For sale

Our little house on 135 Lowell is up for sale. It's really cute and we've made a lot of nice improvements to it. Thanks to Jono's puttering, the yard and landscaping are immaculate.

Understandably we've had a lot of people ask why we're moving. The truth is we'd rather not have to. Some assume that since we've got a bun in the oven we want more space, but this isn't the case - I hope our next place is the same size or smaller. We're moving because I won't be working as much after November and we want to keep our monthly bills as low as possible. We're making some pretty big changes to be able to do this. Because of how bad the economy is here in Michigan, there are a lot of foreclosed homes in Grand Rapids. Jono happens to be handy, so we'd like to get our hands on one of those, cut our mortgage payment in half, and fix it up.

So yes, I'm becoming what they call a housewife. It sounds like a joke, but it's true. It's no longer a "given" that people stay home with their kids, so here's why we've decided that one of us will. It's not just that we don't want to deal with daycare - I’ve heard working moms say they think daycare is good for their kids because of the social interaction, and that’s probably true in many cases. We want to enjoy being parents without feeling like both of us are stretched too thin. On top of that we want to save money, stay healthy, and be easy on the environment by having a garden, cooking from scratch and using cloth diapers. All of this will take time that we wouldn't have if we both worked full-time elsewhere. We want one or both of us to be with our children as often as possible when they’re small, because it isn’t going to last very long. I have the rest of my life to have a career but only a few years to have little kids.

Like many women, I plan on working full time up until my due date, or beyond if the baby is late. Sometimes I feel guilty about the fact that I'll be taking care of our baby at home while Jono goes out to work. I realize this used to be a completely normal thing for a woman to do. My grandma never had a job off of the farm. She raised her kids and her chickens; de-tassled the corn and walked the beans. She was happy as she could be, and nothing else was expected of her.

Since then women have been "liberated". We go to college, we vote, and we have jobs outside the home, often with benefits. But sometimes I wonder how liberated we and our families really are when the cost of living and cultural pressure to have more materially makes many families feel as if they need to send both parents off to work full-time, even when they have small children, and even if it isn't what they really want.

(It's also true that some families have no choice, especially in single-parent households. Others make a decision to work because they feel they'll go stir-crazy at home with kids all day, which is understandable.)

I'll still get my brain exercise in 15 hours a week at least -- I’ll be putting in some hours from home writing and doing design work for my current job. I know it's important to hang on to that other side of you so that you have something to go back to when your family is more independent. That's what's great about the time we live in. If you can somehow skirt the financial pressure to work full-time all the time, you can manage to raise your kids at home and have a career, before and after the kids.

So all of that said, I'm trying not to feel guilty about our changing roles. I'm not taking "time off work", because I have a feeling I'll be at least twice as busy as I am now doing a job that's twice as hard once I'm a mother. But as Jono pointed out to me the other day, "Em, just admit it - it will be nice." Okay, fine. It will then. I'm ready for it.

For those of you who are wondering, Jono would love to be a stay-at-home dad. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to worry about benefits packages and each parent could work part-time and stay home part-time? Maybe if we get universal health care soon :)

The United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn't guarantee paid maternity leave.
- The Project on Global Working Families

Dog does not come with house. (People have asked.)

P.S. Notice sly look.