My wife is looking for a legitimate stay at home job

jc0481 · Jul 9, 2013

Our son was born March 12, 2013. She really wants to stay home and raise our son. To say she does not like her job would be an understatement. She hates it. She has 10+ years of working in the childcare industry and was a childcare director for two of those years.

I don't make enough money in my current job in order to support all three of us. At least not yet.

The lack of respect and professionalism in her job is disappointing. I know what you may be thinking. Start a childcare center in our home. But we rent it from my mother-in-law and she does not want us to do that.

Anyone in the same boat as me?

Apple fanboy · Jul 9, 2013

Kind of. Basically we moved location so that my salary was enough for us both to live on. My daughters 11 now and in a few years my wife will be able to return to work. It's been tough (both financially and in other ways) but you just do what you have to. She buys and sells on eBay a bit (but I think she spends more than she sells!).
However I'm sure my daughter has benefited from having a parent around, and not having to be that child always in the pre school & after school clubs. Not that I'm criticising those that have to do that by the way, just we are lucky not to have to.

Could your wife do some home work like selling on eBay or other office based work when you don't have to go into an office?

firedept · Jul 9, 2013

Similar situation many years ago. I had a pretty decent career in the printing industry. My wife was a legal secretary. We decided when the children came along, that one of us would stay home and raise the children. That was obviously my darling wife. Her income was a big loss as she worked for a huge law firm and made real good money with lots of overtime. After a bit of adjustment to the loss of funds, I decided to start a second part-time career as a firefighter and EMT. The money helped and got us through.

In the time that my wife was a stay at home mom, she ended up taking more schooling in a career that she would go to when the children were old enough. Well low and behold, she has been back at work for a few years and is loving what she is doing. I will tell you though, you better love each other dearly, because there will be rough patches along the way.

It worked for my wife and I. And I am so glad that my children had a parent around all the time. So I guess my suggestion would be to find something part-time for either you or your wife. Does not have to be a lot of hours as long as you become frugal and stick to it.

jknight8907 · Jul 9, 2013

My wife works from home doing medical transcription. However, that field is rapidly being taken over by voice-recognition systems. She is looking to move into medical coding, which can also be done from home.

iRetired · Jul 9, 2013

Go to your local school district and see if she could tutor students in your home. With all the states upping their requirements there will always be kids needing extra help. If she knows how to play a musical instrument she could do lessons at home.

ugahairydawgs · Jul 10, 2013

Will always be hard to run a business like a day care out of your house while you are renting.

My wife works for a small company out of VA and works from home in GA. In a situation like that, much like just about getting any job these days, it's more about who you know rather than anything else. I know many companies are allowing work from home these days, but it won't start out that way a lot of times.

Are there not any other child care related jobs in your area she could try and apply for? A change in scenery can sometimes go a long way. If not, then a career change might not be the worst idea. My wife used to be a pre-school teacher, but eventually got frustrated with the difference in philosophies between her and pre-school she worked at and got out.

Tomorrow · Jul 10, 2013

jc0481 said:
Our son was born March 12, 2013. She really wants to stay home and raise our son. To say she does not like her job would be an understatement. She hates it. She has 10+ years of working in the childcare industry and was a childcare director for two of those years.

This might not be what you want to hear, but this is the first thing I thought of:

Your wife's job is to take care of children, she absolutely hates it, so you had a child with her, and she's going to stay home and take care of it? This makes absolutely no sense to me.

I married my wife (then a kindergarten teacher) and had a child with her, but (1) she loves her job, and (2) she isn't staying home to take care of him.

Am I the only one who finds this odd?

Apple fanboy · Jul 10, 2013

Tomorrow said:
This might not be what you want to hear, but this is the first thing I thought of:

Your wife's job is to take care of children, she absolutely hates it, so you had a child with her, and she's going to stay home and take care of it? This makes absolutely no sense to me.

I married my wife (then a kindergarten teacher) and had a child with her, but (1) she loves her job, and (2) she isn't staying home to take care of him.

Am I the only one who finds this odd?

Working in child care and having your own child, are two completely different things. Its like saying I use a computer at work (dull SOP/POP/Excel work) is the same as doing the fun stuff I do on my iMac at home.
Chalk & Cheese.

Tomorrow · Jul 10, 2013

Apple fanboy said:
Working in child care and having your own child, are two completely different things. Its like saying I use a computer at work (dull SOP/POP/Excel work) is the same as doing the fun stuff I do on my iMac at home.
Chalk & Cheese.

Different, but not completely.

Your analogy would be more correct if you had said you hate using a computer at work, so you decided to get a computer for home. It just doesn't sound like the best way to avoid something you hate.

jc0481 · Jul 10, 2013

I did not mean to confuse people. She loves working with kids. She likes that certain area. She just has issues with it. Lack of respect and how unprofessional the management is at her job. She says kids are worse now than when she first started 10 years ago. She tells me some parents just don't care to raise their kids right.

My wife always wanted to be a mom. No question about that. She just doesn't want to raise other people's kids. Some kids are dropped off at 6 in the morning and picked up 6 PM. Also a few of those parents don't work. One of the parents makes enough money so the other parent does not have to work. But they still drop off their kids in Childcare.

She had seven issues she had with this company and reported it to the corporate office. The corporate office then told the regional manager. Long story short the regional manager swept it under the rug.

GoCubsGo · Jul 11, 2013

Some companies have entire divisions where you are a full time telecommuter. Her background doesn't seem to be one that allows telecommuting, clearly. I understand medical coding people or whatever they're called is legitimate. I wouldn't want to try and make a living selling crap on eBay. Bottom line is without knowing what else she can do, this is all just a bunch of speculation about what she can apply for. I would search for telecommuting jobs and see where that leads you.

Also, my work is not huge on telecommuting but the handful of people who do were required to prove that they had dedicated space and uninterrupted time. I had to let someone go who was telecommuting because she was taking care of an infant and constantly unavailable. This is a company that has actual business hours. Medical coding or whatever may not have set hours. Consider this when looking for work.

roadbloc · Jul 11, 2013

She could try her hand at writing saucy romantic e-books. Apparently, they are the in-thing.

960design · Jul 11, 2013

Grab a book on web development. There are tons of crappy sites that need refreshing in your neighborhood. Get experience by hosting a web development club and a local highschool; learn from the students. Do a couple free sites for a local church, ect.

It's not easy money by any means, but it's money. Put a couple of years experience under her belt and she will begin coding apps for app stores, she'll have more work than she can handle.

designs216 · Jul 11, 2013

Legit WAH opportunities are hard to find. When my wife stayed at home she did child care. It worked for her as she had experience and her mom is in that line of work. But here are a few more ideas.

tktaylor1 · Jul 12, 2013

Stock Market

SoAnyway · Jul 12, 2013

Become an iOS app developer. Lots of people have done it and made themselves lots of money!

applelover4 · Jul 12, 2013

jc0481 said:
Our son was born March 12, 2013. She really wants to stay home and raise our son. To say she does not like her job would be an understatement. She hates it. She has 10+ years of working in the childcare industry and was a childcare director for two of those years.

I don't make enough money in my current job in order to support all three of us. At least not yet.

The lack of respect and professionalism in her job is disappointing. I know what you may be thinking. Start a childcare center in our home. But we rent it from my mother-in-law and she does not want us to do that.

Anyone in the same boat as me?

Have you look at Apple? They have a position called an At-Home Advisor

http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/aha.html

It pays very reasonable per hour, and they provide you with an iMac. I was recently hired for the position, it similar to a call center position.

Gav2k · Jul 12, 2013

If your wife enjoys looking after kids why not do that from home?

slu · Jul 15, 2013

As a father of a two year old and as someone who works from home 40% of the time, unless one works at night or when the other parent is at home, I don't know how it is possible to work from home and raise a child. From my experience, taking care of a small child is a full time job and it is not possbile to do any actaul work during those times. People that work from home and raise a child are sacrificing quality one way or another.

jc0481 · Jul 23, 2013

SoAnyway said:
Become an iOS app developer. Lots of people have done it and made themselves lots of money!

This is WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO. I would love to make an app, charge a reasonable price and be an app that would make people buy it. I can do this on the side and work my main job. That way my wife can stay home and not worry about working.

Sadly I have never touched programming. Nada, zilch!! I have only seen HTML code and played around a bit with it but that's it!

Where should I start?

----------

designs216 said:
Legit WAH opportunities are hard to find. When my wife stayed at home she did child care. It worked for her as she had experience and her mom is in that line of work. But here are a few more ideas.

Thank you for the link. I will let my wife know. I think she is leaning more towards watching other people's children around the neighborhood.

MICHAELSD · Jul 23, 2013

This is probably off-course, but blogging has its benefits if she can write and build an audience.

Apple fanboy · Jul 23, 2013

jc0481 said:
Where should I start?

About 5 years ago. A bit like the .com band wagon a few years ago, I think it's very hard to get a new app from a new developer noticed. Doesn't matter if it's the best in the world, if people don't know about it, it won't make you money. Can't remember the % right now but there was an article on here the other week about how many apps never get downloaded. It's getting harder and harder to separate the wheat from the chaff on the app store (and probably the Google Play store as well)

TedM · Jul 23, 2013

As a kid my parents did the Au Pair system and it was a blast. Both my parents got to work, and we essentially got a cheap baby sitter that added a lot of culture to our lives. Thought it was awesome as a kid.

farmkittie · Aug 30, 2013

applelover4 said:
Have you look at Apple? They have a position called an At-Home Advisor

http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/aha.html

It pays very reasonable per hour, and they provide you with an iMac. I was recently hired for the position, it similar to a call center position.

Approximately what does it pay? Is there a wide range of pay based on your expertise level?

I wish more companies would let technical people work from home (you're not helping at all Marissa Meyer (sp?)). Even if they don't trust everyone to be as productive, I'm disappointed that they won't allow it even if they can measure how much you're getting done based on comparing it to your productivity on site up until the time they start letting you work from home. My commute is killing me!

My wife is looking for a legitimate stay at home job

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