5 minutes and never a title

As of recent, I often read FB statuses of my friends lamenting that given the choice; they really wish that they could quit their day job, stay at home and look after their kids.

As a husband who's fortunate enough to be able to let his wife do exactly that, I thought I'd share a word or two on the subject. An op-ed piece if you will.

1. Can you afford it? Since your husband will be the sole breadwinner of the family, ensure that his salary can accommodate your family's monthly commitment. This means making some significant lifestyle changes along the way as you guys are now earning much less than previously.

2. Plan for the what-ifs. Going back on my first point, your husband is now the family's sole breadwinner. That means if he's dead (I'm very blunt like that...) , you (and your kids) will lose your only source of income. How prepared are you for that? Assuming that you're not from a very well-off family, this means that you'll be getting yourself in some deep, inescapable shithole. Reflect on that. Hence, ensure that your main source of income (aka your husband) has a nice fat life insurance policy to ensure your family's survival if he's no longer able to work or earn as much as he normally does. Reinvest his insured sum so that you could get a continuous flow of income every year.

3. Learn how to cook. This goes a long way in cutting down the monthly expenses. Especially in these post-GST days.

4. Learn how to educate. Tuition fees cost a lot these days, so it'd be great if you could cover some of that by yourself. Instead of sending your kids to that premium kindergarten, maybe you could (actually you really should) try teaching them the basics at home instead. Make use of online teaching materials. Maybe you could teach your daughter piano yourself by self-learning about it from YouTube (If you're up for it - maybe you could even home-school your kids. There are some communities here in Malaysia that does this, but it hasn't really taken up traction yet).

5. Learn to manage the household. Let go of that maid. You probably don't need her to begin with.

6. You will have no social life. Well I don't really mean that in a significant, literal sense. But you will tend to miss your lunch buddies a lot. The banter at the office. The occasional trips to the mamaks. The simple things in life. What you'll have instead is a banter with a 4 year old, an ad-hoc meals whenever time permits you to, and occasionally you'll be lucky enough to be able spend some quality time, by yourself, in the toilet. Try to absorb that fact. Such is your life.

7. You will get to enjoy the finer things in life.  The previous point being said, you will now be able to see the other side of life you didn't get to enjoy before. Waking up late by your newborn son and seeing how he would start to wake up at the break of dawn. That first roll-over. That first wobbly steps. The creative side of your daughter. The smart-ass questions. That moment where you all just lay on the lawn and just do nothing but look at the clear blue sky..(ok..I'm exaggerating a bit here - KL's sky is never THAT blue to begin with)

8. Get a hobby. I've always thought of the brain as a very awesomely powerful tool. As we get older however, it will get rusty. Since you're no longer at work, your will find that your brain is going to get stimulated lesser and lesser every single day. From experience I know that I often feel sleepy when I'm babysitting the kids, and I realized that this is actually due to my mind not being stimulated enough to be able to stay awake (probably I'm not wired for these stuff). And that is just for a couple of hours. Imagine doing this 24 by 7, 365 days a year. So to me, mental stimulation is very crucial. Learn a new language. Maybe sewing. Build your own cabinet? - why not. Get a masters degree - even better (smarter parents make smarter kids - no?)

9. Of morality and ethics.  I think one of the main reason that convinced me that this was the way to go is the fact that I've became unconvinced that the school system or society as whole would be able to teach my kids the importance of having good moral values (so maaayybbeee social media is partly responsible in overblowing this fact - but I'm still a concerned parent. Especially when you have a daughter - take that concern and multiply it by a million). To form a good country, you need a good society. To have that, you need good citizens. Maids don't have any obligation to nurture good citizens. They're obligated to clean up your house, but they don't really need to ensure that your kids behave at home or teach them how to properly interact with elders. It's just not part of their KPI.  At some point in the past, teachers were empowered to do this (but sadly not now anymore). So I suppose I felt compelled to get back to the basics, nurturing morality from the home (as it should be). And to do this, thus, someone needs to stay at home. Someone needs to be that role model and show them what is good and what is not, how to talk and what not to do. It all seems fairly simple and it actually really is. It's just that it is a very time consuming process (hint: it never ends) - which lead some parents to tend to outsource this aspect of life lessons to a third party. Kids learn by repetition, and there'll need to be someone to do the enforcing and encouraging. This someone hence - in my very fortunate case - is my wife. 

10. Challenges. Of course there will be people who disagrees with you. You're basically cutting your earning power in half. You're putting yourself at risk if your significant other leaves you. You'll be left less empowered than now when you have a secure, day job. They are all valid concerns and you will need to be able to address them rationally and confidently, or you'll be asking the same questions later to yourselves. The people highlighting these concerns are not being negative for the sake of being negative - they're concerned because they care, so you should too. Go through with them what your plan is and how they think you could get there. Maybe they think that it shouldn't be done too soon and you need to do some preparation first. Something is better than nothing. Involvement in decision making sometimes ensures the acceptance of your idea.

I am not really an advocate of stay-at-home moms or anything. While I think that it has its merits, different people have to deal with different life circumstances so my thoughts and opinions are I suppose strictly limited to my family. For those who's yet to make the jump, I bid you all the best in your journey. For those who'll not, I'm sure you have some good plans of your own to raise your family. At the end of the day, we're all parents who wants the best possible outcome for our children.

*Update* While it's easy for one to say or come to a conclusion that one wants to be a stay-at-home-mom, one also needs to realize the responsibility that comes with that. Your role (the one that stays at home) effectively will now be more supportive rather than leading (or co-lead, as some feminists would probably put it). Reflect on this. Understand what this means. If you can't, among others - it means that your husband might be compelled to work late into the nights to get that promotion, it means that he might be pursuing that certificate or postgraduate degree to enable him to climb that ladder quicker - and that would mean that you, needs to take care of the kids more and probably during the weekends as well. His sole focus would be to ensure that your family would be financially stable and if he's ambitious, he would still want to retire early and enjoy life during both of your golden age. That would mean he'll work even harder (since he's doing it alone now) to accumulate the necessary wealth to enable him to do that within his planned timeline. On your side, you'll need to shift your focus on the kids, nurturing them and providing the necessary attention that they deserve. I'm not saying or claiming that the breadwinner would be entitled to simply ignore you and the kids and just focus on his/her career - on the contrary I'm just trying to state the potential things that might occur along the way and how as a family, role and responsibility will change and expectations need to be amended accordingly (so that you don't keep on clinging to that what-ifs).