Family Income

 Hey everyone!

Once again, I have been blown away this week by the eye-opening things I have learned that I had no idea about! This week we talked about providing for a family, with a lot of focus on the important role fathers play. Many families make the decision to have the mother start working because of the benefits they believe will come from having a second income. However, what I learned this week about the costs versus the benefits will probably surprise you just as much as it surprised me. Our professor illustrated the point he wanted to make by telling us about a case study of a family that was done in which an accountant came in and added up all of their expenses and determined which ones came as a result of the mother working. The family they chose had a pretty average income. The father was making about $42,000 a year working 45 hours a week, and the mother was making about $21,000 working 35 hours a week. Some of these expenses, like childcare, were obvious, but a lot of them were things I hadn’t even thought about before. A family might need to purchase a new, more reliable car to get her to work everyday. She also might spend more on food in a month because she has less time to cook and will go to restaurants or get premade meals that are more expensive. If she has a professional job she may have to spend a little extra on nice clothes. If the family is making more, they will probably allow their children to participate in more extracurricular activities like sports or dance that tend to include a lot of expenses. What the study found was that after all of these expenses, the total family income turned out to be $40,500, which is $1,500 less than what it was with just one income.

The results of this study were crazy to me! It’s really sad to think that a family would sacrifice so much in an effort to be a little more financially stable or to be able to afford nicer things, only for it to actually put them in a situation where they’re making less than before. And I feel like working and trying to take care of a family would put a lot of stress on a mother, and the father as well because he would likely have to pick up some more responsibilities in the family if both parents worked. So from the results of this case study, it seems that there are a lot of benefits to having a parent who doesn’t work and can take care of things in the home. I personally think there are countless benefits to a family with a stay at home mother because she is able to be involved in the lives of her children and support them in the ways they need it. It provides consistency and stability that can be difficult to find with childcare. Our professor told us of a time in his life that he was going to school full time while he also had a day job and a night job. There was a point in each week that he would go nearly three days, I believe, of work and school without any sleep. I can’t even imagine how difficult that would be! He shared a scripture that he believes explains how he got through that difficult time. It’s Doctrine and Covenants 84:33 and it says, “For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods of which I have spoken, and the magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies.” I just wanted to add my testimony that if we do what the Lord asks of us, He will make more out of us than we ever dreamed we could become, and He will make time for us to do all of the things we need to do if we are willing to put Him first.