Reply #54: this is very close to our situation minus the kids -- me being able to [View All]

[nashville_brook]

take care of "life at home" really takes the stress off of him. he hates the house stuff -- feels like it robs him of his life. i love it. love mowing the lawn, taking care of "fabrics," food, organizing.

when i was a know-it-all teenager, my goal was to be a "professional" woman. i really devalued the housewife thing. thought it was anti-feminist. this served me well to get out of poverty -- but once i got "out" my attitude changed. the thing about the home being non-feminist is a mistake (but i'm not here b/c it's my only option -- big diff). i'm here b/c i LOVE it and i know it's a huge luxury! i have my aunt to thank for showing me the light on this. she took me in for my last couple of years of high school. she had been a stay-at-home mom with three kids all her years. i was horrible to her and put my teenage angst to work on the subject of her stay-at-home status. she stuck with me and taught me things that, as i grew, i realized were way more important than some of the things i was focused on. things like taking care of your stuff. instead of being a habitual consumer, have what you NEED and do the work to care for it. volunteer for your party. get involved in the community. make friends. write letters. cultivate a life worth living. be gentle. shop at thrift stores. reuse. recycle. make things from scratch.

when i was working i was still doing all the housework. i'd do all the grocery shopping during lunch hour (sneaking my bags into the fridge at work or having a cooler in the car). having to make calls from my office -- never fun. always feeling robbed b/c my job got in the way of our life. never really resting on the weekend b/c we were too busy doing our housework or taking care of parents.

we are right at the point where a job that would pay what i'm worth would put us in that higher tax bracket. i never planned on that being the case, and it makes a difference in terms planning. right now the only way i'd go back to work would be to serve a greater good -- not for money.