From the SS website:

“If you are disabled at age 31 or older, you generally need at least 20 credits in the 10 years immediately before you became disabled.”

So only about $2,000 in annual earnings (2 credits/year over 10 years) keeps you covered.

Are stay at home parents really so busy that they can’t generate $2,000 in earned income over the course of an entire year?

It’s a last resort safety net in the case of total disability of that parent.

I don’t think it is necessarily a contradiction in terms to be a feminist, and at the same time recognize the awesome value of full time motherhood, and honor it.

I’ve been in a traditionally male career for over 30 years. I’ve never understood why full time motherhood would be belittled. Dollars are not the measure of your life. It shows the greatest faith in God, and I think God will amply reward it.

RE #15 – We have put that into our budget and we aren’t relying on SS in anyway in our retirement planning/ life planning. We set aside $ for health care and once I go back to work we will purchase disability insurance. In the mean time I have life insurance.

RE #18 – I’m on board as well for living greener because. I’m a baby wearing, cloth diapering, and ECing mamma who uses natural cleaning products and tries to make more healthy eating choices; We are going “greener” because we see a cost benefit in the long run with our health care and pocket book. We are also turning greener because statistics are bad for bad eaters.

Re #19- I absolutely agree. I have 2 degrees and know I am giving my children more because of my educational experiences. After the kids grow up, I do plan on going back to work, but I am giving them a great foundation now in life. My children WILL go to college or trade school and I suspect that at least one of my girls will stay at home with their children. I will not think that her education is a wasted education or a waste of money.

1. Women who are in college earning degrees can’t predict the path their lives will take. Even if a woman enters school knowing she wants to get married and be a stay-at-home wife and mother, she can’t be sure that she will find a suitable husband, she can’t be sure she and her husband will be in a situation to have (or adopt) children, she can’t be sure her husband will make enough money to allow her to stay home (or that he will agree to be the sole breadwinner).

2. Should something terrible happen, such as the death of her husband (or more commonly, divorce), she will be glad to have an advanced degree she can put to use.

3. College is an experience that provides more than just a diploma.

4. Stay-at-home parenting isn’t all wiping butts and cooking supper. An educated parent will likely have more tools at her disposal for helping her kids with homework and providing them opportunities to learn outside of school hours.

Women who have worked very hard to obtain educational credentialling and/or diplomas are providing themselves with more opportunities, not less. I think the sad truth is that its also an important “insurance policy” in this era of all-too-common divorce. I think a prudent woman buffers herself and her children against possible future storms.

My vegetarian friends suddenly think I’m interested in saving all the animals, and get all excited telling me stories about sow crates and battery hens. My family all look down their nose at me as though I’m on a one person crusade to save the world and eliminate global warming (which I’m not even sure I believe in!)

It’s funny how people can look at your actions and attribute motivations that aren’t even there.

@ Wonko Beeblebrox – regarding why women would get am expensive degree, and then stay at home with kids – I would suggest that most of us didn’t specifically have in mind getting a degree, and then not earning any money with the training. We got the degree, then it turned out we had kids – low and behold, we like our kids more than we like our jobs! I never thought I’d be a SAHM, seriously – I never thought I wanted kids – but when it came down to choosing, as much as I love my field, there are things that are more important to me. Essentially, every individual grows and changes over time, and we should never expect someone to always stick with what they thought they wanted to do when they were 22 years old.

Regarding why we didn’t go for 2 part-time parents instead of 1 full-time – my husbands’ job situation makes this difficult, and because I didn’t have a burning desire to be working outside the home on a regular basis, we didn’t pursue it.

I would consider increasing my work to provide a greater income than the minimal contract work that I do, if my children are enrolled in a public school. However, any work outside the home brings with it certain trade-offs, regardless of how many hours are worked in a week. Also, part-time work tends to be at a less-skilled level, and to some degree, less willing to be flexible with family situations – I mean, hey, it’s part-time – they can find someone else who wants those hours. In general, though, I think it’s totally worth considering working part time once children are school-age. You just have to evaluate your own situation and values.

@KC – about the Stress – Totally! I hear from some of my friends who work while having young children at home, and I thank my husband that very day for providing enough that we don’t have to stress in that way.

@Tana – I very much agree with your analysis of “disadvatanges.” Which ever path chosen – full-time, part-time, or SAHM – there are sacrifices, disadvantages and advantages. I realized that I can’t have it all (not at the same time) so I’m choosing to not try to attain something that is unrealistic, and more importantly, stressful (on me and my family, I won’t speak for others).

@bill – you have a good point about the SS benefits – that is one of the disadvantages to being a SAHM. It’s worth considering when thinking about being a SAHM, but I wouldn’t treat it as the make or break factor.

In 2008, you receive one credit for each $1,050 of earnings, up to the maximum of four credits per year.

The biggest advantage to SS disability, IMHO, is that one becomes Medicare-eligible 24 months after qualifying for SS disability.

My mom became ill in her mid 40s, and since she never worked for wages after her children were born, was not SS eligible.

She lived over a decade with her illness – qualifying for SS disability (especially Medicare) would have made things much easier on everyone.

They are giving up careers to help provide the anchor in the family.

These sacrifices help our children understand the importance of parental responsibility.

Good article recognizing our heroes of today.

I look at parents who rush through their children’s lives, dropping them off here or there and running around to get other things done just so they can hurry through a drive through to eat supper in the car on the way to the next activity. I see their stress, their aggravation, their health declining, and their marriages being strained or broken. People I went to high school with now look much older and oh so tired.

We host the sleepovers, the pizza parties, and the bonfires. We’ve never missed a single parent teacher conference, ball game, concert, bake sale, or science fair. We’ve taken in kids whose families were strained to the breaking point, and we’ve given dozens of teenagers a place to ‘hang out’ that’s safe and welcoming. We know where our daughter is and what she’s doing because she’s in the back yard or living room giggling and goofing off with her friends.

Yes, we own junky cars and live in a plain house with only one television, and yes, we could have had more and cooler stuff if we both had worked all of these years. But we raised a great kid. For us, the time with her was worth far more than that extra paycheck.

I think Carrie is definitely on the right track.

I mean, why don’t you go ask a nurse how she deals with the “economic disadvantage” of being a nurse rather than a doctor? Or a law secretary in regards to being a lawyer? You can pick a career that makes big money, or a career that you enjoy (such as being a writer). Money doesn’t translate directly to quality of life.

As a mother who stays at home myself, I don’t have to deal with disadvantages that many working mothers face. I don’t have to figure out how to take off work when my children are sick. In fact, my children rarely get sick. I don’t have to deal with the disadvantage of taking them to the playground when everyone else is there on the evenings and weekends – we can go during the day and essentially have the place to ourselves. I don’t have to go in and wake my kids up every morning and make them get moving so we can get out the door on time; they get to sleep until they’re cheerful and ready to get up. And I don’t have to figure out how to spend time with my children while trying to take care of household duties and running errands in the little bit of time I have when I’m not at work every day; when my husband comes from work in the evening, all of that stuff is done and we get to enjoy spending time together as a family.

If you’re a working mother, you simply accept having the disadvantages of the time constraints put on you by spending 40+ hours a week away from your family. Nobody ever talks about those realities as disadvantages; they’re just accepted as facts of life, like only having 24 hours in a day. Those of us who choose to stay at home see our “disadvantages” in a similar light. How much money we have in the bank is how much money we have in the bank. We don’t live our lives with a “disadvantaged” mentality.

Time spent doing one thing is time not spent doing something else. Life is a series of choices. Like Carrie said, it’s a question of values.

@wonko–obviously, your values are different from Carrie’s. Her family is able to live comfortably with the current income level so there is no dire need for her to squeeze a paid job, part-time or otherwise, into to her responsibilities as the primary care giver in her family. And I don’t get the sense that she’s itching to return to the paid workforce the first chance she gets.

We’re contemplating moving out of the Bay Area in 1 -2 years so that, hopefully, as we being our family we can be in a similar situation. We can’t even conceive of conceiving in the Bay Area on two incomes, but if we move out we could probably live comfortably on just one.

And I’ve noticed a huge shift in the status of our home (and our health) between the time when I was fresh out of school and umemployed as opposed to having a full-time job–the home was cleaner, small repairs were done more timely, I was able to bargain shop more effectively, I was able to exercise at any time of the day instead of trying to squeeze it in before or after work, and more and healthier meals were cooked in the home.