Gary, Liane was a stay at home mom as well. I credit her with whatever success I had in my working life. Not having to leave work to pick up or drop off the children or give up night school and not get a degree. Tuck the kids in at night when I had to work late. Home cooked meals every morning noon and night.
The cost of the working world clothes, a nicer second car, babysitters and fast food or restaurant meals would have negated some of that extra money. The biggest benefit was knowing however our children turned out, it wasn't because they were latch key kids.
Together we spent less money than I made, even when that wasn't much. Because she didn't have a job outside the home we could travel and take vacations without synchronizing time off from two jobs. I was able to take an assignment in Australia and the option to retire at 50. There are nickels out there somewhere with very skinny buffaloes on them because Liane squeezed them so hard.. She didn't use every coupon there was but made sure she found the best deals for what we needed when shopping. When she found Boca Raton's thrift stores, we had clothes we wouldn't think of buying at the fancy department stores they came from. Boca Raton has a lot of wealthy people who pass away and their kids dump everything at the thrift stores. Some of the clothes dropped off still have the tags on them.
Our stay at home wives made everything we've done possible. Nothing in this world can match the value of what they've done.
Awesome comments Bob, thank you for sharing.
Our wives often don't get the credit they so very much deserve, stay at home or not. I pray that I have never taken advantage of my wife, but I fear I that may not have been the case over our 35+ years of marriage.
We were in a slightly different position in our early years to have my wife stay home with our son because we were barely skimping by with two incomes, and we still didn't equal what many single household incomes were as we were both barely making above minimum wages at the time as neither of us had any college education, nor the opportunity at that particular time. Young & Dumb comes to mind because maybe we rushed into marriage a bit, but what we did have was a thirst and deep desire to better our situation, even if secondary education wasn't possible.
When we got pregnant it hit me hard as I wasn't expecting that quite so soon. But you know the old saying "life happens when you're busy making plans". Fortunately for us (I can say that now
) but with us working different schedules for those first few years it really benefitted our situation, even though I absolutely despised working swing and graveyard shifts, but it helped us to juggle the necessities in those early years. It showed me that the Lord may have a path for us even though we can't see the forest for the trees sometimes. Fortunately, my MIL had a baby-sitting business out of her home, and she was able to watch our son for the few hours a day that my wife and I overlapped. My wife would drop him off and I would pick him up a few hours later.
As he got a little older and we both were on dayshift, I would go in very early in the morning so the wife could drop him off in the morning on her way to work, which allowed me to get off work in the early afternoon when I could pick him up, so it still worked out perfectly. My son being able to be watched by his grandmother for a few hours a day was also a big factor. Had we not had that option I don't know if I could have left him with a stranger or someone other than family anyways. We also bargain shopped everything we could, but it was tuff as I needed tools for both my day job as well as the side jobs I was doing. Sometimes I worried if the extra money I was making on the side was even worth it because of the tools I was purchasing along with the time spent in the shop, and then other times I brought home more money on side jobs than from my full-time job, so it was a mixed bag for a while. But at least I was home working and not away from my family. I could watch my son play in the backyard and have friends over, all while I was able to earn money on the side to better our situation. I remember those first couple of years we lived paycheck to paycheck and at times barely had enough money in our account to keep it open. I swore that is NOT how I wanted to live so we made sacrifices and adjustments as needed to crawl our way out of that pattern.
One thing about my wife though, she ALWAYS had us sit down to dinner as a family. She would arrive home from work, fix dinner, do laundry, etc. and then we'd sit down to a family meal and talk, EVERY night. Even when our son was in High School and college, we had family dinner together around the dinner table, now that it's just the wife and I we still do in fact. When he was very young, it would be dinner followed by night-time books read to him before putting him to bed, then I would usually head back out to the shop to work on whatever I had going on for side work. We never missed a parent teacher conference or a ball game, or even a practice. I remember on so many occasions of closing up the shop to take my son to ball practice, then back home to finish up what I was working on, sometimes until midnight or early morning hours, then back up and 4am to go to work and do it all over again. Many times my wife would meet us at the ball bark just as the game was starting but she never missed a game. Looking back life was so hectic then, but we tried to give our son every opportunity we could, most of which we never had. The only stipulation we had for our son was he could try anything, sport or music, but he had to see it through. NO quitting mid-way. If he committed to an extracurricular activity, he was to see it all the way through, period.
We didn't go out to eat much at all in those early years as my wife made home-cooked meals and we both took our lunches to work >95% of the time. We had a ritual that was our "indulgence" or "treat" if you will. We would go to a local burger stand a couple of Saturdays of the month in the afternoon. It was our Burger Bar run, and we would splurge a couple times a month to get a burger and shake. I still remember my son light up as he'd enjoy his milkshake sitting on the tailgate of our truck. I remember when my son was 12-years old and we were running late for something one night and I had called my son to tell him I'd just grab a burger or something on the way home for us to eat before we had to leave and we'd meet his mother there. I asked him what he wanted and if he just wanted me to grab a Big Mac or something like that? He asked what a Big Mac was.
I don't know why, but that really hit me at the time, here he was 12-years old and had never eaten fast food other than our Burger Bar outings a couple of times per month.
We were just reminiscing about that a few weeks ago when the kids were over for dinner and it's funny what we and our kids remember as they grow into adults and things that we may have felt bad for, turn out to be the things our children find the most endearing and memorable when looking back.
My wife feels guilty much of the time because she was not able to be a stay-at-home mother, but I try to tell her we were able to give our son many opportunities that he otherwise would not have had, his college education being one. My wife is very committed to her job and has worked herself into a very good position despite her lack of college education, so for that I am very proud of her. Neither my wife nor I have college educations, but we were insistent that our son would have the opportunity to attend college and get a valuable degree. I am proud of us for being able to send our son to college and graduate without that burden of debt to begin his life, but even more proud of my son's commitment and dedication to that education in which he acquired. I feel that through mine and my wife's sacrifices and diligence that maybe, even if in some small way, we were able to help pave the way for our son to have his wife be that stay-at-home mother that he was not able to have. My DIL is now able to be a stay-at-home mother to our grandson due to my son's excellent life choices between his college degree and landing his amazing job right out of college. I would just like to think that the wife and I maybe played a small part in that, as I don't think it would have been possible on a single income household.
Just thought I'd share the opposite side of your guy's experiences. Definitely NOT to take anything away, just to share a "different" path that I feel too, has some advantages. Life's paths are funny, we just have to figure them out as we go because life is a journey, not a destination and although many of us may have similar visions of where we want to end up, all our journeys begin and end in different places. I think the common goal for our visions is to lay out a plan early on and then work the plan the best we can. There will be obstacles and detours placed before us, but we adjust, and course correct as needed, but stay the course.
I very much appreciate the stories those of you share as I feel we all grow from them as well as really get to know one another and how our paths are similar, yet different.
I do, however admire the sheer durability that was designed into them though. I'm also still very much an admirer of the square bodied GM's. If I ever get the chance, I think I'd build another one similar to the one I built before the wife and I got married, but even better because my skillset has improved slightly. 
