouldn’t allow anyone to say that about them. Bringing up kids and running a house ain’t a break and she’s been working the whole time - raising those kids and running my world so that I can put in the hours and focus on my stuff at work. You think of it that way and you treat them like your business partner because that’s what they are end of day and you hopefully can avoid any guilt about your different contributions to your family, spending money, etc.

My wife stopped working when we had our first child almost 13 years ago. Daycare and nanny costs would have almost amounted to her salary and we both agreed that if I was working long Hours to bring home the bacon at least she was there to bring up the kids and give them the love that is critical to developing them when young. Fast forward 13 years and two kids, she is still a stay at home mom, handles all the school meetings, sports and activities and I just need to find time in my schedule to be there for the events. What she does is harder than what I do and we work as a team. Yes, we haven’t had dual income for 15 years. This means we have to maintain a budget. It means as a well paid consultant I don’t have new cars and investment properties but we wouldn’t have it any other way because we have kids that have grown up with a mom being ever present, guiding them to be good people and growing our family traditions. If you go one income, don’t hold it over her because her job as a stay at home mom is full of stress and craziness so make sure you let her know how much you appreciate what she does. Happy wife, happy life.

Northern NJ, single salary for almost four years now with two kids. As long as you can build a budget that allows you each to take some leisure time to yourselves (like, she can get a pedicure once in a while or you can go to dinner with buddies or whatever), you'll be ok. The hardest part we found on single income is the zero-income partner starts to feel guilty about spending money, and if that's ignored it can become a problem. Set some aside for them as a budget so they can retain some of the freedom they had when they brought in money.

My wife has almost always been a home maker. Over time I have learned to appreciate the amount of effort she has been putting in in raising 2 children. Its not like I have millions but being in consulting, I do make a decent living for the family but it wouldn’t have been possible without my wife. To me it starts with mind set that its all collective - career, household, raising children everything is collective. Budgeting is just a small part of it.

No, for the sake of the kid, get them into day care so they can learn to socialize early, develop their brain faster, and start getting exposed to germs. The stress relief from having them in day care is well worth it as well

My wife went part time a year after our son was born. Best decision ever for our family.

It’s entirely dependent on your financial situation

My wife has always made 1/3 to 1/6 of my salary, so we’ve had our struggles. As my salary has grown to make hers less relevant, I learned to appreciate all the “at home” work and contributions to our household while I work long hours. We talk about it frequently, make money decisions as jointly as possible, and I let her know that whatever our total income is, I appreciate all she does to help run our house.

This mindset has made her incredibly thankful of my effort and reminds her that I am thankful of hers, regardless of our total income.

My wife went to work part time which is I think a great option. She still gets some fulfillment from her professional career but also she really enjoys taking care of our kids. We talked about all options and she made the decision how she felt best.

However, she is an MD so even her 2-3 days a week create significant income for us - not sure if that would have changed in a lower income job

In the same spot now and we don’t really need the second salary, but the delta between childcare and staying at home is maybe $40k for us so it’s a meaningful factor regardless. For now, we are going to try nanny share but basically are leaving the door open if my wife decides she just doesn’t want to work anymore.

One of the bigger factors for us is just simply that my wife likes her job and is fulfilled by it. Plus she is not super social otherwise so she won’t be the type to run out and make a bunch of Mom friends and knows that… which makes her question if she will really be happy that way or not. It’s hard to figure out because I can’t get into her head about what will really make her happy so I’ve tried to give her the space to make the final call here (and toss financials fully aside).

Yeah I’ve definitely done this. My wife stopped working for a about 4 years starting with our first kid. For us it was a cost-benefit with some of them being more subjective measures:

Potential Costs:
- loss of salary/benefits
- daycare/nanny costs if both continue to work

Benefits:
- maintaining salary if both work
- getting to have more time with your kid
- having more influence on their early development

Other considerations to help balance:

- Grandparents: if they are nearby and wanting to help, this can save a ton on costs and also help give you more influence on rules and interactions than a nanny or daycare. There’s also the discussion of whether they want to move nearer to help or if you want to move closer to them.

- relocation: if you’re in a HCOL area is there an area you can relocate to that allows you to maintain your lifestyle (as much as it can be with kids haha)? Doesn’t have to necessarily be 5 states away but even moving to the burbs helps balance.

For us it was primarily about wanting to be the biggest early influence on our kids so my wife wanted to be stay at home for that reason. She’s back at work part time now as we found a gig that let us balance well and the pay is treated more like a bonus.

In the end, there’s no avoiding trade offs so just look at what’s important to you which can change over the course of a few years.

What's the one salary and your location?

My wife took a break for 3 years and is now looking to go back to work. HHI during this time was >300k so it did not impact our lifestyle that much though savings did go down. But above all, she says it was totally worth it but now is wanting to go back as she is tired of staying at home all the time.

We did this. But we did work our finances and evaluated that we have decent sum left to have a comfortable lifestyle. We were planning to buy a larger house but then went for a smaller than planned but enough for us to make it work

A cautionary tale from my mother and my mother in law: neither ever found back to having a career / outside the house role (despite great education and best intentions) and for both that ended up being a major life regret. Not that they regretted getting to spend the time with the kids, but once kids leave home you risk falling into a pretty deep hole. Probably seems abstract now, when that’s 18+ years away, but depending on your wife’s ambition to work, credentials, and YOE another non-financial aspect to carefully consider.

I’m in the same situation. Kid is 2 years old and wife stopped working after he turned 10 months. It’s hard with the cutback. Both financially and for her since she’s career driven.

I would always look into nanny options (part time or full time) but it’s hard to say without knowing your financial situation.