[SamAdams76]

You are right, it is certainly more hectic when both parents work. But it can be made to work and people need not be miserable. That was the point of my reply. Unless my wife is lying to me, women with careers are not necessarily miserable.

I should note that in my situation, I am a manager and somewhat flexible in when I can work at home (thank God for laptops, cell phones and the Internet!). My wife supports mainframe applications and can do her job anywhere with an Internet connection. So she can work at home whenever the need arises. Not every working couple has that luxury so in fairness, I should make my situation more clear.

Neither of us aspire to be an executive or an entrepreneur. So long hours is not a problem for us. We can both get home at a reasonable hour each day and have weekends and holidays off. We both have both sacrificed the "fast track" and yet our incomes put together equal that of an average executive. There are many executives who put in 100-hour (or more) weeks and are never home for the kids. In those situations, it would be crazy for the wife to work as well. Yet even a stay-at-home wife would quickly get fed up with a workaholic husband who is never around. Many marriages have failed due to this.

So I believe we have achieved the best of both worlds.

[olivia3boys]

Sounds good! (Not that you needed my approval.) Be very careful with the daycare arrangements though. Most daycares are truly substandard. (It sounds like your kids are older though, so I assume they're mostly in school.)