Anne Romney Hasn't Worked A Day in Her Life

[Warren Dew]

We have separate accounts. I like to balance my check book, and that would be pretty difficult with another person writing checks or making debit card purchases.

[hadespussercats]

Coito, I do keep thinking about this bit you wrote:

Wake up at around 6am and make coffee and breakfast for both of us, pack up her lunch if I didn't do it the night before (she likes to bring lunch from home), Kiss her goodbye and tell her I love her, clean up the kitchen, handle any issues with the kids, and give the house a good once over first thing in the morning (every morning), if we have a child at home and not in school, I would take care of the child, change diapers when needed, feed, and do all that sort of thing throughout the day, and intersperse other tasks, I would prepare dinner to be ready when my wife came home, I'd make sure the house is neat and orderly, and I would try to greet her with a smile. On days where shopping is necessary, I'd go shopping. On breaks I would try to work on things that would earn money. When she got home, there wouldn't be any laundry for her to do, or cleaning. She'd likely want to spend time with our child, and all that. But, if I'm doing my job as a homemaker then she ought not have to share in the day-to-day tasks of cleaning and cooking.

You do have kids, right? From what you've written previously, I get the sense you provided for them, but you weren't necessarily on the front lines, as it were. But I realize I might be wrong about that.

The thing is, what you describe sounds exactly like what I or any number of people might picture about being a stay-at-home parent. And those home-cooked meals would be nutritious, made from in-season produce, and presented with flair.

But I have a friend or two with twins (thank god we don't!),
and I think this might be a more realistic scenario:

Last night, your month-old twins took turns sleeping. You're taking care of all the night feedings, because your wife has to get her rest to go to work. For weeks,you've only gotten about one hour of sleep for every three at night-- a schedule which defies the Geneva convention standards for torture.

You were hoping to start off the day vacuuming and straightening up, but first you really have to do laundry, because every crib sheet you own is soaked with pee. And your own bed sheets need a wash, too, because the kids spit up on them when you brought them into bed that morning for some cuddle time with your wife before she had to get up to get ready to go. So, you bring the laundry, and the babies, somehow, in an extended, awkward process, downstairs, and you decide to sort piles in the living room.

But your beautiful babies have colic, and are shrieking at the top of their lungs. Your poor head. You try to find a way to hold them both that keeps them both relatively happy, but they will only quiet down if you walk up and down like an entrant to John Cleese's Ministry. And then you have to feed them, one and then the other. and then you have to change them, one and then the other. And then the screaming starts again. Why won't they nap? What can you do?

The car! You need to go to the grocery store anyways. So you put the kids in their bouncy seats, still shrieking, and go off to load up the double stroller.

It's raining. Great. Okay, go get the car seats from the hall closet, transfer the wailing babies from one set of seats to the other, hustle the first one out to the car with an umbrella hooked over the handle. Get him settled. Damn latch.

Go back to get the other baby. She has shit... everywhere. Down her little legs, all over the seat, how IN GOD'S NAME is it POSSIBLE that one tiny little person could produce so much runny yellow poo?

For a moment you're tempted to just put her in the car and go. Gah you want to get out of the house! But no-- that would make you a terrible father. Got to get her cleaned up. And the car seat. But you can't just leave your other baby in the car, so you go back, get him unlatched, back to the house.

And you know, it's just as well, 'cuz you forgot to pack the bag of bottles with formula and water and diapers and wipes and a change of outfits for emergencies and the right pacifier and the burp cloths...

Just as you finish cleaning up the one, and feeding them both again because at that age they never stop eating, a miracle happens!

They both fall asleep. At the SAME TIME! It's so quiet!

You pass out in the pile of semi-sorted disgusting laundry and don't wake up until your wife shakes you.
"How can you just sleep while our babies are crying? And you said you were going to take care of dinner!"

[Warren Dew]

Things get better when the kids are older - or at least they're bad in different ways. I question Coito's idea that there's any time left over to try to find ways to earn money, though.

That said, there is no such thing as colic - only cries for which the parents haven't figured out the meaning yet. Also, are there really parents who don't keep the car seats semipermanently installed?

[JimC]

We each have our own accounts, plus the main household one (to which most of my salary is delivered), which Bron manages to perfection...

I would be hopeless at it...

[Svartalf]

Also, re- commitments for marrieds finances--
I'm responsible for my husband's school loans, which he took out while we were married, even though I didn't sign on to any of them. Even if we get divorced, this will be the case.

If you take out a mortgage on a house while you're married, and you and your wife separate, and you move out and stop paying the mortgage, she's responsible for those payments, even if she didn't sign on.

Doesn't sound right to me, though student loans might be different. In any other contractual arrangement (which is what a loan is), only the signing person can be held responsible. In terms of a mortgage you absolutely would NOT be liable if you were not on the note, unless (big unless) the judge ordered it as part of "equitable distribution" in a divorce. In your example the wife would not be legally responsible for the mortgage payments, however, if she didn't pay them the bank could foreclose. It's a bit of a moot point, because no bank will allow a mortgage against a property unless all the owners on the deed sign the mortgage, so the only way your example could happen is if the wife was not on the deed in the first place.

If my husband were to buy a new car on credit from the dealer, without asking me, and then didn't make any payments on it, my credit would be trashed, too.

I don't understand how you can say these financial commitments don't affect both spouses.

No, your credit would be unaffected. If the finance company reported YOU to the the credit agencies you could force them to remove the report, because you never legally owed them any money. Whether married or not you cannot be held to a contract you do not sign, that's a basic precept of contract law. Mind you, I'm talking from a Florida perspective, I don't know how New York law reads. I do know their divorce laws are positively draconian compared to Florida, I talked the ex into moving here from Syracuse for the express purpose of divorcing her in a friendlier legal climate.

Dunno.... in France, except in legally enumerated cases, each spouse is assumed to have power of attorney for the other, meaning that any engagement one spouse makes can involve the other's responsibility. The major exception is if the spouses have married under contract to keep their respective assets separate, including assets acquired during the marriage (of course, in modern France, the standard marriage states that things owned before the marriage remain the spouse's sole property, but things acquired during marriage are held in common, unless special legal provisions are made... I've seen a lady cleaned up because she sold her own house to buy a home for her family, and then she lost half of that when she and her husband separated and he got half the price for selling the new home).

[Coito ergo sum]

Coito, I do keep thinking about this bit you wrote:

Wake up at around 6am and make coffee and breakfast for both of us, pack up her lunch if I didn't do it the night before (she likes to bring lunch from home), Kiss her goodbye and tell her I love her, clean up the kitchen, handle any issues with the kids, and give the house a good once over first thing in the morning (every morning), if we have a child at home and not in school, I would take care of the child, change diapers when needed, feed, and do all that sort of thing throughout the day, and intersperse other tasks, I would prepare dinner to be ready when my wife came home, I'd make sure the house is neat and orderly, and I would try to greet her with a smile. On days where shopping is necessary, I'd go shopping. On breaks I would try to work on things that would earn money. When she got home, there wouldn't be any laundry for her to do, or cleaning. She'd likely want to spend time with our child, and all that. But, if I'm doing my job as a homemaker then she ought not have to share in the day-to-day tasks of cleaning and cooking.

You do have kids, right? From what you've written previously, I get the sense you provided for them, but you weren't necessarily on the front lines, as it were. But I realize I might be wrong about that.

The thing is, what you describe sounds exactly like what I or any number of people might picture about being a stay-at-home parent. And those home-cooked meals would be nutritious, made from in-season produce, and presented with flair.

You asked me -- in fact you made it very clear you were asking for what I, personally, me, would do in the scenario where the stay-at-home. I answered the question as best I could.

But I have a friend or two with twins (thank god we don't!),
and I think this might be a more realistic scenario:

So, you're saying my scenario is not realistic? First you scolded me for not only answering for me, but also adding a discussion about spouses in general. Now you want to respond to my personal summary of what I would do at home with someone else's scenario? That's fine, and I'll go with it. Sure, I couldn't put in one paragraph every single thing that can and does happen in a given day. I provided a summary.

Last night, your month-old twins took turns sleeping. You're taking care of all the night feedings, because your wife has to get her rest to go to work. For weeks,you've only gotten about one hour of sleep for every three at night-- a schedule which defies the Geneva convention standards for torture.

For me, personally, the night feedings are not exclusively one person's job. SWMBO'd likes to breast feed.

You were hoping to start off the day vacuuming and straightening up, but first you really have to do laundry, because every crib sheet you own is soaked with pee. And your own bed sheets need a wash, too, because the kids spit up on them when you brought them into bed that morning for some cuddle time with your wife before she had to get up to get ready to go. So, you bring the laundry, and the babies, somehow, in an extended, awkward process, downstairs, and you decide to sort piles in the living room.

That's the way it goes, but it's not that bad in the end, in my experience and opinion.

But your beautiful babies have colic, and are shrieking at the top of their lungs. Your poor head. You try to find a way to hold them both that keeps them both relatively happy, but they will only quiet down if you walk up and down like an entrant to John Cleese's Ministry. And then you have to feed them, one and then the other. and then you have to change them, one and then the other. And then the screaming starts again. Why won't they nap? What can you do?

It happens, but the horror - the hell house you describe - is certainly not the norm, in my experience and opinion. Most days are not those days, with endless shrieking and puke and piss everywhere, making life a living hell.

The car! You need to go to the grocery store anyways. So you put the kids in their bouncy seats, still shrieking, and go off to load up the double stroller.

I'm not accustomed to this constant, daily, neverending shrieking you're pointing out. Glad I didn't have that problem much. Maybe i was just lucky.

It's raining. Great. Okay, go get the car seats from the hall closet, transfer the wailing babies from one set of seats to the other, hustle the first one out to the car with an umbrella hooked over the handle. Get him settled. Damn latch.

Go back to get the other baby. She has shit... everywhere. Down her little legs, all over the seat, how IN GOD'S NAME is it POSSIBLE that one tiny little person could produce so much runny yellow poo?

For a moment you're tempted to just put her in the car and go. Gah you want to get out of the house! But no-- that would make you a terrible father. Got to get her cleaned up. And the car seat. But you can't just leave your other baby in the car, so you go back, get him unlatched, back to the house.

And you know, it's just as well, 'cuz you forgot to pack the bag of bottles with formula and water and diapers and wipes and a change of outfits for emergencies and the right pacifier and the burp cloths...

Just as you finish cleaning up the one, and feeding them both again because at that age they never stop eating, a miracle happens!

They both fall asleep. At the SAME TIME! It's so quiet!

You pass out in the pile of semi-sorted disgusting laundry and don't wake up until your wife shakes you.
"How can you just sleep while our babies are crying? And you said you were going to take care of dinner!"

Well, that hasn't been my experience with children. I really don't know what you want me to do with this summary. What are you trying to tell me? That being a stay at home parent is a daily hell on Earth, wherein nobody is can keep a house clean and cook dinner with kids because they won't stop shrieking and shitting all over everything, pissing, and you forget everything, and can't go anywhere or do anything? I can only say that there will be good days and bad days, but kids have never stopped me from having a clean house, almost all the time. And, I've not generally experienced the horror and near impossibility of going to the store. They can be little bastards and can get sick and cranky from time to time, but for the most part, you get used to things.

Is your summary supposed to make me go -- "hey, you know what? Maybe my wife should be writing me a check each a week because what I do during the day?" I still don't see why that would entail a payment from my wife. I'm at home, she's at gainful employment, because we decided it was better for our family, personally, financially, whatever for me to do that. In my view, that means that everything she makes is both of ours, not just $10 or $20 an hour written to me like I'm the hired help.

[Coito ergo sum]

Things get better when the kids are older - or at least they're bad in different ways. I question Coito's idea that there's any time left over to try to find ways to earn money, though.

Trust me, people do it. Nothing is for everyone, of course, and I never phrased it as something that everyone would do. Hades asked me, specifically, and she was very clear on this -- she asked me about my life personally.

Moreover, I don't get what that whole "let me recite a story about a horrible day as a stay at home parent" is supposed to tell us. Is anyone unaware that there are good and bad days as a parent? Are we not aware that kids shit and piss and moan and cry? This is stuff people have dealt with for the entire span of human existence. I'd like to know what we're supposed to conclude from it. That an employed wife should write checks to her stay at home husband like he's hired help, because he has it so bad at home?

[Coito ergo sum]

Coito-- the loan was after we got married.

If you're "liable" for the payments, then you signed somewhere, as a cosigner, guarantor, or something. You can't be a party to a contract without manifesting assent. It's basic law. I'm sure of this.

Still, Coito and LakLak, it's good to know all this-- I've heard a lot of varying reports, but I've been under the impression that being an economic unit meant, well, being an economic unit, for the most part.

It does. But, people get confused between "being liable on the debt" and it effecting you. Your spouses shit shows up on credit bureau reports and can fuck up your credit. But, that isn't the same thing as being legally responsible to pay.

Are you both from Florida?

J and I still have separate accounts, which is probably silly, but we both feel like we'd have an easier time keeping track of ins and outs if we each kept our own pile. Plus, I think we both like having a chunk that's ours to allocate-- even though we still make most decisions together, divvy up bills (and yes, Coito, give each other money as needed.)

What's "yes coito" supposed to mean? Are under the impression that giving each other money as needed is something I oppose?

Coito, I should clarify that I'm not necessarily a fan of one partner paying another to care for the kids. It's a problem that I was looking to think through-- the fact that a stay-at-home parent does forego all sorts of important things like social security, a continuous employment history, 401K or work-related retirement/pension... And in bad marriages, the partner who makes money often can keep the SAH partner dominated, by controlling access to the couple's funds. So what would be some good ways to address that?

Not by further relegating the stay at home spouse to the status of hired help.

I don't know how to "address that." I think that one way would be for the parties set forth how things will work at the beginning. Like, if the one spouse is going to be stay at home, then if I were that spouse I'd want my name on all the retirement accounts, bank accounts, etc., right down the line. I wouldn't allow myself to be dominated, and if for some reason that suggestion was unreasonable to SWMBO'd, then that would be a warning sign to me. I would probably push for both of us to work and have day care.

It was actually Suze Orman who'd mentioned somewhere that it can be a good idea for a couple to work out an agreement between them that even if they have a joint account, that each have their own account in their own name, and that the SAH parent should receive an amount from the wage-earning spouse to keep in that separate account (this isn't a legal requirement-- just a suggestion for personal use.) This arrangement would ensure that the SAH parent would be able to take care of finances with a certain level of independence-- and that separate account not only reminds them both that the SAH parent is doing valuable work for the family, but protects the SAH parent if the couple ends up headed for divorce.

J and I don't do that. But I didn't think it was a bad idea.

It's certainly an option, and I couldn't care less if anyone else decides to do it that way voluntarily. It probably makes smart financial sense, which is what Suze Orman's job is. It's like prenuptual agreements -- great financial and legal idea, especially for the spouse with the most money.

[Coito ergo sum]

Also, re- commitments for marrieds finances--
I'm responsible for my husband's school loans, which he took out while we were married, even though I didn't sign on to any of them. Even if we get divorced, this will be the case.

If you take out a mortgage on a house while you're married, and you and your wife separate, and you move out and stop paying the mortgage, she's responsible for those payments, even if she didn't sign on.

Doesn't sound right to me, though student loans might be different. In any other contractual arrangement (which is what a loan is), only the signing person can be held responsible. In terms of a mortgage you absolutely would NOT be liable if you were not on the note, unless (big unless) the judge ordered it as part of "equitable distribution" in a divorce. In your example the wife would not be legally responsible for the mortgage payments, however, if she didn't pay them the bank could foreclose. It's a bit of a moot point, because no bank will allow a mortgage against a property unless all the owners on the deed sign the mortgage, so the only way your example could happen is if the wife was not on the deed in the first place.

Even in the case of equitable distribution of divorce, the non-signing spouse is NOT liable "on the note." The non-signing spouse is liable on the Order entered by the court. So, what happens is if the non-signing spouse violates that order and fails to pay the note, the bank still only has recourse against the signing spouse, but the signing spouse can move for contempt of court, and for a money judgment, which the signing spouse can then collect against the non-signing spouse.

If my husband were to buy a new car on credit from the dealer, without asking me, and then didn't make any payments on it, my credit would be trashed, too.

I don't understand how you can say these financial commitments don't affect both spouses.

No, your credit would be unaffected. If the finance company reported YOU to the the credit agencies you could force them to remove the report, because you never legally owed them any money. Whether married or not you cannot be held to a contract you do not sign, that's a basic precept of contract law. Mind you, I'm talking from a Florida perspective, I don't know how New York law reads. I do know their divorce laws are positively draconian compared to Florida, I talked the ex into moving here from Syracuse for the express purpose of divorcing her in a friendlier legal climate.

New York is the same regarding contracts. No manifestation of mutual assent -- no contract. No consideration exchanged - no contract. No offer/acceptance - no contract.

[Ronja]

That said, there is no such thing as colic - only cries for which the parents haven't figured out the meaning yet.

The NIH's PubMed appears to disagree with you rather profoundly: 8144 hits for a search on infantile colic
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term ... le%20colic

Care to elaborate on your claim?

[mistermack]

That said, there is no such thing as colic - only cries for which the parents haven't figured out the meaning yet.

The NIH's PubMed appears to disagree with you rather profoundly: 8144 hits for a search on infantile colic
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term ... le%20colic

Care to elaborate on your claim?

I'm with Warren. Colic in babies is a general term given to unexplained crying.
If you found the cause, you wouldn't normally call it colic.

[Warren Dew]

Trust me, people do it. Nothing is for everyone, of course, and I never phrased it as something that everyone would do. Hades asked me, specifically, and she was very clear on this -- she asked me about my life personally.

Valid point.

Moreover, I don't get what that whole "let me recite a story about a horrible day as a stay at home parent" is supposed to tell us. Is anyone unaware that there are good and bad days as a parent? Are we not aware that kids shit and piss and moan and cry? This is stuff people have dealt with for the entire span of human existence. I'd like to know what we're supposed to conclude from it. That an employed wife should write checks to her stay at home husband like he's hired help, because he has it so bad at home?

It isn't a story about a horrible day, it's a story about a normal day for a stay at home parent with twin infants.

I also disagree that this is stuff people have dealt with for the entire span of human existence. For most of the paleolithic, when we were hunters and perhaps sometimes gatherers, twins would have been rare or nonexistent, and child spacing would have been, at closest, 3-4 years apart. That means one infant or toddler to be taken care of at a time, which reduces the parenting burden considerably. It's only since the advent of agriculture, and, especially, industrialization, that we've started to have babies so much faster and twins have become increasingly common.

[Warren Dew]

That said, there is no such thing as colic - only cries for which the parents haven't figured out the meaning yet.

The NIH's PubMed appears to disagree with you rather profoundly: 8144 hits for a search on infantile colic
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term ... le%20colic

Care to elaborate on your claim?

I'm with Warren. Colic in babies is a general term given to unexplained crying.
If you found the cause, you wouldn't normally call it colic.

Exactly.

[hadespussercats]

Things get better when the kids are older - or at least they're bad in different ways. I question Coito's idea that there's any time left over to try to find ways to earn money, though.

Trust me, people do it. Nothing is for everyone, of course, and I never phrased it as something that everyone would do. Hades asked me, specifically, and she was very clear on this -- she asked me about my life personally.

Moreover, I don't get what that whole "let me recite a story about a horrible day as a stay at home parent" is supposed to tell us. Is anyone unaware that there are good and bad days as a parent? Are we not aware that kids shit and piss and moan and cry? This is stuff people have dealt with for the entire span of human existence. I'd like to know what we're supposed to conclude from it. That an employed wife should write checks to her stay at home husband like he's hired help, because he has it so bad at home?

Ah, Coito, I was having fun. Forget it.

Warren-- I know that colic is not really a diagnosis. It's a word people use to talk about a certain type of semi-inconsolable crying some babies get when they're quite small, which usually peaks at about 8 weeks.

Fortunately sprog wasn't so bad.

The example I wrote, which was in fact fictional (for instance, we live in a 1-bed and don't own a car) was influenced by stories I've heard from a few friends who have twins, and a boatload of mommyblogs I've read about same over the years.

This really was tongue-in-cheek. Which, what with the actual smiley employed, I'd hoped was obvious. Whatever.

[Ian]

The example I wrote, which was in fact fictional (for instance, we live in a 1-bed and don't own a car) was influenced by stories I've heard from a few friends who have twins, and a boatload of mommyblogs I've read about same over the years.

Daddy of twins here!

Can I add anything to the discussion?

On second thought, scratch that. I'd rather not get too deep into this thread.