I know plenty of young folks who have gone with the more, “traditional,” order of marriage, house, baby. But, most of those have been from the less urban areas in the South/Midwest. The young folks I know who have been less traditional in their paths are those who live in urban (typically high COLA) areas.
So, I wonder if geographic location plays into as well.
I think it might depend a bit on how one defines traditional marriages. In my mind (right or wrong) it conjures up images of a division of financial contributions and domestic labor based on gender.
The evolution within marriages that I see is where domestic chores and responsibilities are shared…in some cases, negotiated. Is that easy? Absolutely not. Why? Because a perfect 50/50 split is unrealistic and at any given time in a relationship things change.
I believe it’s the figuring out the “roles within a relationship” that a lot of young people embrace when choosing to live together before marriage….though obviously, not the sole reason. 
Personally I like the choices afforded to young people today.
In the context of this discussion, I think traditional marriage means to be legally married (as compared to spiritually married). No assumption of gender roles within a marriage.
You could be correct. I was commenting on the broader context of marriage as opposed to the linked article’s “spiritual marriage”.
I admit when I first read the article, I wasn’t particularly focused on the legal vs spiritual part of the couple’s arrangement. The part I found interesting was the woman trying to protect herself financially at the prospect of motherhood. I wasn’t judging the relationship, though I understand those who do.
Doesn’t matter if they have rings or not. These two are roommates who just figure if they hate each other at some point it’ll just last to the end of the lease. As long as you don’t have kids together this works fine and each can maintain their independence if each makes enough money. The “book” is only the start–what if she doesn’t want to or can’t go back to work?
To some degree. My high earner DD doesn’t mind cooking and doing laundry or other chores when she has time. All heavy lifting, mice chasing, furniture assembly and such is done by her BF. She wants a traditional ring and legal marriage before having kids.
That’s kind of my point. The operative phrase (important, in my opinion) is “she wants”. Couples make choices based on their wants and needs…and often who doesn’t mind doing a task.
I like reading about how other people do things, even if it might not be what I’d choose. In many ways, I think it’s smart to open the lines of communication about what is expected of each person before the baby comes. Too many women I know (raises hand) seem to do almost everything and become resentful (raises hand). You can’t plan for everything, but you could work out a lot of things beforehand. And ideally, if it’s not working later, it could be modified.
Just because she had this plan doesn’t mean that he couldn’t negotiate it. It could be a great starting point to open up a discussion of things he may not thought about. If he had a problem with the $$$, why would she have to have 6 months off? Plenty of women go back sooner. I had a week. Wouldn’t recommend it, but we all lived. Maybe he would volunteer to take 3 months off while she went back.
He does come across as a bit flakey in the article, and I don’t blame her at all for wanting something drawn up. Maybe he’s the one that really “wants” kids and she’s more on the fence and worried she’ll be stuck with it all.
Given the unequal participation in men in child birth and typically child-rearing, the income effect to women of a long-term loss in annual income seems highly likely. Not clear why the males gain incomes. But, because of the shift in incomes that is likely, one problem that this couple has is not treating the relationship as a financial partnership. If one partner enables the couple to have kids or enables the other to do better at work, they should share in the benefits. His shock comes from the way she shaped the sharing, but I think it is a lot healthier to think about the joint enterprise of a relationship and child-bearing/rearing as a full partnership. That doesn’t mean 50/50 on everything as one partner may be a) better at certain activities, b) more interested in certain activities or c) have a higher income profession.
I think my kids saw the way we do it and naturally assumed that was the way of things. ShawSon’s wife grew up in very different circumstances – young single mother who was not prepared for a kid emotionally or financially – and has had to be entirely self-made. She has done extremely well and is at the pinnacle of her field. They selected as the rabbi to marry them a family friend/cousin and businessman when we knew him. ShawSon probably stayed at his house for 3-4 weeks a year for 8-10 years and we went hiking and skiing with him. He had several one hour sessions with them and one was about finances and how they thought about it. The idea of sharing finances was initially scary to ShawSon’s wife but they are in the process of doing a financial planning exercise with one of our FAs as they consolidate finances.
How couples share expenses in dating seems strange to me in a world in which a good percentage of women are high earners. Why is there an expectation males pay for dates in that world? I think the idea of the diamond ring was sort of showing an investment in the relationship. But, I’m not sure any of that translates to today.
My S has more flexibility in his schedule as he’s self-employed. He’s also pickier abut neatness, so he does the lion’s share of cleaning and maintaining their place. Fiancée has a more traditional job and has to be in the office several days/week plus has an office at their place for when they have work from home. We shall see how things evolve, as she changed jobs every few years.
This may be obvious but I think worth mentioning.
I think the key to parenthood is to be open and fluid. Ideas, circumstances, priorities change by the day or by the year. It is impossible to know what the future holds - but partnership survival is through flexibility and willingness to work together for a common good.
I think to successfully parent both parties need to be flexible and acknowledge that roles will shift and change over the years. When our four kids were small, I stayed home with them. That meant long hours at work for my husband and the brunt of the cooking, cleaning, and parenting fell to me. Since the pandemic he’s worked mostly from home while I now work outside the home. This means he now does the grocery shopping, the dishes, the laundry. I leave early to work so he packs the school lunches, makes my coffee and lunch, etc… We’re a team. I can’t imagine how we’d have successfully navigated the last three decades if we weren’t.
Agree about flexibility. For example - cooking has flip flopped between us depending on schedules (it’s about even now that we are both retired).
I think it’s really important to not get into a habit of one spouse (usually the female) doing A LOT more and never changing that when other factors such as a baby come into play. Then one partner ends up doing way more and being resentful as well as exhausted.
My sister had 2 children before she was married. They’d both been married before and my sister wasn’t really interested in being legally married again but wanted children. They each owned a house (hers in the city, his a mountain ‘ski’ house). They did not combine income. At some point they did get legally married (I think when their kids were 2 and 4?) because my BIL really wanted it. They continued to live separate financial lives, splitting the kids for taxes (made them each HOH), and taking the taxes on their respective houses. My sister made a lot more than BIL, and then when she gave up Big Law to become a teacher, that flipped and some of the things they’d each been paying for (tuition, utilities) also had to flip.
Sister is 68 so not a new thing.
In the story, I don’t think the woman has the math right. If they were earning $175k together, and she is making $100k, he’d be paying a lot more of his share to pay her $50k for her 6 months of maternity leave. She doesn’t need to take that full maternity leave it that’s not what they agree to as a couple. She’d also save a lot in taxes for that year. Why should she be made ‘whole’ while he takes the full $50k hit?
They have to decide what kind of lifestyle they want and want for their children. If they want a stay at home parent, then they probably do need to have shared finances. If the man wants to stay home, then the woman may have to pay into his retirement fund. Splitting all the costs that aren’t covered by her insurance, costs for the child’s food, clothing, housing makes sense.
Seems like she made a proposal, and he can counter if he wants to. Of course the counter offer may be ‘no kids.’
The article said $175K after taxes, not before. For some reason I thought they both made $175K so I went back and looked.
So even if they each make $120k, and she’ll lose $50k by staying home for 6 months, why should he eat the entire cost of having the baby? I’m assuming she also wants the baby, wants to contribute to the child. And why should she decide, alone, that she’s going to take 6 months off rather than 12 weeks or 3 months? If she’s worried about her career, taking less time off would be better? Maybe they can find the right number for each to contribute, her through taking time off, him through contributing cash, and maybe put that money into a fund for the child?
Obviously this couple has to start communicating. What if somethings goes wrong and a parent needs to stay home for a year? Contracts don’t always solve the problems. Buttigieg earlier this year took time off because one of his children was in the NICU and he said “What was I supposed to do, go back to work?” Well yes, Pete, many of us who had children in the NICU (89 days for me) for longer than a few days went back to work knowing that our children were being well taken care off by teams of nurses and doctors. Some saved their FMLA time for when the kids came home but I have friends whose planned maternity leave became much longer or shorter than planned because of the needs of the family ($$ or medical).
And are these people married and filing taxes together or not?
My coworker had both of his kids in NICU for extended periods of time. With his second - and while back at work - he called NICU “the most expensive day care ever.”
And I definitely agree negotiations and discussions needed to happen. And he didn’t say she wasn’t open to negotiations. I could easily see them having this businesslike split evenly lifestyle and one day emotionally say “let’s just have a baby.” (That’s how I read it) and then later she started thinking about all of the little details and got cold feet. This isn’t like buying a new sofa.
Just to set some things straight, this is a quote from the article:
“ “She saw my hesitation and just doubled down,” he said. She explained that while her ideal situation is to go back to work after 6 months of maternity leave, she recognized “it’s a real possibility” that she might have to take up to a year off. “She had another plan drafted for that,” the man said.
According to her projections, “For the first 6 months, her work will give her 50% of her salary, and I would compensate her for the rest, but for the next 6 months, since her work would not compensate her, and because this loss is something she is doing for the family, she is ‘comfortable splitting the loss of her income,’ and only asking me for 50% of her salary instead of 100%.””
So yes, she wants to be made whole for the first 6 months and then for the next wants him to pay her 50%. It doesn’t say if he would also have to pay 100% of the cost of living during those second 6 months.
This would mean for the first 6 months he’s paying 100% of the ‘lost income’ for the family.
I vote they don’t have kids.
Thanks for sharing. That’s a fascinating article!