“There are great hidden costs to not having mom at home. Like divorce, affairs, childcare, house cleaning, maintenance of everything, support for husband to go get it, driving, cooking, all that.”
In my case I was able to work a lot of overtime and higher-paying shifts, thanks to my wife being home to take care of the kids. It’s not that complicated.
I also think a lot of dual-income pairs don’t really do the math, when it comes to having the wife work (in most cases). We considered it after our kids were grown, but why bother? In addition to what you mention, every dollar she would have made would be taxed at our marginal rate (and we’re in Texas - in most other states you also have the same thing at the state level). Plus she would have to pay into Social Security, which would be fine, except she’ll never get more from it than as my spouse, so that money is GONE too (completely), due to her shorter, less-paying work history. On top of that, my employer wanted something like $200 a month more if her job had medical available, which probably would have been the case. And not to mention that she would have limited vacation and all that crap.
Easy decision, for us. We just downgraded our ‘lifestyle’ a tad and actually came out ahead!
Same here. Basically.