The Future of our Family

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I have wanted to be a mother for a very long time. Pretty much since I was 16 I've been going through life waiting until the most responsible (and socially acceptable) time to have children. Not to mention waiting for Daniel to be ready. Because as badly as I want to start our family, I definitely don't want to do it until Daniel is on board. It wouldn't be very much fun if Daniel wasn't excited about being a Daddy. So I have been living my life, doing everything I can to work towards the day I can have children. Of course there are many things that must be done first, in my opinion. Finish college, get a job, become financially independent and secure, and get married. Well as I sit here I have completed the first two, am well on my way to completing the third, and in 4 1/2 months I will have completed the fourth. Which means that technically I am ready to start our family.

Up until now, Daniel has not been ready. He loves kids, and wants to have a family, but there are lots of other things he wants to do first. He wants to travel, own a beautiful home in a great neighborhood, start his own business, and make lots of money. All of these things were much more important to him and in his opinion, impossible to do with children. In the past 6 months he has made huge strides towards all of those goals- namely, starting his own business. He spends hours researching similar businesses and asking friends and families for advice. He attends every business class looking to glean information that can help him start his business. And all of this means he has spent exactly zero time looking for a job, or thinking about what kind of job he is going to get when he graduates in March. He will have a master's degree in business administration. Here's where the conflict began.

Every time we talked about our future, we were in serious disagreement. Daniel wanted to start his business immediately when he graduates in March. He thinks he will make enough for the first year or two to pay our bills (his estimate was about $30,000/yr), and we'll just take out more loans to pay for my graduate school. Then, when I finish graduate school 3 years later and get a job (starting pay is $70-80k) we can start thinking about saving for a baby. After we pay off student loans of course.

My plan was significantly different. I was thinking that once he graduates in March, he will get a great corporate job that will make at least double what we are now (I think that's pretty reasonable with a master's degree). It will be enough to support us and pay for at least some of my graduate school and pay off our student loans. After a couple years of his much higher salary, we should have enough saved to have a baby. The best part of this plan is his getting a corporate job that pays significantly higher than what I make now. I am tired of being poor. I feel like after 4-5 years of school, we have invested enough time, effort, and money to make much more than we are right now. Which is why I'm going to get my master's degree. But part of my expectation is that Daniel will use his master's degree to support us while I am working on mine. I was so thrilled a few years ago when Daniel decided to get his MBA because I thought that meant financial security for our family. And it felt to me like he was pulling the rug out from under me when he declared that he wanted to start his new business right away and that meant another 3 years of barely paying our bills while continuing to accumulate student loan debt. And then after those 3 years, it's ME supporting our family. Which makes it kind of hard to start a family.

So we have been going back and forth between his plan and mine for 6 months now. Every time we talk about it, I feel like my dream of being a mom gets pushed further and further into the future. And I feel like Daniel is putting his dream of starting a business before mine. Every discussion ended with hurt feelings for both of us and we got nowhere. Until yesterday.

Daniel basically told me that he thought about it and he liked my plan. Sort of. His idea was to graduate in March and get a job. He can continue to work on his business plan and start it up slowly on the side. Meanwhile, he'll be making enough to pay our bills so that I can go to graduate school. The program I want to go to isn't really expensive; it's only about $10-15k a year for 3 years. Depending on how the first year or 2 goes, we would like to have a baby between my second and third year of graduate school. I have spoken to 2 of my friends who are in the program now and they both say it's very much like undergraduate. It's not 8am-5pm in class every day. You have many afternoons off, and sometimes whole days off. You still get Christmas break, summer break, and spring break. So if we planned it very carefully, I could have the baby in June and go back to school in September. I think that after my first year I will be able to tell if I could handle that. Then when I finish the program I can work full time with a toddler a home while Daniel starts up his business. Our income wouldn't change a whole lot if Daniel quits and then right away I start working. I know there are a lot of pieces that have to fall exactly into place to make this work, but the important part to me is that Daniel has agreed to get a job in March. I feel like we only have to get through the next 8 months living paycheck to paycheck. That's such a relief.

What a great exercise in compromise. I think this proves that we have a great foundation for our marriage.