Have you discussed how to handle the 'child situation' with your future spouse?

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Bombshell Bodhisattva

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What did you decide? By 'child situation' I mean, how to handle the work/home balance when and if you decide to have a child? As in, will you both work, and hire childcare, or will you work, and he stays home, he works and you stay home, or some combination thereof? What are your thoughts on this?

Our particular situation is unique in that I have a second (and fairly lucrative) job as a performing musician. We figured that if I quit my day job, I could care for a prospective child during the day, and that he would take care of the child when I had a gig - usually in the evening.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Have you discussed this with your future intended?

We're not planning on having a child for another 3-5 years, so this is a little soon, but it's good to work these things out in advance.
 
Well, this has come up with us and we have discussed that I will stay home for at least 3 to 6 months or his mother may keep the future children. We have not went into a full out discuss because children for us are not in the future until 4 years for now. I do not know what the future may holds so, I do not put my thoughts on that subject until we are ready for children.
 
since i am an ece my child can come to work with me at a discounted price :D so yea they would be in day care from whenever i start to when ever i finish
 
I was a single mom to a toddler when me and my hubby married so we had TOTALLY already figured that all out haha. But I just wanted to say to you how amazing it is that you guys are talking about all this now, inevitable things will come up that you didn't realize would, so it's so imperative to talk about what you CAN think of. Way to prepare yourself for a successful, strong marriage!
 
You are right that it is a good idea to work this sort of thing out in advance, or at least have some ideas on it.

My fiance & I have no plans to have children, but I have made it clear that there is always a risk with birth control methods that if an accident should happen with it - - then we are having a child wether we intended or not.
He agreed.
 
My fiance and I have decided that when its time to start a family, we'll both continue in our careers. I'll take the standard 6-12 weeks maternity leave, and after that my grandmother has offered to take over the childcare duties while we're at work.

We're fortunate to have my family offer free childcare for us (its tradition in my family to do so). If this option wasn't available to us, I'd stay home full time rather than sending the kids to an expensive and crowded daycare.
 
We're getting married in just over a week, but we've been discussing this on and off for the past few years (as soon as we started getting really serious and knew that it was likely to last!). We both had mothers who stayed at home when we were growing up - for him, that's normal and what he just expected. For me, it looked terribly boring, and I didn't want to become the neighborhood babysitter ("oh she's home, we'll just have her watch our kids").

I told him I didn't spend tens of thousands on a college degree to stay home, but I did choose a career that - while busy during the school year - is still flexible enough to work from home when needed, etc. I work at a university, where lower-cost child care options are available so that I could bring the kid(s) there and stop over and have lunch, etc. with them.

He wasn't too keen on it, but the longer we've been together, the more he knows that I'm not the type of person to thrive on staying home. Me staying home wouldn't be fair to our kids because I'd be miserable. I strongly believe that happy mothers make the best mothers - whether that happiness means working full-time, part-time or staying home with the kids. He couldn't argue that! :)

It's definitely a good thing to talk out beforehand. FH and I are really good at compromising and coming up with solutions that make us both happy. There's been several things that we've talked about in regards to having babies to put expectations out on the table, like taking turns getting up in the middle of the night right down to breastfeeding/not BFing and who is or is not permitted in the delivery room.

These are fun convos to have with FH... we're both very spirited but respectful, and he's very family-oriented.
 
We didn't discuss it until we were ready to have children 3 to 5 years into our marriage. Had we discussed it before the wedding we would have had to say daycare but since his job and income changed by the time we had kids I was able to stay home. I think you do need to discuss expectations to some extent because I would never had married someone who would have told my I HAD to work or I HAD to stay at home.
 
My fiance and I have talked about this a lot actually. It's definitely a topic that should be discussed before marriage to make sure you are in agreement or can compromise.

We are planning to start trying for a baby around a year or two after our wedding in June. He is in the military and works 12 hour shift work 3 to 4 days per week. I am not working at the moment, but my job will likely mean I will be working irregular shifts including on weekends in the future. It is very unlikely that our shifts will line up right so that we can both continue working, without needing to hire childcare (which is expensive). We have decided that we will split the year of leave (in Canada you get a year of maternity leave, but can divide it up between maternity and paternity leave). I will probably take the first 8 months or so, and then he will take 4. Of course it will also depend on whether or not he is deployed at the time - and if so, then I will take the entire leave myself.

After the maternity/paternity leave of a year is up, then we will both go back to work. I just can't picture being a stay at home mother - no offense to the women who do. I want to run my own business, and that will require me working lots of hours.
 
You're smart to figure this out way ahead.

We decided not to have children at all, so the question of who would stay home with them didn't have to be answered. However, given that I make two and a half times what my husband does, we'd be giving up way too much for me to stay home. If I did end up pregnant, I'd take my paid leave from work, and then get some really good day care: I can't see my husband staying home with a baby. And, even if I wasn't the primary bread-winner, I don't see myself staying home with a baby, either (that's why we decided not to have any!).
 
While I would love to be a SAHM, we've both decided that we'll need a dual income if we want to give the best life to our child. We'll probably both have 8-5 jobs. As far as housework, I'll probably be in charge of the usual "female" jobs - cooking, cleaning most of the house, laundry, etc. He'll be in charge of the outside, washing the cars, garbage, maintenance, etc.
 
yeah as much as the idea of maternity leave kills me, I know I'll have to do it someday. but I don't think we could afford for 1 of us to stay home full time. I don't know what my bf makes but it's not a ton more than I do. if he were paid for being a sweetie then he'd be a millionaire!
 
Yes, we discussed it pretty thoroughly as part of our premarital counseling "homework". I had a strong desire to be home full-time with our children and my husband fully supported that decision. We even discussed when I would stop being home full-time what I would do when the kids got to be school age, etc. I think its a wonderful idea to discuss all of that now. Its easier to talk about it and set expectations before you're in the situation. I even made sure he knew I expected him to help with diapers and baths and giving me a break once he got home from work.

We can afford childcare but both agree we'd rather that I be home and not outsource the raising of our children. We've referred back to that decision in all of our financial decisions after we got married. We bought a cheaper home so that we could cover the mortgage on one salary. We're using my salary now to pay down the house, make sure we're covered for retirement, save up for new vehicles, etc.

Good for you in talking about it now!
 
you are doing a great job by deciding this ahead of time.. it will save confusion and gilt later.... my situation is different.. we are both having our second wedding and we both have children... 22, 13, 12, 8 ... our plan is to absolutely positively not to have anymore children... it has been discussed in great detail... it was hard enough raising the ones we have... ( we have been together for 6 1/2 years )
p.s.
none of our children are our mutual children... they are uniting as family when we say " I DO " on 10/10/09
 
We decided I will quit my job. However for you you may want to wait because who knows what will happen in the next 3 years maybe you and i will be friends and I will watch your kids for next to nothing cause i am home anyway. Or something like that.Or you will do so well in the music industry you will have a travel nanny. However you doing days and he doing nights sounds like a greta plan you to can tag team and bump fist when you switch shifts.
 
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