The Good and the Bad of Being a One-Income Family

I took my wife on our first date to a Denny’s, and she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said “President.” She asked me if I was serious, and I said yes, and I asked her the same question. She told me she wanted to be a full-time mom and raise a family.

For the record, her goal involved wanting to have a job that mattered and made a difference.

I was just delusional.

We got married three months after that night in Denny’s, and five months later, when we found out we were going to have a son, we decided she would leave the workforce and focus on raising our family, which also included the daughter she already had (the one that I had adopted and was already totally crazy about).

Two and a half years after our son was born we had another daughter, and for the past ten years and counting we have been a one-income family. Ultimately the decision to work or stay at home is a very personal one, and it’s different for every family.

I have no idea what is best for anyone else, but I can tell you some of what we learned.

1. You will probably have less money than your two-income peers.

This seems like a fairly obvious statement, but it is different to actually experience having less money. When we became a one-income family I made $40,000 per year, and we lived in an apartment with a neighbor named “Crash” who had a little girl and a significant other that had the words “Property of Crash” tattooed on her breast. Every morning I would get woken up by hearing Crash’s little girl start to cry (we had very thin walls), which Crash would respond to by saying, “Shut. The. F***. Up!!”.

Then there would be a pause.

Then Crash would let out a roar of “F***!”.

He wasn’t yelling that at his little girl, it was more of a desperate plea for a better life, articulated the only way Crash knew how to articulate his feelings. After that roar I would wake up, go to the gym, and come back and get ready for work.

At the same time we had friends who already owned homes. When we decided my wife would stay at home she had to turn down a promotion where she worked, a promotion that would have definitely allowed us to afford a better class of neighbor. We didn’t regret that decision, but it is still a little hard, and can create an awkward social dynamic when you have less money than your peers.

Accept it, embrace an aggressive use of coupons and the discount movie theater, and move forward. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have a little Crash in your life. It builds character.

2

. My wife’s career will never be the same.

This is a loaded topic, especially for a man to write about. The reality is that when my wife enters the workforce again she will enter a world that is drastically different than the one she left in 2004. She doesn't regret that decision, but leaving the labor force for an extended period of time will have an impact on your career.

In life you tend to gravitate toward your peers, and we know several other young, one-income families. Many of those families are at a point where the stay-at-home spouse is re-entering the workforce, and it is a struggle. That doesn’t mean the sacrifices aren’t worth it, but telling yourself that the decision to leave the workforce won't alter the trajectory of your career is just setting yourself up for disappointment.

3. You will have “that” fight. More than once.

Without a doubt, being a full-time parent is a full-time job, and then some. It literally never ends. It involves some of the grimiest, dirtiest work you can imagine. But because it is woven into daily life there will be times where the spouse who stays at home is having coffee with a friend during the middle of the day, and the spouse who is in the labor force gets a little resentful. And then it comes up in a fight. You say the thing that amounts to, “If you had a real job, you would…”

Everyone we know who has a similar family dynamic to ours has had "that" fight. For me, I know that when I’ve said that it has nothing to do with how I value what my wife does. I can blame it partially on the pressure I feel as the income earner. It can be overwhelming at times to know that four people that I love depend on me.

Luckily my wife knows I don’t mean it, and not because I tell her that. She has seen the desperate, trapped animal look I have on my face when she comes back from visiting her parents in Arizona.

It’s a Choice Only Your Family Can Make

This article may seem like it's more "bad" than "good", but the good would fill up far more than this article could ever hold. And, some of that good is the direct result of the decision we made to be a one-income family. But I am not going to argue that it’s better to be a one-income family than a two-income family. Having my wife stay at home was right for our family, and we didn’t make that decision based on data. We made our decision based on our dreams and goals and individual personalities, and we closed our eyes and hoped for the best.

Had we made a different decision I would probably be writing about the benefits of being a two-income family, and not having a Crash in your past. In life you only know the road that you take.

But I am really glad that for the McKissens, we chose this road.

Jack McKissen is a proud member of LinkedIn's Publishers and Bloggers Group. You can find him on Twitter @DMcKissen.