I was raised to be a stay-at-home mom — that's not a lifestyle I can afford, though (2024)

Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us and terms apply to offers listed (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate products and services to help you make smart decisions with your money.

• My parents were happy to see me go to college, but they assumed I'd be a stay-at-home mom.
• In reality, it's just not realistic to raise a family on a single income, so I've had to adjust my plans.
• If I could tell my past self one thing, it would be that the stay-at-home lifestyle isn't sustainable.

The child of a 1960s Baptist minister, my mom's path through life was laid out for her. She would marry young, have children, and stay home to raise them while her husband brought home the bacon. She has flourished in this role for 40 years, like her mother before her, and her mother before that.

Growing up a daughter in this lineage of homemakers made my career path fairly obvious. Not that my parents weren't interested in breaking any generational cycles — they expected me to graduate from college, and my talent for writing was seen and encouraged from a very young age.

Still, for both religious and practical reasons, they encouraged me to be a stay-at-home mom. Instead of thinking about retirement planning or putting money in the bank, I learned how to cook, clean, and run a household. I tried following that plan, but I wasn't prepared for the reality I'd face.

My husband's salary isn't enough for our needs

I went to college as expected, and I married a man on track to being a good earner. I had my first baby at 22 and immediately began putting my homemaking skills to work as a stay-at-home mom.

Stay-at-home moms work relentless, thankless jobs. Salary.com estimates that a stay-at-home mom's work is worth over $184,820 annually. However, the reality is that a stay-at-home mom's compensation is a share of whatever their primary earning partner makes. In a world where value is defined exclusively by dollar signs, this arrangement means the work of a stay-at-home mom is considered a luxury at best and parasitic at worst.

Financially, trying to bankroll an entire family off of one income in a society that has shifted to two-income households being the norm is a rich person's game — a game that neither my upbringing nor my marriage prepared me to play. My husband earns a solid salary, but it's not enough.

This isn't because my husband and I live extravagantly. We indulge in the usual middle-class luxuries of annual summer vacations, putting our kids in recreational sports leagues, and Amazon Prime memberships. But we're also conscious of our budget — we buy our groceries at Aldi, make our coffee at home, and drive used cars.

We live in the Kansas City area, where a study from SmartAssetshows that for a family of four to live comfortably, they must make $213,325 a year. Our family has five members, and my husband doesn't make nearly that amount. The answer is obvious: I have to make an income, too.

I was taught my relationship with money was saving, not earning

This reality contradicts the expectation of my upbringing, which was that my greatest financial contribution to my family would be the ways I could save money, not the ways I could make it. However, it also means that all the time I spent preparing for my career as a stay-at-home mom should have been spent padding my résumé.

As an adult, despite my lack of preparedness, I've never been able to escape the necessity of a second income. Earning enough to supplement my husband's salary has meant conducting a gig lifestyle I would have never chosen over a traditional full-time job. Since I started our marriage assuming that I'd be a stay-at-home mom, I took over everything that entails — more than a full-time job's worth of labor. On top of that, I spend upwards of 40 hours a week trying to make money.

There's also an emotional cost I've paid. If you've been paying attention to social media over the last year, you've likely seen a rise in "trad wife" content — a movement where stay-at-home moms insist they love their work as homemakers and have no career aspirations beyond baking their children Goldfish from scratch. They aren't lying about the appeal — the simplicity, flexibility, and creativity of a stay-at-home mom's work is wonderful, and while I've always loved writing as well, I often yearn for the career I was raised to have. Except I can't afford it.

I don't blame my parents. They taught me what they believed was right, and how could they know the world they were preparing me for would no longer exist by the time I reached adulthood? However, if I could go back in time and tell my younger self one thing, it would be that the well-worn path of my foremothers would be closed to travelers by the time I got there, so I better start forging my own.