"If I took a blow to the head and decided to go to a 9-5 j.o.b. and tried to provide something close to what the boys get at home now I'd have to pay for the following:
--Private school
--Hidden costs associated with school (projects, parties, fund raisers, etc.)
--Someone to run them to activities
--Additional medical due to increased sickness in self and children
--Sick child care
--Testing for BA
--OT for auditory processing/sequencing (I wouldn't have time)
--Tutoring for reading (I wouldn't have time)
--Sports for both boys
--Sports equipment
--Professional wardrobe for me
--Uniforms for boys
--Dry cleaning
--Additional meals out
--Housekeeper
--Help in the shop--boys do this now
--Help with yard maintenance --boys do this now
That's just off the top of my head. The private schooling, the nanny/child care, OT, tutoring, and sports alone would eat anything I brought in. And that's just the money.
I suspect if they were in school there would be a fair amount of despair in the life of my oldest who is independent and sets his own path. Despair in the life of an adolescent who lives big is usually expensive. Emotionally expensive and monetarily expensive. I've seen it end in therapy for anger. I've seen it end in a trip to the hospital for a child who was acting out. There's worse. Best not to go there.
I can't imagine what would happen to BA in the hands of even the most caring teachers. He's, frankly, our child to raise. There is no outsourcing him and keeping him whole. That's all there is to say about that.
Raising and educating our sons takes up a lot of room in my head. Room that would be taken up by work if I were going to a 9-5. I wouldn't be able to devote as much time to observing them and figuring out what was really happening developmentally, intellectually, emotionally, physically. I couldn't set up independent studies, mentoring, apprenticing. There simply wouldn't be as much time for me to be the expert on our sons. That's work that can't be sent out. That's my work to do. Besides their dad, there's no one in the world who has as much skin in the game as I have.
Sometimes the parent who stays with the children wonders what it would be like if they worked a 9-5 j.o.b.. If you do that, make sure you put everything on the scales. Being away from your children will have hidden costs and unintended consequences, good and bad. "
[Originally posted December 2013]
