OT: How much baggage will you accept?

[bearishgurl]

I can’t tell you all how many parents I have been acquainted with over the years (newly “single” and the vast majority female), most of them attractive and reasonably intelligent, who USED to have a “nice life” and are now totally screwed. They’re screwed because they did it to themselves. They, like CAR, thought that society and the law valued (or should value) their “soccer mom duties” enough to set them for life.

It doesn’t and they aren’t.

Some have moved back in with their (now elderly) parents. Not because their parents asked them to or necessarily needed their help but because they were desperate and had no choice if they wanted to remain in SD County to have regular contact with whatever children they had who were still minors.

[scaredyclassic]

How about this set up.  No more marriage.  The wealthier spouse simply employs the less wealthy spouse as a domestic engineer.  All the household expenses are probably tax deductible, since the business is the business of raising baby.  Also satsisfying certain needs of the employer..  the engineer is at a lower tax bracket than the employer, so there’s a tax advantage beyond deducting all sorts of things that otherwise wouldn’t be deductible if this work weren’t employment and valued appropriately.  On the bright side for the employer, there’s no community to divide upon divorce, because there’s no divorce, simply employer employee. Also, the employer can just give the employee the boot at any time, assuming we’re in an at will state.  Since everything’s being fully compensated at an agreed upon market value, there’s no need to pay any alimony.  Child support still applies, but that’s just the cost fo doing business. Check with your acct to see if that might eb tax deductible under these circumstances.

 

This seems like a better deal all around.  No illusions.  No uncompensated work.  Lesser women will have to work for lesser employers and it may be very lwo wage, but that’s their decision, to work for a very small business.  They need to work for a larger more thriving concern if they want their work valued appropriately to what they feel it’s worth. If the employer provides any service to the spouse, that’s service may be deducted from wages.  Vacation and various employment rules apply, so more than one spouse for child care may be required, as there are limits on shift work, breaks, etc. 

[bearishgurl]

[quote=scaredyclassic]How about this set up.  No more marriage.  The wealthier spouse simply employs the less wealthy spouse as a domestic engineer.  All the household expenses are probably tax deductible, since the business is the business of raising baby.  Also satsisfying certain needs of the employer..  the engineer is at a lower tax bracket than the employer, so there’s a tax advantage beyond deducting all sorts of things that otherwise wouldn’t be deductible if this work weren’t employment and valued appropriately.  On the bright side for the employer, there’s no community to divide upon divorce, because there’s no divorce, simply employer employee. Also, the employer can just give the employee the boot at any time, assuming we’re in an at will state.  Since everything’s being fully compensated at an agreed upon market value, there’s no need to pay any alimony.  Child support still applies, but that’s just the cost fo doing business. Check with your acct to see if that might eb tax deductible under these circumstances.

This seems like a better deal all around.  No illusions.  No uncompensated work.  Lesser women will have to work for lesser employers and it may be very lwo wage, but that’s their decision, to work for a very small business.  They need to work for a larger more thriving concern if they want their work valued appropriately to what they feel it’s worth. If the employer provides any service to the spouse, that’s service may be deducted from wages.  Vacation and various employment rules apply, so more than one spouse for child care may be required, as there are limits on shift work, breaks, etc. [/quote]

scaredy, if you’re saying the payor parent is technically responsible for 50% of the care of kids the parents have together and will compensate the other parent for the other 50%, it would seem to me that the other parent would have a FT job until the last kid was in school FT. After that, they may only have a PT job, depending upon the activities of the children. With HS age kids, the other parent will likely have a part, part time position or even be unemployed, depending on how independent (and sensible) those HS age kids are, lol.

In your scenario, I feel the other parent (if female) should be compensated extra for the time they are carrying children because it is hard to hold down FT work for many pregnant women and can be a hassle to lose all the excess weight afterwards. The woman should set the rate and if the employer parent doesn’t want to pay it, they should decline the childbearing job.

I’m all for streamlining CA child support law but I believe the chief problem is that child support is set solely on custody timeshare percentages and disparity between the parents’ incomes. This invites litigation by both parties to discredit each other in effort to grab as much custody timeshare percentage as they think the other parent will cave to (due to inability to litigate or not having money to litigate the issue). It also invites parents who had little to zero interaction with their kids until the “breakup” to suddenly become “parent of the year” in the eyes of the law and petition to grab their 50%+.

[bearishgurl]

In my long post above, I stated that local gubment clerk typists (entry-level position) made ~$16K annually. Actually, the wage was slightly over $5 hr back then. That’s closer to $10,650 yr. I don’t recall any of my co-workers not returning after their (six-weeks disability + any vac hrs left on their books) maternity leaves. A few had a baby per year 3 or more years in a row and still came back to work at their $5 – $6 hr job, five days per week, 8 – 5 pm. Flex time was unheard of and of course, you couldn’t work from home. There were no computers (except the mainframe at work, lol). And a new mom couldn’t pump breast milk at work and a new dad wasn’t allowed time off that was not on their vac balance. The new mom and her new baby made a quick transition to FT daycare and moved on.

If the new mom didn’t return on the designated day when they were out of leave, their position would be mailed out for interviewees still on the list in effort to fill it immediately.

Anyone correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe active duty military women only get four weeks maternity leave. Not sure if the military participates in state disability insurance programs.

The new-parent Federal labor laws (beginning in the early nineties) were much more family-friendly.

[NotCranky]

Lots of work that people do , especially blue collar men, degrades their bodies as much or worse than pregnancy and/or have high death risk factors. So, if pregnancy is allocated for, how about that?

1 baby=1 decade as an industrial worker.

[UCGal]

[quote=CA renter]
This is precisely the problem. Since wage-earning is easy to value by default, since one’s paycheck shows the perceived value of the work, there is no dispute that it is “work.”

OTOH, we rarely compute the work that caretakers do if they are working within their own homes or for their own families. How much would you have to pay for someone to be there for your children 24/7? How much to make all the appointments and shuttle people to these appointments and manage all the follow-up? How much to manage a family’s finances — including bill paying, negotiating contracts and doing due diligence on service providers, doing investment research and allocating financial resources? How about a family’s financial/legal business like estate planning, insurance, home purchases, etc…especially if that tends to be managed by one spouse? And even though the subject is taboo, what value do we place on having biological children who will carry our last name…should the person who facilitates this do it for free, especially when they risk their health, their bodies, and reduce their value to future potential suitors?

Is any of this “work”? If so, how should we value it? Because it’s traditionally been done by women (who were owned by men, much like slaves…does a slave’s work have value, even if he/she was not paid?), should we assume that this work has no value?[/quote]

Do these tasks have any more or less value if they are done by a person who works for wages in addition to working at home.

I am not trying to belittle domestic duties in the slightest. I just don’t understand why domestic duties have more value if done by a stay at home parent than if done by a person who works outside the home. The same stuff needs to be done. Period. Houses don’t clean themselves, lawns don’t mow themselves, investments don’t invest themselves, bills don’t pay themselves. Every household, whether a 2 salary, single salary, or no salary household has to make sure food is in the fridge, kids are put to bed (if there are kids in the household) and the vacuum is run periodically.

As a working parent – I used preschool and after school care. So I exchanged money for childcare. That didn’t abdicate my responsibility as a parent – just as Mr. CAR probably does activities with CAR-kidlets. I haven’t hired gardening services or housecleaning services… so Mr. UCG and I divvied up the tasks… and as the kids grew older – delegated some of the tasks to them. We’re a household, we work together. There is no more value or lesser value to mowing the lawn if you pay for it, get paid for it, or do it for free… the grass still gets mowed.

I don’t understand this whole argument.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=Blogstar]Lots of work that people do , especially blue collar men, degrades their bodies as much or worse than pregnancy and/or have high death risk factors. So, if pregnancy is allocated for, how about that?

1 baby=1 decade as an industrial worker.[/quote]

Fair enough. I agree. Except a baby only takes nine months but I feel the new mom should be compensated extra for 12 months due to needing 3 months to hassle with getting rid of any excess weight and toning up. While she’s at the gym five days per week, the employer dad can do his 50% stint with the kid.

The industrial worker can file a worker’s comp claim for any injuries they sustain while on the job or any rehab they need. No such benefit extends to new moms.

That’s because a blue collar job is “valued” by society and the law and bearing children isn’t. It’s assumed a middle school dropout can bear chidren (and be a drain on taxpayers).

This isn’t necessarily my opinion, folks. It’s just the way the world works so I accept it.

[CA renter]

[quote=UCGal][quote=CA renter]
This is precisely the problem. Since wage-earning is easy to value by default, since one’s paycheck shows the perceived value of the work, there is no dispute that it is “work.”

OTOH, we rarely compute the work that caretakers do if they are working within their own homes or for their own families. How much would you have to pay for someone to be there for your children 24/7? How much to make all the appointments and shuttle people to these appointments and manage all the follow-up? How much to manage a family’s finances — including bill paying, negotiating contracts and doing due diligence on service providers, doing investment research and allocating financial resources? How about a family’s financial/legal business like estate planning, insurance, home purchases, etc…especially if that tends to be managed by one spouse? And even though the subject is taboo, what value do we place on having biological children who will carry our last name…should the person who facilitates this do it for free, especially when they risk their health, their bodies, and reduce their value to future potential suitors?

Is any of this “work”? If so, how should we value it? Because it’s traditionally been done by women (who were owned by men, much like slaves…does a slave’s work have value, even if he/she was not paid?), should we assume that this work has no value?[/quote]

Do these tasks have any more or less value if they are done by a person who works for wages in addition to working at home.

I am not trying to belittle domestic duties in the slightest. I just don’t understand why domestic duties have more value if done by a stay at home parent than if done by a person who works outside the home. The same stuff needs to be done. Period. Houses don’t clean themselves, lawns don’t mow themselves, investments don’t invest themselves, bills don’t pay themselves. Every household, whether a 2 salary, single salary, or no salary household has to make sure food is in the fridge, kids are put to bed (if there are kids in the household) and the vacuum is run periodically.

As a working parent – I used preschool and after school care. So I exchanged money for childcare. That didn’t abdicate my responsibility as a parent – just as Mr. CAR probably does activities with CAR-kidlets. I haven’t hired gardening services or housecleaning services… so Mr. UCG and I divvied up the tasks… and as the kids grew older – delegated some of the tasks to them. We’re a household, we work together. There is no more value or lesser value to mowing the lawn if you pay for it, get paid for it, or do it for free… the grass still gets mowed.

I don’t understand this whole argument.[/quote]

I think that people aren’t getting what I’ve posted for some reason. I never said that a SAHP’s work should be valued more than the same work done by someone who works for wages. The point is that if the SAHP isn’t doing these things, then somebody else is. The cost of these things should be ascribed to the value of what a SAHP does. If the parents are both working outside of the home and both sharing these duties, it doesn’t change a thing. This work still has the same value.

[scaredyclassic]

why should it be valued to a specific number?

[CA renter]

[quote=bearishgurl][quote=CA renter][quote=scaredyclassic]

work outside the home is extremely easy to value; as there is a wage attached to it…[/quote]

This is precisely the problem. Since wage-earning is easy to value by default, since one’s paycheck shows the perceived value of the work, there is no dispute that it is “work.”

OTOH, we rarely compute the work that caretakers do if they are working within their own homes or for their own families. How much would you have to pay for someone to be there for your children 24/7? How much to make all the appointments and shuttle people to these appointments and manage all the follow-up? How much to manage a family’s finances — including bill paying, negotiating contracts and doing due diligence on service providers, doing investment research and allocating financial resources? How about a family’s financial/legal business like estate planning, insurance, home purchases, etc…especially if that tends to be managed by one spouse? And even though the subject is taboo, what value do we place on having biological children who will carry our last name…should the person who facilitates this do it for free, especially when they risk their health, their bodies, and reduce their value to future potential suitors?

Is any of this “work”? If so, how should we value it? Because it’s traditionally been done by women (who were owned by men, much like slaves…does a slave’s work have value, even if he/she was not paid?), should we assume that this work has no value?[/quote]

CAR, if you’re a SAHP and you perform all the above business tasks for your family, that is way more than the vast majority of SAHP’s do. They can’t possibly perform these tasks because they don’t have a clue how to do them. The italicized portions of your post (above) DO cost money and those tasks have worth.

As Russ mentioned about the (complaining-about-being overworked?) homeschool moms at his gym, that is a choice. It can’t be monetized because public school in the US is essentially “free.” Sure, property owners pay taxes which go to the school districts but renters and those many public school students living in MX and “stealing” a spot at SD County schools are attending for “free.”

The reality is that the two-earner couple doesn’t do every household task to perfection. They may get someone 2-4 times per month to clean for 7-8 hrs (abt $60 per visit here in Chula Vista). Many homeowners with lots over 10K sf (working or retired) employ gardeners 2-4x monthly. Two-earner families with young children have FT daycare or after-school care. The cost varies wildly in each situation or income level. It is also partially tax deductible for income-qualified families.

It is absolutely worth it for a SAHP to work FT who earns at least $30K per year and who has no more than two children at a time in FT daycare or afterschool care. This is so because the cost of being absent from the workforce for years at a time is very great, especially for a SAHP with limited (or dated) education. The cost to the SAHP is far greater than any perceived “emotional cost” to a kid who must attend daycare or afterschool care during the business day. In CA, this is manifested in the domestic courts where judges (no matter which gender) view each parent as an equal parent. Whether the parents are married or not makes no difference. It doesn’t matter if the working parent EVER had any interaction with their kids and was a road/sky warrior 8-25 days per month for most of their child(ren)s life! They are EQUAL parents to the SAHP in the eyes of the law and deserve 50% custody timeshare because they are the natural parent and they petition for their 50%. The vast majority of the (child-support) payor parents (the ones who are working FT and the other parent is a SAHP) lawyer up immediately in the event they sense a “breakup” and will be counseled immediately to petition for their 50%. They’re allowed to get live in care for their household to take care of their kids if they travel for work frequently or work night shifts and they do. THIS is much cheaper for the CS payor over the long run because it is not court-ordered and garnished from their pay and the amount doesn’t set a precedent for future CS hikes initiated by the receiving parent. The payor can stop it (the overnight childcare) at any time and just pay for the service intermittently when they need it. If the payor should get a new live-in partner or spouse in the future, that new partner may be willing to contribute some child care to the payor’s children.

In nearly all cases, the former SAHP is left with 50% of their time without their children and if they don’t seek any kind of work and begin working (if they don’t have other types of monthly income), they may very well eventually be imputed a salary by the court and that arbitrary salary will be used to compute permanent CS against the payor’s monthly income.

The vast majority of kids (especially toddlers and preschoolers) LOVE daycare with all the attention, toys and other kids once they get used to it … this usually takes 10 minutes to 3 days, lol. These kids are usually highly socialized upon entering kindergarten and don’t have unhealthy attachments to parents and toddler habits they’re still working on getting rid of like many 4-5 yr olds do who always had SAHPs.

The second child in FT daycare is typically discounted 25% if both are at the same facility/home daycare situation. Many, many young parents drop their kids off at a grandparent’s home 2-5 days per week, which cuts their daycare cost significantly. Headstart, DASH and other sliding scale preschool and afterschool programs are available at reasonable prices to income-qualified families. Scouting has daycamp in Balboa park with daycare afterwards for several weeks in the summers. So do the YMCAs all over the county. These non-profits offer sliding scare daycare services, activities and camperships to income-qualified families.

Meanwhile, the $30K FT working parent at the age of 24 (assuming HS Diploma and possibly a 1-yr certificate program at a CC and working as a car dealership bookkeeper) can get raises and attend one CC night class at a time relevant to their job. This could enable them to make $35K in 2-3 yrs time and close to $50K by the time both their kids are in school FT. If they work for any branch of govm’t, they will get step raises automatically and be in line for promotional opportunities which are not open to the public.

H@ll, this same parent could have gotten a degree after their kids were in school FT and started making over $100K by the time their kids were in MS or HS!

I myself worked with many, many parents of babies and young children over the years while working in local govm’t and also long before the FMLA was passed into law in 1993. NONE OF THESE PARENTS EVER QUIT and several had 4-5 kids all born while they were employed FT. Several were military spouses who let their member spouse deploy by themselves repeatedly for up to two years so they could keep their jobs!

When I began working for the gubment, the beginning clerical salary for an “Intermediate Clerk Typist” was just over $16K per year! By the time my co-workers were 50 yrs old, the vast majority had rec’d several promotions and were making $55K to $69K per year. Only a few had furthered their education beyond a HS Diploma but had taken evening classes at CC relevant to their duties. The vast majority of my former coworkers are now retired with pensions and their kids are grown. Most have paid-off homes. Some take care of their grandkids part of the week.

Sorry for the rant here, but I don’t think all simple household tasks can be monetized and like scaredy stated, not every parent cares if their houses and yards are perfect (even if the SAHP does). We must accept that society does not value household work and child care the same as it does working outside the home for pay.[/quote]

BG, I do all of this work, as do many other SAHPs…and some do even more than I do. I think your views are skewed by your own experiences and personal beliefs. It’s fine that you chose another option, but in no way does that invalidate what other people do in their own lives.

You’ve mentioned before that you didn’t take your kids for walks or let them play outside. And while your kids have turned out great, according to you, many others would have serious problems with your child-rearing decisions. Also, in EVERY case that I know of where there is a SAHP, the choice was made by the family; it was not a unilateral decision. So the risks should be borne equally between both spouses if things don’t work out.

You come from the era of “Mommy Wars,” and we could go back and forth about which choices are “right” or “wrong.” But the truth is that there is no black and white here. What’s right for one family might be wrong for another, and vice versa.

And do NOT confuse cost-shifting with “free” or “low-cost.” None of those things you’ve mentioned above (“free” public school, sliding-scale tuition, grandparents taking care of kids, etc.) is free. The cost is simply borne by someone else. And all of the duties I’ve mentioned in my post — not just what you’ve italicized — can have a value ascribed to it. If you were to have someone in the marketplace do those tasks, it would cost you a LOT more than $30,000/yr.

[CA renter]

[quote=scaredyclassic]why should it be valued to a specific number?[/quote]

It would have to be a range. As others have noted, some SAHPs perform better than others, and their “employers” will value these things differently, too.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=CA renter][quote=scaredyclassic]why should it be valued to a specific number?[/quote]

It would have to be a range. As others have noted, some SAHPs perform better than others, and their “employers” will value these things differently, too.[/quote]

OK why a range? Whats the purpose?

[NotCranky]

It doesn’t seem logical to me that any legal definition of the value of household work would ever be more than half national median household income. Even that is pretty extreme. If a stay at home worker sucked that off median household income families below and at the level and for some $ above would be doomed.

A person managing household investments in community is getting half the gains already.

Stay at home parents should be grateful that their partners consider them to be pulling their weight. The deal the stay at home is getting ,if they in fact they want to stay home, is better than good.

[bearishgurl]

CAR, my kids played outside with other kids where they (and their parent(s)) were home. I just didn’t own a stroller because I didn’t have time to use one. My kids weren’t “latchkey kids” until they were at least in 5th or 6th grade. That’s what afterschool care is for.

My kids were highly socialized from as young an age as possible.

I don’t want to get into “mommy wars” with internet posters, either. There are plenty of other forums for that.

I don’t know how old you are, CAR, so not saying the following is about you, but I do feel that the younger Gen X cohort of parents and the older Gen Y crowd (the ones that have kids) are, for the most part, very well educated (many are still paying on student loans), yet they choose not to work and stay home with their kid(s). That is folly, IMO, while the interest racks up on their (often enormous) student debt due to deferments, partial payments and non-payment for periods of time.

Why even go to college if what you really want to be is a SAHP? Why not go later (or attend a training program) when your kids are in school FT if you later decide to want to work in a skilled job? How much is a college degree worth that has never been used and is now 10, 12, 15 or 20+ years old?

My generation didn’t waste money on college if what they really wanted was to be a SAHP. They simply married during or right out of HS and got on with their adult lives.

I don’t opine that most men require women (their spouses) to stay home when they previously were working and bringing in a good salary. I hear from them that things went downhill in their relationships when their spouses decided unilaterally that they were going to quit work and stay home with kids but refuse to curtail their spending below what it was when they were bringing home a paycheck. Often that unilateral decision to be a SAHP by one parent turns out to be the beginning of the end of the relationship.

If the higher earning parent makes at least $200K, I could see them agreeing that the other parent (their partner) could quit their FT jobs and stay home with kid(s). But even then, it is very difficult for a former career person to alter their lifestyle far below what it was when they were bringing home a decent salary.

The WWII Gen and the boomers (+ some early Gen-Xers) paved the way for equality for women in the workplace and did make a lot of headway in being instrumental in getting family friendly labor laws enacted only to result in LESS women of childbearing age in the FT workforce today.

I haven’t investigated the stats on this but based upon recent articles I read, I strongly suspect that the bulk of women in the FT workforce in the US today either do not have children or all their child(ren) are over the age of 16. The rest of the mostly overeducated crowd of mommies are home with their children. The poor women without higher education and with or without spouses and minor kids at home are working in all the service jobs (essentially grunt work)… PT, FT or both part and FT … anything they can get.

After all their sister predecessors have been through, why did the values of the younger generation of parents (mostly moms) change over the last decade-plus? They prefer modern conveniences and technology much more than their older brethren (many of whom retired with their own pensions) and all this stuff costs money (and many are indebted for their educations) but it seems a good portion of them would rather opt out of the workforce, ignore their debts and attempt to live on less.

It doesn’t make sense.

[CA renter]

[quote=scaredyclassic]How about this set up.  No more marriage.  The wealthier spouse simply employs the less wealthy spouse as a domestic engineer.  All the household expenses are probably tax deductible, since the business is the business of raising baby.  Also satsisfying certain needs of the employer..  the engineer is at a lower tax bracket than the employer, so there’s a tax advantage beyond deducting all sorts of things that otherwise wouldn’t be deductible if this work weren’t employment and valued appropriately.  On the bright side for the employer, there’s no community to divide upon divorce, because there’s no divorce, simply employer employee. Also, the employer can just give the employee the boot at any time, assuming we’re in an at will state.  Since everything’s being fully compensated at an agreed upon market value, there’s no need to pay any alimony.  Child support still applies, but that’s just the cost fo doing business. Check with your acct to see if that might eb tax deductible under these circumstances.

 

This seems like a better deal all around.  No illusions.  No uncompensated work.  Lesser women will have to work for lesser employers and it may be very lwo wage, but that’s their decision, to work for a very small business.  They need to work for a larger more thriving concern if they want their work valued appropriately to what they feel it’s worth. If the employer provides any service to the spouse, that’s service may be deducted from wages.  Vacation and various employment rules apply, so more than one spouse for child care may be required, as there are limits on shift work, breaks, etc. [/quote]

Believe it or not, I would concur with this. Marriage has masked the value of the work that has traditionally been done by women because these women value other things (love, affection, physical security, social status, etc.) that come with marriage. If we were to divorce the work from these more emotional aspects of marriage, then we could get a truer picture of the monetary value of caretaking and other “women’s work.”

And we should emphasize the transitory nature of the working relationship so that women understand that they will be back on the street, looking for other work, when they are finished with their first “jobs.” That way, they could more adequately price their services that tend to be front-loaded and which they won’t be able to replicate at a later time; a bit like football players expect to be paid more because their value is highest in the beginning of their careers, and it could all end at any moment.

[Author]

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