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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

My wife left her (fairly well-paying) job when we had our second child in daycare. After taxes and daycare, she was only working for her retirement contributions and that wasn't worth it to us.

Our kids now get the advantage of a very involved mom and the whole family gets the advantage of more home-cooked meals and a smoother running, better organized, less stressed to the breaking point household. Now that the kids are in public school, it would again be financially advantageous for my wife to work, but we've decided to delay that still as all four of us (five, if you count the dog) are happier this way.

I hate to sound like I'm a time-traveler from the 1950s, but it's not clear to me that allowing/encouraging more two-income households is a recipe for greater family harmony and happiness for the next generation.

It sure helps GDP, but it's unclear to me that it helps the kids or families.

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Great example of how it often makes sense for one parent to stay at home. Just remember that 1) this is a luxury that many families don't get because living on a single income often isn't possible these days, and 2) we should be equally supportive of stay at home dads as we are of stay at home moms.

Why deduct the whole cost of childcare from her salary? Why not split it and deduct half from each of your salaries?

I think his point is that the child care cost completely goes away if she stops working. So, if you're judging the two options of her working and not working, the only + the column for his wife working was the 401k contributions.

I think there are a few things that were implied by OP's comment:

- they would prefer that the children be taken care of by the spouse versus a 3rd party

- if the cost of childcare were to equal or exceed the full income of the lesser-paid parent, it would be preferable for that parent to spend their time taking care of the children and removing the cost of childcare in the process

- neither parent would be able to work part-time in their current job positions, which would address your question of split duty

Basically right (and the others hit aspects as well).

My wife liked parts of her job and hated others (PhD in neurobiology, working in a non-lab part of her field), but overall didn't love it and certainly didn't prefer that over raising our children. I (90+%) love what I do and we're fortunate that it pays enough for us to live on just "my" compensation. In theory, her job could have become part-time; in practice, that would have worked very, very poorly at her company. My job couldn't be done part-time or job-shared in any practical way.

So, I happen to be the stereotypical working dad, but it's not because of gender biases or pre-conceived notions, but rather because of math/finance/satisfaction concerns. We could live OK in Cambridge on just "my" comp but couldn't on just "hers"; I actively like my job and she didn't. We do 100% pool the money and there is no sense of "yours, mine, and ours", only "ours". I actively take pains to ensure that, but the tax brackets[1] and cost of daycare in Cambridge being what they are, the math made it a near even-money proposition.

So, in our case it was a combination of my wife's pay being lower and also the [dis-]satisfaction with spending ~1/4 of her life (and ~1/2 of her awake life) that way made it a near no-brainer.

1 - In essence, when considering forgoing her income, her income is effectively entirely taxed at our highest federal bracket, plus she's still paying Medicare, FICA, and state income tax on top of that. It means that about half of her "headline" pay is going to the government. That's a pretty stiff headwind.

What difference does it make when the incomes are combined in the end?

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