Bringing Home the Bacon,Times Two: A Look at Dual-Income Families

The School Years

I was an avid learner and bright student. I loved school and excelled scholastically. My parents never pressured me to get straight A’s or achieve academic accolades. They simply expected me to try my hardest and do my best. Apparently, some internal demon convinced me that my best and the best were the same thing. Regardless, I was well-rounded and seemed to balance school, extracurricular activities, friends and family with ease. It sounds cliché, but my parents were my biggest cheerleaders. Their constant encouragement plus my perceived ability to balance life so well led me to believe I could do and be anything I wanted.

My senior year in high school a couple of my classmates jokingly voted me “The Most Likely to Be a Stay at Home Mom.” What??? Did they not know me? I was in the Honor Society, had a 4.0, and was a cheerleader. I was the president of our chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the treasurer of our senior class. PLUS, I was going to be a “mom and fill in the blank.” How could they not see my latent potential? Despite those silly kids’ opinion of me, my high school counselor and my parents urged me to apply to a couple competitive out-of-state universities. They succeeded in convincing me to apply to one: Peabody College, the education college at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Watch out Hee Haw, USA; here I come!

At Vanderbilt, I continued the balancing act. I was a cheerleader, active in a couple Christian ministries, the president of an honor society and graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Elementary Education. I was going to take the world by storm and be the best “mom and elementary teacher” my former silly joking classmates had ever met!

Fast Forward

Within a year of graduating, I was married (to Husband One) and had my first teaching job. Just like that, I was one half of a dual-income family. I discovered that I loved teaching and that I really liked having my own money. We had both grown up “comfortable” and were accustomed to a certain lifestyle. The dual-income model allowed us to aspire to that lifestyle. Our incomes were relatively meager but it worked for us. We had a cute little apartment, two very nice cars, stylish clothes and a few big-kid toys. We ate out; we traveled. I shopped; he sky-dived. Soon, we had a cute little rent house and three cars, two daily drivers and one just for fun. I liked working and loved the luxuries it provided me. Honestly, we were young and thought very little about the future. He was a free-spirit. I was accustomed to succeeding with very little effort. Life was good; life was fun. We had what we needed plus more.

Then one spring afternoon in my second year of teaching, I became inexplicably fatigued. During dismissal that day one mother noticed my exhaustion and lightheartedly asked if I could be pregnant. I laughed it off with a quick “no thank you.” Pregnant? Not me. I had fun things to do and bills to pay. As one might guess, that mother was right; I was pregnant. I was young and impractical. Our incomes were modest and we were not planners. In short, we were very unprepared.

Seven months later, Baby One was born. The pregnancy was not without complications. Due to prenatal health issues, I unexpectedly had to quit working 6 weeks before she was born. One half of our dual-income instantly disappeared and the other half had become somewhat distracted by life’s little disruptions (again, different story for a different day). Credit cards became our primary method of payment. As I sat on bedrest, working harder than ever, to ensure the healthy arrival of Baby One I dreamed of being a mom . . . just a mom, dare I say, a SAHM. With each day, our debt grew quickly and the visions of SAHM-hood slowly withered. Debt became a dark cloud and a burden too heavy for our single-income family.

I quickly began a new part-time desk job in the corporate world. We staggered our schedules so one of us could stay with Baby One while the other worked. Soon, part-time became full-time. We were officially again a dual-income family. This time things were different. My money was no longer my money. His money was no longer his money. Everything became ours. Together, we had three mouths to feed, two meager incomes and one omnipresent acquaintance, Debt. Dual-income became a necessity rather than a luxury.

That was 1994. By 1998 we had three children and an ebb and flow relationship with our old friend Debt. Complications during each pregnancy required bedrest resulting in several months of only one income. Each time, we fed Debt with our credit cards. Not working was not an option. I missed the classroom, and teaching offered a work schedule that corresponded well with my daughters’ school hours and calendar. Quality time with my daughters trumped higher salaries associated with the corporate world in which I had previously dabbled. In 2000, I returned to teaching K12 full-time. I followed that career path for almost 15 years. By that time my youngest daughter was a junior in high school. My older girls were in college. And I was divorced.

Even in the best of circumstances, people rarely emerge from divorce financially unscathed. I lumbered through that horrible transition just trying to make ends meet and regain some sanity. I eventually ended up with a new husband. Husband Two earned a steady and occasionally substantial income. In fact, his first wife had been a SAHM.

Not long before I married Husband Two, his legal assistant had to quit her job. He needed an assistant. I wanted a job. We could have survived on his income alone. But, why do so? I was almost 50, had no kids left at home, had grown accustomed to working and wanted to have my own spending money. Frankly, since we did not absolutely, positively, NEED my income, I would not have taken just any job. My standards were high and I could finally afford to be picky. Teaching is mentally and physically exhausting; so, returning to teaching elementary school full-time was out of the question for me. I wanted a less stressful job. But, most important, I wanted a job that allowed me to spend time with my adult children and help with my newly acquired (and slightly younger) step-children. I wanted a schedule that could flex with my kids’ schedules. I was willing to sacrifice money for flexibility. I was able to sacrifice money for flexibility because my husband’s income was sufficient. That was my thought process. So, when my husband needed a new assistant, he offered me the job and I took it. Thus, we began our dual-income family life together.

Obviously not all life lessons fit into succinct equations. So, I offer Lesson #5 in a more typical format, that is, the complete sentence: Life and income reboots are not confined merely to fairy tales.

Conclusion

During my adult years, I have been one half of two very different dual-income families. In my first dual-income life, our two modest incomes initially provided a few luxuries. But, once our children were born, those two occasionally unstable incomes were absolutely essential. Regardless, time with my young children was of utmost importance to me and I chose a job with a schedule similar to theirs. In my second dual-income life, my paycheck was largely supplemental. That job afforded me the luxury of helping my kids financially during their college years, but more significantly, it provided me the opportunity to spend time with whom and how I wanted.