Megan has been a stay-at-home mom to her three children aged eight, five and three for about four years now but with her alimony running out in six months she needs to think about going back to work. With no college degree, her earning power is limited and she weighs that against the cost of daycare and wonders if it’s worth it. Here’s Megan:
In the state of Florida, unless you’re married over ten years, the maximum alimony is a year, which is what I’ll get. Our agreement, is that my alimony payments come out to equal what his child care payments would be for three kids if I was to go back to work full time and my youngest had to be in day care. We made it that way so that he will continue to pay me the alimony amount for the next year, and whether I choose to go back to work or not is up to me, because that money, he would be paying me regardless.
What happens after that I don’t know.
When we first separated, I kept telling myself I just had to make it till September. The kids will be in school in September and then I could look for a job. With the financial help of my parents, I did make it till September and I started looking at what I could make at a job. Because my youngest is in preschool and she’d have to be in daycare the rest of the time if I was working, it looked like I would be paying like half of what I make to go to work.
Then I asked my ex, if I went to work, what would we do if the kids were sick or they had appointments or they had a day off or they had two weeks at Christmas or they had a week at Thanksgiving. How are we going to figure this out together?” His answer was,
“If it’s not Wednesday at 5 o’clock or every other Friday at 5 o’clock, it’s not my problem, it’s yours.”
I thought nobody’s going to want to deal with me as an employee with this odd schedule of no school and school, whatever it may be and how am I going to juggle being a mom and an employee and everything else?
It was so overwhelming, but somehow money always seems to appear. I forgot I had some 401(k) money until about a month ago. Granted, it’s only about $5,000 but that extra $5,000 will pay for another four months of expenses, so that has helped. Or, refund checks that I forgot about that are like $1,200, always just seem to appear, so I’ve made it now until November and I think I have enough money to make it through to January.
I’ve been with my boyfriend now for about eight months, and finally one night I just broke down about how I’m going to do it between work and my kids and he said,
“I’m going to give you what you need.”
So that’s probably what I’m going to do. I’m not ready to go back to work. Sometimes I think I’d like to, just for myself and my sanity, but I’m so involved in the schools and I don’t know how to juggle work and kids. Some people say ‘I don’t know how to stay home.’ Well, I don’t know how to work. I can’t comprehend juggling my three kids and a job.
That’s probably the most overwhelming part of this to me. I never thought I’d have to deal with the notion of going back to work. I always thought I would stay home until all my kids are in elementary school and then maybe I would get a job part-time. When my husband left, it was a relief, but at the same time I thought, “oh my God, I may really have to go back to work full-time” and child care is about $600 a month!
I did interview for one job that I absolutely would have loved to have had, and it was a part time job, but it was only twenty hours a week and when I’m set and done paying the extra child care costs, I walk away with about $150. It’s not worth it.
I feel sad. I have friends who are divorced who work forty hours a week and have their kids in child care and after-school care, and they make less money than I take home in child support and alimony, and that’s just depressing. I don’t want to drop my kids off somewhere at 8 o’clock in the morning and not come until 6 o’clock at night.
The Divorce Coach Says
In a perfect world, divorced parents would start this discussion from the perspective of what they believe is best for their kids and those beliefs are inevitably formed by our experiences. While Megan may feel it’s best for her to be at home when her children come home from school, her ex may be thinking that his mom worked and he managed just fine. It’s not easy for parents to be on the same page even when they are married and the world isn’t perfect.
I well remember the panic of getting up in the mornings only to realize that one of the kids had pink eye or a fever and clearly wasn’t going anywhere. The school vacations were easy to deal with compared to the unplanned, surprise sick days. However, all parents deal with this and that also means that employers have to deal with it. Sometimes you can make these issues into insurmountable hurdles that stop you from moving forward.
Megan is fortunate that her boyfriend offered to support her. As generous as that is, it is a situation that would make me very uncomfortable – I’d be worried about the expectations that came along with the money and what happens if the relationship ends. Could this be another relationship in which Megan feels trapped because of the financial security? Should she accept his offer?
Megan may not be ready to go back to work but I think she needs a plan to become financially self-sufficient. A plan that sets out an income goal based on realistic expenses and then the steps to reach that goal. I can understand Megan wanting to spend as much time with her kids as possible at this age so she could be on the look out for a part-time job that works around the kids’ schedule avoiding the additional expense of day care and after-school care, such as working from home or maybe a job with the local school district. It might not bring in much money but she’d be keeping up with her work skills and it would be a step towards financial independence.
Another alternative would be to go back to school to finish her college degree. She loves volunteering at her kids’ school and says she’s thought about being a teacher. That’s a great career to balance with children. She has limited free time available now but it might be enough to get started on a single class maybe at the local community college or even an online class. And as a non-traditional student, Megan may find grant funding to help her get qualified.
It’s also important to evaluate a job not just in the monetary terms – look at the other benefits that are offered. A job working from home saves on commuting costs and an office wardrobe. A job at the local day care may mean significantly reduced or free tuition for your child.
How did you juggle working and your children? Any suggestions for Megan?