 |
| © Sotiris Filippou/Shutterstock I have two kids who are a bit more than four years apart, and we've been through all sorts of strollers. Singles, doubles, umbrella strollers, joggers, and so on. Of the six or so strollers we used heavily, only one broke down before the or kids outgrew it. Some we gifted on, some we keep just because who knows, and a few we have sold for a decent profit. If you do some research and find the most popular new strollers, you can then search out used units for sale on the cheap. Posting them at a markup can make you handy cash, especially when you sell locally only, avoiding shipping costs. |
- Melissa Petro is a freelance writer, wife, and mother living in New York.
- Instead of returning to full-time work after she had a baby, she convinced her husband to 'pay' her to handle all the childcare, housework, and other familial responsibilities.
- She added up the hours she'd work each week and multiplied it by an hourly wage, subtracting this figure from what she owed the family budget.
- Still needing a second job to make ends meet, Petro soon grew exhausted by all the responsibilities on her plate, especially as her son got older.
- Later, her husband lost his job, compelling the couple to switch roles entirely.
Before I became a mother, my husband and I had an equal partnership:
We both worked full-time - he as a consultant in digital media, me as a
freelance writer - and contributed 50-50 to a family budget. We also
did our best to split the household work equally.
Then, I got pregnant and gave birth, and equality went out the window.
Mentally
and physically exhausted, breastfeeding around the clock, and
overwhelmed by the duties of managing our household, I didn't think I
had my former hustle in me. It was also a fact that - even though I was
relatively successful at what I did - my yearly income as a freelance
writer barely covered the cost of full-time childcare.
And so,
instead of my returning to full-time work after maternity leave, I
convinced my husband of an unorthodox arrangement: Rather than hiring a
nanny or sending our then four-month-old off to daycare, I told him
I'd handle the childcare - along with all the housework and other
familial responsibilities. Instead of paying a team of professionals, I
reasoned, we'd pay me.
I added up the hours I'd work each week and multiplied it by an
hourly wage. I then divided that number in half - after all, childcare
was as much my expense as it was my husband's - and subtracted this
figure from what I owed the family budget. Although he worried I'd
resent him for having to give up my career, he could see that my mind
was made up, and so he agreed.
We were both trying to do what was best for our family and our
marriage. In retrospect, I was naive and not thinking clearly. While
it wasn't a terrible idea, the issue of equality in marriage is
complex. Here's what I learned:
Motherhood is hard work. Don't sell yourself short.
According to Salary.com, if a stay-at-home mom charged what she was actually worth, she'd make upwards of $162,000 a year.
In
my case, I calculated my hourly rate for my work as a mother at just
$15 an hour - what the closest daycare would have cost. After doing the
math, there was a difference of around $1,200 to be made up. I also
had to continue paying for my own personal expenses - coffees out,
getting my hair done, gifts, things like this.
In other words, I'd need a second job just to make ends meet.
At
the time, I saw this as a plus: I wasn't giving up my career entirely,
I thought, and assumed I could complete freelance writing assignments
while the infant napped. In retrospect, I should've charged my husband
more.
Beware of 'scope creep.'
As
a first time mother, I'd overestimated what I'd be able to accomplish
in an eight- hour day. After feedings, diaper changes, and playdates -
not to mention dishes, loads of laundry and picking up toys- there was
no time to shower, let alone work a second job. Finding assignments
wasn't a problem, but completing them was another story entirely.
Full-time parenting became even more unmanageable after my baby started
dropping naps and became more mobile.
And yet, because we'd
agreed it was all part of my job, undone housework at the end of the
workday remained my responsibility. Sure, my husband helped with the
baby when he came home from the office, but even then, he was only
"helping." After all, I was getting paid.
A disconcerting but not uncommon dynamic
had emerged; as my confidence as a parent grew, my husband's waned. He
became increasingly deferential, stepping down to let me take the
lead. It wasn't that I was naturally better at folding laundry, fixing
snacks or taming tantrums, I just did these things more often until
eventually, I was doing them all the time, even when Arran was home.
I was working 24/7 - and I was exhausted.
Renegotiate as necessary.
Parental
burnout, experts say, is a result of an imbalance between demands and
rewards, and shares many of the same traits as professional burnout:
high levels of exhaustion, feelings of inadequacy, and emotional
detachment.
Had my husband been paying me more - and had the
terms of my responsibilities been more clearly defined from the start,
and controlled as our infant grew into toddlerhood - I might've felt
differently about life as a stay-at-home mom. As it was, I felt
incompetent and unfulfilled, exhausted and resentful.
After
about a year of full-time parenting, I hit my breaking point. I knew
something had to give the day I found myself sobbing in the bathtub,
fully dressed, having lost my phone (again) after inadvertently
deleting an assignment I'd spent all afternoon working on after Oscar
had woken up early from his nap.
Thankfully, when my husband saw me struggling, he began paying more
of the joint family expenses (essentially giving me a raise). He also
took on more of the child care and household responsibilities without
my having to ask. And I hired an assistant. For a not insignificant
fraction of my earnings, a mother's helper took my toddler off my hands
for three glorious hours a day. With reliable support, a situation
like this would probably be sustainable.
A valuable lesson
In
our case, then something interesting happened: My husband lost his
job, compelling us to switch roles entirely. He took over household
responsibilities, including childcare, while I worked full-time. It was
a blessing in disguise; I realized how much I missed my former career.
I also discovered that my earning potential had nearly doubled -
thanks in no small part to the time management and multitasking skills
I'd sharpened during my tenure as a stay-at-home mom. Meanwhile, my
husband realized exactly how hard I'd had it for the past year. More
than once, I came home from a rewarding day at my office - aka the
coffee shop down the street, where I typically set up shop - to find my
normally even-tempered husband in literal tears, overwhelmed and
frustrated by the tasks expected of him.
In the end, my family
learned a valuable lesson: Taking care of a toddler for 12 plus hours a
day is work - harder work than my husband and I ever imagined - and
so, just as soon as my husband found a new job, we decided to leave it
to the professionals. Oscar will start full-time daycare this fall.
