Should you leave your job to care for your kids?
And a new book to help you navigate this chapter of parenting.
Greetings from…uh…maybe I shouldn’t even say. We already established that The Boneparths are not cold-weather people, but that doesn’t mean we should rub our tropical long weekend in the faces of our cherished subscribers weathering the arctic conditions back at home. If you’re a person who hangs on little wins to pull through this long stretch of winter, just know, the sun will set tonight at 5:02 pm in New York City. Personally, these days, I’ll take all the light I can get.
A few weeks ago, I provided my editors at The Skimm’ with a short answer to a big reader question: Should I leave my job to care for our kids?
The reader wanted to talk numbers—so I did—but the inquiry runs much deeper than your assets, cash flow, and the cost of childcare in your area. In fact, I really don’t like to compare a parent’s earnings to the costs of childcare, because the opportunity costs of leaving the workforce are much more significant than what appears on your paystub. There’s a lot at stake. Parents, especially women, who pause their careers will feel the impact in their future earning potential, promotions, and retirement savings. You may feel it in your self-worth. You may feel it in your marriage.
To expand upon my answer in this week’s newsletter, let’s just assume you can do it. Your household finances can support you stepping away from your job to focus on caregiving full-time. This means, you’ve got a solid cash reserve of six-plus months. Your cash flow on one salary supports your expenses as they are, or you are both so incredibly willing to make agreed-upon sacrifices to make it work. You understand what you’re giving up in terms of short- and long-term incentives such as bonuses and equity compensation. You’ve got access to healthcare and understand how those cost will change.
You can assume all of this, and yet, you’re still only scratching the surface.
In our book, the need for radical honesty presents in the most pivotal moments; and by far, this is one of them. I don’t know a single mother who hasn’t asked herself whether she’d be better off at home. You might not bring the idea to your spouse or take serious steps to consider it, but in the best times and the hardest times—for your children and for you—it’s quite easy to slip into a love-driven fantasy of what it would be like. Our country’s woeful lack of support for caregivers adds additional pressure for us tap out of the workforce, but I’ll reserve my rant on that for another time and just make the understatement of the century: it’s hard out there for working parents. We know it. You probably know it. I’ll continue to write about it long after our own children grow up.
The first honest question you need to answer is why you’re considering this now.
Are you hoping to spend more time with your kids in their formative years, or have your family’s logistics just gotten so complicated that you feel like you’re going insane? Our daughters are five and nine. From navigating the high-touch years of parenting a baby and a toddler to executing on school and activity schedules as complicated as a family SpaceX launch every damn day, I have reached my breaking point on many occasions. But even with my hair on fire, I never wished to stop working “outside of the home”—a term I place in quotes for the historical irony of how long I worked from home during the pandemic, not because stay-at-home mothers’ work matters any less.
We do a terrible job valuing the work of caregivers. In the heart of our book, we give the concept of Contribution a major rebrand, because when caregivers aren’t respected for the important work they do, then they don’t receive the support they need, and they’re set up to walk away from things that are important to them. Instead of acquiescing to meet the needs of your dynamic family life, answer my question above with the clarity your future deserves. Your heart may want to be with your children. That’s not the same thing as needing more help.
Then, you and your partner need to start talking honestly about what it means for you to not earn money. By foregoing your income, you are placing a great deal of trust in your partner not only to financially support your family but to not change the way they treat you because of it. In our interviews, we saw time and again how changes in earnings impact the power dynamics in relationships. It’s astonishing how quickly you can lose your agency when you’re not paying attention. If you spouse believes they’re suddenly the only one in the financial driver’s seat and you let that belief proliferate, you will soon believe it, too. You will check out. You will start asking permission for things you don’t need permission for. Families are an “interdependent organization,” said an amazing woman I’m about to introduce you to, and you need to hold this value close to your hearts even when just one of you brings in money. A stay-at-home mother still deserves to spend. She still deserves breaks. She still deserves her partner’s commitment to their portion of the household labor. Before making a career shift, it’s crucial for you to put this all on the table, lest you find yourself living a life of unintended consequences. If this all sounds heavy, that’s because it is. So much depends on it.
Before making the shift, try to imagine how you’ll feel about yourself. Last year, I sat down with Neha Ruch, a powerful advocate for women in this underexplored chapter of their lives. Her new book, The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids—And Come Back Stronger Than Ever, is a game-changing strategic guide for mothers to infuse stay-at-home motherhood with ambition, pride, and purpose. She recalled her own early days of motherhood, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a baby music class surrounded by women who had been in finance, fashion, nursing, you name it. They had all made the same conscious choice to be present with their children for a time, and while nothing was unambitious about it, society hadn’t gotten the memo. “Ambition is the drive to do a lot of things we care about,” she told me. “If we don’t redefine that for ourselves, someone will redefine it for us. And if we feel like we are somehow not ambitious, we count ourselves out of the conversation.”
After having my second daughter, I remember feeling a seismic shift inside of me. It was like I suddenly woke up from a spell or jumped off a moving ride. I had been completely tethering my self-worth to my job and ignoring all the meaningful ways that caring for my family made me a better version of myself, and honestly, better at everything I do. Neha’s message transcends its intended purpose and provides perspective for mothers still in the juggle, too: there are many ways to keep getting better. Not just promotions and accolades at work.
Part Three of The Power Pause focuses on growth and learning, and should you choose to pursue a period of focusing on family, I can’t underscore enough how important this is. “Too often, when we step into chapters more focused on the family, we assume the family becomes our metric of success, when in reality, that’s such flawed thinking,” she told me.
Imagine feeling like a total failure of a person when your kid throws a tantrum—you can’t allow yourself to believe that’s true, right? Having all your goals revolve around your kids isn’t great for you, either.
If you do take a career pause, continue trying to grow as a person. Take up hobbies, learn new skills, volunteer for causes that matter to you, or continue your professional development in some way. In my local community of mothers—and I’m sure in yours, too—I see a distinct difference in the happiness of the mothers who have things happening for themselves, and those who look for their happiness only through the happenings of their children.
None of this needs to be black and white. You and your partner can set parameters going in. Maybe you’ll give full-time caregiving a shot for a year and see how it’s going—you can sit down and talk about how your money feels, and how you feel. But if any of the considerations I’ve highlighted here concern you, maybe leaving the workforce entirely isn’t the right first step.
You are allowed to downshift your career instead of pausing completely. We are so brainwashed into believing that our careers can only move in an upward linear fashion. By not wanting to Always Be Climbing (and Always Be Consuming such that we need to keep climbing), our capitalistic construct deems us unmotivated or noncommittal or even downright lazy. But it’s just not true. You can explore the gray areas between work and home life in many ways. Maybe you accept a lower titled position at your current employer or a different one. Maybe you take on fractional or part-time work. When my children were young, I absolutely made a conscious choice to downshift at work. I always did what was asked of me, and I did it well, but I stopped gunning for Star Student all the time. I reinvested the time I would’ve spent on those bonus projects and late nights in making the girls dinner and taking Hazel to swim lessons and even finding moments for passion projects like my first newsletter, which in a roundabout way, led me here. These are the decisions that made me a better wife, a better mother, and a better person—not missing one round of corporate promotions in a long career that’s still ahead of me.
I want to leave you with this perspective, which I hope you don’t take as me minimizing how difficult this decision can feel: our lives move in seasons, especially as parents. They are temporary and fleeting. What feels impossible for you today may not feel that way next year. What you want for a time may not be for all of time.
If you want to pause, then pause. This is a season. It won’t be your last.
Have you or your partner chosen to prioritize your family in this way? What challenges or surprises did you encounter? Let us know.
Also, purchase your copy of The Power Pause here!
Thought I’d share just one of a million snapshots from the wildest years of our lives: pandemic parenting with one and four-year-old daughters. I distinctly remember this Friday night. I had just finished a long week of WFH, and Doug was scheduled for a live segment on CNBC during the girls’ dinner and bathtime hour. Our house isn’t huge, and there’s only so many “backgrounds” that could survive the scrutiny of RoomRater (remember that?). So, the producers set up his at-home studio right smack in the middle of the main floor of the house, and me and the girls had to eat dessert in our bedroom upstairs watching Daddy live from the living room. What a weird, difficult, amazing, beautiful time in our journey as parents that taught me so much about holding many truths at once.
TJA in the news
Reuter’s On The Money newsletter included our piece from last week in a comprehensive post about preparing for disaster. Thanks to our friend Lauren Young for including us.
Doug joined his buddies on The Compound and Friends to talk about the rising 10-year treasury, the real estate market, Presidential volatility, and much more.
He also spoke with CNBC’s Make It about when to sell winning stocks!
Are you a brand or business interested in reaching The Joint Account’s 13.6K+ subscribers?
Would your organization benefit from having us talk about love and money?
We’d love to hear from you!
Find us on social: @dougboneparth + @averagejoelle :)
The content shared in The Joint Account does not constitute financial, legal, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their respective professionals for specific advice tailored to their situation.
I love how sometimes something is on your mind, and then the perfect reminder shows up. I so needed to be reminded, "If you want to pause, then pause. This is a season. It won’t be your last."
I just became a mom 3 months ago, am loving it more than I thought possible but have felt so conflicted about what it might mean to pause my career. So thanks for reminding me that I can pause if I want AND that it doesn't mean I'm paused forever.
Sadly I think the risk a woman takes by foregoing paid work to raise children is too high. Data show again and again women are poorer after divorce than men and I’ve got to believe downshifting or exiting the workforce all together is a major contributor. I make significantly more than my fiancé and am grateful to be in a position where I will be able to afford childcare and continue to earn money. The funny thing is I cannot ever imagine expecting or even considering asking my male partner to stop his paid work if we have kids- regardless of his lower income. I hate that lots of people expect that of women when they are the lower earner in a partnership.