<p>I just finished reading “The Price of Privilege” by Madeline Levine. The focus of this book is adolescence, and about the types of things kids needs during this period, and the challenges of an affluent lifestyle. While it won’t put the argument to rest between the OP and his friend, it could help the friend and his wife understand what goes on in a house with adolescents in it. Wish I had read it earlier.</p>
<p>Nothing is set in stone. Working when your kids are younger often means that you’ll ascend to the point of having greater flexibility when they are in middle school / high school – set your own hours, be able to come and go during the day, flex-time, etc. Foregoing working when they are younger and waiting til they are older to get back into the workforce often means that you may be more tied down just at the point they are in middle school / high school.</p>
<p>BerneseMtn, What’s the conclusion of the book? Older kids need their parents more than infants? That would be my guess.</p>
<p>I do not know statistical date. However, I strongly believe that both of my kids greatly benefitted from both of us working full time. Both of them are very adjustable and accepting, conect to people easily, never push thier "rights’ vs somebody else’s. Anyway, they know how not to be the center of universe and treat everybody fairly. More so, some people / other parents commented about it. One, in particular, noted to me during middle school years, that when her D. was rejected by all in class, how nice my D. was to her, although they were not close friends. My S. also grew up to be very independent. And if I start mentionning financial benefits, they are endless (private school, numerous expensive EC’s, trips oversees, many very nice vacations…). It continues to affect my D. as she is applying to Grad. School now while we have promised to continue supporting her. Actually, I would say that both of us working made them closer to us, not the other way around. They both expressed appreciation for our support many times. It is very satisfying to hear especially from one who is raising his own kids.</p>
<p>Iglooo, in the book I mentioned, the author makes the case that working vs. stay at home is not the determining factor in avoiding problems (the point of the book was not getting into a good college, more about avoiding problems resulting from living in an affluent society). The determining factor is the closeness of the parents to the kids, the strength to set boundaries, to model positive behaviors, etc. The author has a whole section about working moms vs. stay at home moms, and doesn’t settle the issue raised in this thread, but raises lots of issues about how to handle the growing adolescent child. </p>
<p>The author talks about overly critical parents, parents detached from kids, kids trying to gain their healthy separation from parents, and overly intrusive parents. It was a quick read, so now I am looking for another one about parenting slightly older kids.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s funny. That’s just how I would describe my girls and I stayed home throughout their childhood.</p>
<p>BerneseMtn, Thank you.</p>
<p>I have a very small amount of data:</p>
<p>Of the four seniors with the highest GPAs at my children’s school:
one has a stay at home mom with a professional degree and a dad who works full-time,
one has a stay at home mom with a professional degree and a dad who retired early,
one has a mom who works part-time and a dad who works full-time, and
one has a mom who works full-time in a professional job and a dad who works full-time (as a teacher–so presumably has some time for the children after school).</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, it would be difficult to find a study that controlled for all the variables. Also, the reasons that moms choose to stay home vary significantly.</p>
<p>Regarding the monetary benefits of both parents working, there are studies showing that men whose wives stay home earn up to 25% more than men whose wives also work.:[Men</a> Whose Wives Work Earn Less, Studies Show - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/12/us/men-whose-wives-work-earn-less-studies-show.html]Men”>Men Whose Wives Work Earn Less, Studies Show - The New York Times) So that might be something to take into account when deciding whether it makes sense to stay home or not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How much of that is ingoing … men with high income potential jobs can “allow” (bad word choice, but you know what I mean) their wife not to work; men who don’t can’t … versus an effort of the wife not working.</p>
<p>I think it depends a lot on the given job. My mother didn’t work until I was in my teens and she was very much a corporate wife who entertained, etc. and kept everything running at home enabling my father to do very well. My husband, OTOH, is in an entirely different profession (medicine) and whether I work or not really has little or no bearing on how much money he makes.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think the whole decision should be predicated on what works best / what is preferred by the adults in the household, not some pipe dream that there’s some magic ticket to Stanford based on the parent’s working status.</p>
<p>Schokolade,
You can add to your list. I have been working full time my whole life. GPA of my kids has nothing to do with it. My S. cared to do only what he loved and was perfectionist at that. He did not care about his grades, but got into college program of his choice using his smarts including good writing skills not expected from one who did not care to read. We were happy, feeling very lucky. My D. who is finishing her UG has never had single “B” in her life. She graduated #1 in her HS class. She has very many interests outside of academics. In her world, everything, including stuff that she hates doing have to be completed to perfection. If it has to be done, it will be done even though she might not like doing it. With so many very different interests in her life, she has always operated on priority list, starting around age 5. We had to wait patiently until something hopefully would drop out of her radar of interests, and finally at about 9, she had only 3 activities left that she has pursued all thru HS, continued with one as minor at college. And, as expected, at college, she also managed to pile up whole ton of EC’s of various sorts. </p>
<p>Kids are simply different, you cannot explain everything by one or both parents working. However, with my D. we would have not been able to afford everything that she wanted to be engaged if we did not have 2 incomes.</p>
<p>I think it’s important for both partners to be able to support themselves and their children if the need arises.</p>
<p>The parents of the very nice family next door ended up in a messy divorce. Fortunately, the mother, who was a nurse, had kept working part time and was easily able to increase her hours when she needed to. </p>
<p>The parents of the very nice family next door on the other side also ended up in a messy divorce a few years later. That mother had dropped out of law school to stay home with the kids and was faced with the necessity starting a career at age 50. I’m pretty sure that whatever benefits the kids gained from having a stay at home mom when they were young were more than negated by the stress of the sudden change in financial circumstances and lifestyle when they were in middle and high school–not to mention the usual issues of divorce.</p>
<p>And of course spouses die and become disabled, too.</p>
<p>Moms (or dads) who stay home might be more inclined to run out to school if junior or juniorette “forgets” something, might be inclined to get them to and from othodontist appointements, pick up last minute supplies that were needed and all kinds of “helping” type activities and reminders that going to work parents tend to not do. The stay at home parent might feel that that is ‘their job’ and gives definition and routine to their days much like an office routine gives definition to a job constrained adult. Perhaps future success in college also has to do with independence, self sufficiency and all those intangibles. I do not think a study could be done that could evaluate all the different family situations. My H and I both worked although H had far more flexible hours but was disinclined to do things for the boys he felt that could do on their own. All three had after school activities and “things” so we ate together and then the homework began…and H and I were home for that part of the evening although generally talking to each other and not so much “supervising” the kids once they were in the later elementary years and the dinner table conversation etc.</p>
<p>^Never had times for dinners with D’s EC’s, just wonderful memories of numerous out-of town several days meets, spending countless hours together on bleaches and in the same room in hotels, piano recitals and awesome expensive vacations in exotic place - all of which were family times together and none would be possible on one income.</p>
<p>
My H and I definitely found that to be true. I stayed home from the time my son was born, prematurely and with health issues. I resumed working part-time when the kids were in school. My H never had to leave work at a specific time because he had to pick up the kids from daycare. He never had to stay home with a sick child. He never had to turn down a business trip for daycare reasons. We realized from the beginning that my taking primary responsibility for child care would leave him free to more fully pursue his career, which lead to more promotions, etc. I’m not saying this was a good or a bad thing, simply that I’m not surprised that men with an at-home wife are able to earn more.</p>
<p>I never regretted my choice at the time, but now that both kids are in college and I am having trouble finding a full-time career that I like, I sometimes wonder if I made the right choice for me. I also worry that perhaps I didn’t set a good example for my daughter - although she is looking into careers in which part-time work is easy to segue into and out of (like Occupational Therapy) because she’d like to have children someday and would like to be home with them after school.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s a single right answer for this. Part-time work is pretty ideal, but not always available.</p>
<p>I think there’s a correlation between academic success and sufficient finances, though not necessarily lots of money–just enough money to live in a place with good public schools, or maybe enough to pay for tuition to a private school with great college prep. services; enough to fund quality EC’s and any needed camps and lessons; and enough money for parents to not have to choose between replacing a broken appliance or funding an SAT prep. class.</p>
<p>If the money is not there, then there must be a dedicated, reasonably intelligent parent with some foresight who is willing to spend the time and effort to see to the children’s academic, social, and extra-curricular development.</p>
<p>If the second working parent does not make a large enough wage to put the family in the “sufficient” resource category, then the parent would be better off staying home and putting in the time and effort.</p>
<p>So many of us live in communities that are not like the ones we grew up in where the neighbor next store would come over to borrow a cup of sugar, and would keep an eye on her friend’s kids if the friend was out. Also, both sets of grandparents lived only a mile or two from my parents’ house. That is not at all my reality or that of many parents nowadays. Lastly, the internet, cell phones with cameras, and other technologies have opened up a world of dangers that our parents didn’t have to worry about. There just aren’t as many safeguards and supports for parents today, in my opinion. So for me the academic success aspect of this decision takes a backseat to safety and emotional security.</p>
<p>Lafalum, both my kids went to see an OT for a while who had turned her basement into a giant therapy room. She worked in the school system for a while and did private OT through another practice until she had kids. Then went PT in the school system, converted her basement and started building her own private practice. Was very happy with the flexibility this gave her family.</p>
<p>I was a stay-at-home parent in area where most children had two parents working full-time. Some of the kids did better academically than mine and some did worse, so I can’t draw any conclusions. One thing that our family had in abundance was time. My friends that worked full-time had unbelievably hectic lives. They did not have time to cook dinner and the kids had very scheduled lives.</p>
<p>Because I was home, our kids had less scheduled lives. Most of the time after school through junior high, they came home and played outside with their buddies. I had plenty of time to shop and cook dinners and make breakfasts in the morning. I had time to volunteer at the schools. I don’t know if my kids are better or smarter because I stayed home but I know they were happy I was there. And that’s all that matters to me.</p>
<p>Yup- Lots of data to support the correlation between income and SAT scores
[SAT</a> Scores and Family Income - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/]SAT”>SAT Scores and Family Income - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Unless the dad is making a high income, time to tell those wives to get to work in the workforce!!! ( Then maybe too the whining about being low income will stop too. One can hope.)</p>
<p>There is a financial advantage of having one income - more likely to be eligible for FA. With both parents working, more expenses (commuting, lunch, babysitter, cleaner) and those expenses are not recognized by FA calculator. If one parent’s income is 150k, and the other parent’s income if greater than 30K, then the family may not be eligible for Stanford’s generous FA.</p>