The more thought I give to having kids, the more I realize we are screwed.
Stay home and miss out on income and retirement contributions.
Keep working and struggle to juggle everything (I find it hard enough to run our lives as DINKs, let me tell you).
If T could increase his income, maybe I could stay home and freelance – I’d earn less, but something is better than nothing .
If I remain the bigger earner, well, I don’t know what he could do on a self-employed basis if he stayed home. If there was an easy answer, his stints of unemployment in our time together wouldn’t have been so bad. Also, I shudder to think what kind of scene I would come home to at nights. Great dinners, no doubt, but probably a filthy house (and grubby, if happy, kids by default).
And what if, as Her Every Cent Counts made me consider, a difficult pregnancy/birth physically affects my ability to work?
I feel totally torn between two trains of thinking: One: I work in an office – the world wouldn’t miss a beat without me – how can that ever compare with raising mini human beings? Two: I really like what I do – even if I’m not saving the world – do I have to feel guilty about that?
Also, I need adult interaction. My tolerance for children is even more limited than for people in general, and needs to be balanced out.
On a slightly different note … My parents were around wayyy too much when I was a kid. After moving to NZ, they both mostly worked part time or at home, to my best recall. It annoyed the hell out of me back then. On the other hand, we all know people whose parents were never around. That usually doesn’t end so well either.
Mine were too strict; other parents weren’t strict enough. I am determined to find a balance, but I am well aware I am destined to fail.