Being a Woman sucks

Growing up I was focused on going to college, getting married, starting a family, all the while having a career. There was no question that I would be a working mom. As time has progressed and reality has set in, the idea I'd had about "taking a few years off and then going back to work" has become a fantasy. It's apparent that after 3.5 years at Jeff's job, he'll never make more than I made with my starting pay here (4 years ago), and I'll never make enough to supplement Jeff's income so that he could be a stay at home dad. The reality of it is, is that we both have to work and most likely it will always be that way.

With that reality in mind, we set out on planning and discussing on how to make kids work in the next year or two. It seemed like it would be doable until a reality check (again) came from my boss.

Jeff had talked to his boss and she agreed to (4) ten hour shifts so he could have every Friday off to take care of the baby. That would give us one day of child care. Then I was convinced my boss wouldn't have a problem with me working two days a week from home, as my job is very doable from home, so that would only leave us two days a week for child care. Two days a week is affordable (with several cut-backs) and we could still manage to make it without a whole load of worry about paying the bills. That was until I finally decided to discuss this with my boss...and was shot down. Working two days a week sets a precedent that "it's ok" for working mother's to work part time from home and that I'll never really get anywhere in the company by setting that precedent. The only option I would have (if HR would allow it) is to work full time from home at a lower title, but I would then sacrifice a career. Because once I took the "demotion" I could never build a career from that. Also that I can't have a significant raise unless I took a management or supervisor position, therefore taking an increase in work, therefore not being able to work from home and raise a child. So pretty much, on a platter I was given the choice of children or career. This loss of control over what I've aimed to do my entire life, makes me sad, it makes me angry, and it makes me feel discouraged.

Going into this conversation I thought I was making the best move. I'm still early on in my career, so I thought now was a good time to have kids because by the time their school age I would be able to grow more and move into a position that would be more responsibility. But apparently it's only one or the other.

No matter how many times I play the numbers over in my head, there's just no way we could make it with Jeff out of work. We'd literally have pennies left to our name, we wouldn't be able to save much at all, and would have nothing for emergencies. That's not the way I want to live.

But everyone keeps telling me that there's never a right time for kids and "things will work themselves out..." but I just don't see any other way around this. You can't magically make someone affordable come out of no where and be able to give you child care. And who wants to send a 3-month old baby to a child care facility 4 days a week anyways?