Can You Afford A Stay-At-Home Husband?

More husbands are staying home with the kids while their wives bring home the paycheck. Here are five questions you must ask if you think this might be right for you.

by MP Dunleavey

I've been pondering, tracking, scrutinizing the "stay-at-home husband" trend for several months now. And I'm lovin' the idea.

Time was when any guy who worked at home taking care of the kids was considered a pathetic loser. But that was last week. Thankfully, now it's a national trend--according to major publications like Newsweek, Fortune and womensnews.org--and thus a viable option for all of us pathetic losers.

Which is good, because I just got married and I need more financial options than a) I stay at home with the kids or b) we shell out half our salaries for child care.

My new hubby and I haven't decided anything yet. Heck, we don't even have kids. But we're both intrigued. (I think I'm more intrigued than he is, but we can work on that.) But it's a possibility for us, because right now I do earn more. And he's planning to make a career change, possibly going to graduate school.

Unlike other couples, many of whom had the decision forced upon them by unwanted layoffs or other career shifts (i.e. his career trends down while hers takes off), I'd like to see this as a choice. Heck, a golden opportunity. After all, if we can afford it, it could be the ideal financial choice.

So a working gal can't help but wonder: How can I afford it?

Career-climbing and career-shiftingNo doubt about it, the stay-at-home-husband arrangement is feasible for more families today. Here are some factors:

Factor #1: The wife may have better career prospects. "We have more young women getting college degrees, compared to young men--and more women getting MBA's and doctorates," says Violet Woodhouse, a financial planner in Long Beach, Calif. "Soon women will be making more money in our workforce, and (they'll) be married to blue-collar men. I think that's what we're looking at."

Well, we'll see. But does it seem that women's higher education levels are putting them in higher earning brackets, and positioning them for greater earning potential over the course of their careers. Case in point: Of the 187 women who attended Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Business Summit last spring, 30% had a stay-at-home spouse to look after the Executive Household and Children.

Factor#2: Some wives earn more than their mates. According to Newsweek, in 30.7% of married households with a working wife in 2001, the wife's earnings exceeded the husband's. So even though women on average still only earn about 78 cents to the man's dollar, a significant number of women are out-earning their partners.

Factor#3 The economy and shifting careers. Job security is a thing of the past, and layoffs are a thing of the present. But even more significant is the fact that many of us will face at least one career change during our working lives. "That can make for longer periods of unemployment, searching, or deciding to learn new skills or further study," says Ken Canfield, founder of the National Center of Fathering. "You see more fathers staying home during those times."

Factor#4: It's his turn. C'mon. Women have been taking care of the kids ever since Adam took up golf back in Eden. If my own gut feeling is any indication (and I like to think it's not a bad barometer), a fair number of my working sisters loooove the idea of someone else taking on this age-old burden. Co-parenting-shmarenting. Let him do the 3a.m. feedings.

But seriously now, folks, in most of the stories I've read about stay-at-home husbands, the decision was made by default. If the dad was laid off and the mom became the main breadwinner (or maybe she was the main one all along), it made the most financial sense for him to stay home with the kids.

But as my husband and I discussed this, we started to realize that having him stay home--and planning ahead for it--could solve a number of problems at once, financial and otherwise. Since he's going through a career change, we had assumed it would be best to wait until he'd made the shift--gotten a new job, completed a graduate degree, whatever--before I had a kid.

But if we decide that I should continue to be the primary earner for a few more years, I can have a kid soom=ner rather than later (always a good choice when you're over 35), and he could become the primary caregiver. If his career were in high gear right now, this wouldn't be economically feasible, but for now it seems like a possibility.

For most people, it just boils down to an issue of economics, says Woodhouse. "Just as it was with our parents' or grandparents' generations, when most of the women stayed home. That was economics then, too."

It's not logical, but I somehow thought the economics of the stay-at-home male would be different than the economics of the stay-at-home female. Nuh uh. In fact, as I made my calculations, I found myself returning to the very first column I wrote for this site (read "Cost of being a stay-at-home mom: $1 million") and to all the parenting Web sites I visited then. The final decision-making process is identical, no matter who stays home with the kids.

Before handing him the apron...Here are five big questions you must ask yourself:

1) Can you afford it? Do the math. You first need to calculate whether one salary can pay the bills. Or just take your blood pressure. How ya doin'? Fainted yet? When I thought of myself as the breadwinner, it felt empowering. When I thought of myself paying FOR EVERYTHING, I almost had a heart attack.

Woodhouse has a solution for the panic: Think of it as a team effort. Use "we" not "I", when pondering your financial plan. "This is about building a partnership, where there is recognition of the joint effort," she says. "It's not 'my' money anymore, it's 'ours.' Women hate when men get into that, because it doesn't work. Everybody's contribution is equal."

2) Can you afford to lose his benefits? Or, in my case, can I afford to pay for all our benefits--plus additional life insurance and disability coverage? Woodhouse says that if you don't get disability through your employer and you're relying on one income, "getting a private disability policy becomes critical."

It's also essential to provide the non-salaried, work-at-home partner with life insurance. "That parent provides a significant job and it would cost a fortune to hire out all those services," she points out.

3) Does child care cost more than it's worth? There are so many options for child care--day care, family care, employing a full or part time nanny. But care is costly. The mose essential calculation: whether it's worth keeping your spouse's salary versus the "cost of working." Many of the stay-at-home mom (often abbreviated to SAHM) Web sites can help you calculate the cost of working. It includes not only child care but the hidden expenses that go into maintaining that second income: taxes, a second car payment, commuting costs, dry cleaning, work clothing, eating out more, etc.

4) Can you still have enough for retirement? It's possible for the working parent to set aside the money for the non-working partner in a spousal IRA. But is that enough for a joint retirement? Now is the time to re-do your retirement calculations for the two of you, given one income.

5) Can you live with it? As Woodhouse put it, before you decide anything you have to ask yourself, "Can you live with the idea that your husband is going to be your wife?" She laughed at that one.

I think I can. My newbie husband thinks he can. Because neither one of us believes this is going to be the 21st century blueprint for "Mother Knows Best."

"I'm looking at the long-range scheme of things," my (future stay-at-home?) husband says. "It's just like some mothers of our generation; many started out as stay-at-home mom's, but went back into the work force--either out of economic necessity, or because they damn well felt like it."