Potential long term consequences (especially on kids) of working & living far away from them for ~ two years?
Rodge O’Reilly asked:
My wife and I both feel that we got married and started having kids too soon. There’s nothing we can do about that now, but there is one very bright silver lining; we still have a very good relationship with each other, and we are committed to our marriage and to our family. That said, here’s the situation I’m facing now, and I would appreciate any wisdom you would care to impart. My wife and I are blessed with two wonderful kids, who are ~3 and ~1 yrs old. As much as I adore them, I am considering living away from them for about two years. The situation is complicated (as you’ll see below if you read on), but in a nutshell, I have recently been offered a great job on another coast. If I take this job across the country from them, I would make about $95,000. By my standards I consider that to be a Lot of money, especially considering that I would be living in a rural area with a low cost of living. The attractive salary is appealing mostly because of the sound financial footing it could put my family on (more on that later). It also happens to be a dream job, from a career perspective. If I move out there to take this job, I would plan to live reasonably (I know how to live on $35,000, and would plan to have the lifestyle of a responsible person making that much) so that I could save some money – all while providing a modest but decent (and improved – starting with a decent used minivan in place of the compact car we’re driving now) standard of living for my family back home. My wife and kids, by the way, have a great support system back home, anchored by my wonderful and very supportive parents-in-law, who run a daycare. My wife is not willing to relocate. But if I do take this job, my wife and kids would come to be with me when she has vacation, which would be at least 3 weeks (and possibly 7 weeks for reasons that I don’t need to get into) every year. I would spend all of my vacation time in our ‘hometown’, so this all adds up to at least 6 weeks together every year (possibly 10 weeks, again for reasons that aren’t important). I realize that that is not much or even enough time together, but at the same time, it would be a far cry from never seeing each other. Also, traveling back and forth would not be a huge expense for us because we are eligible for discounted airfare due to a family airline connection – this would allow us to save even more money – and saving money of course would be one of the main justifications for living apart. But saving money just for the sake of it is definitey Not the goal here (niether my wife nor I are very materialistic, in my estimation). Due to our working and (what I consider to be) our fiscally responsible lifestyle, neither my wife nor I have any debt any longer – however we don’t have much money, either (to give you an idea – she and the kids have been living with her parents, while I have been working temporary but reasonably well-paying jobs away from home). There would be two main justifications for my taking this job. Number one is that it provides an opportunity to stock away a moderate amount of money, in a relatively short period of time, for the purpose of putting a down payment on a modest but decent home in a couple of years – and to achieve a basic level of financial stability. Secondly (not as important but still important) it provides me an opportunity to work a great job in my field of study (I just graduated last year, and honestly I would consider it a big sacrifice to give up my career this early after graduating – and an important point here is that jobs in my career really don’t exist yet in our hometown). I would plan to return to our hometown to live in about two years, at which point our kids would be 5 and 3, I’d be there when our oldest begins school, and it is generally expected that by that time, jobs in my field will be more widely available in our ‘hometown’. As far as getting a job closer to home now, I could probably arrange that, but it would almost certainly pay less than half of what I could make at this job that I’m considering that is far away from them, and at present my field of work is virtually non existent in our ‘hometown’, so I would have to change careers or (more likely) or take a job that has little meaning to me (btw the debt that I recently got out of was mostly incurred getting an education in the field that I now have an opportunity to work in). And btw I’m not implying that my career is more important than spending time with my kids – please remember that one of the major motivations for taking the far away job would be to provide a better life for all of us. So my question is, is it worth the sacrifice? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.. and for reading all of this!
How to get rid of Man Boobs
My wife and I both feel that we got married and started having kids too soon. There’s nothing we can do about that now, but there is one very bright silver lining; we still have a very good relationship with each other, and we are committed to our marriage and to our family. That said, here’s the situation I’m facing now, and I would appreciate any wisdom you would care to impart. My wife and I are blessed with two wonderful kids, who are ~3 and ~1 yrs old. As much as I adore them, I am considering living away from them for about two years. The situation is complicated (as you’ll see below if you read on), but in a nutshell, I have recently been offered a great job on another coast. If I take this job across the country from them, I would make about $95,000. By my standards I consider that to be a Lot of money, especially considering that I would be living in a rural area with a low cost of living. The attractive salary is appealing mostly because of the sound financial footing it could put my family on (more on that later). It also happens to be a dream job, from a career perspective. If I move out there to take this job, I would plan to live reasonably (I know how to live on $35,000, and would plan to have the lifestyle of a responsible person making that much) so that I could save some money – all while providing a modest but decent (and improved – starting with a decent used minivan in place of the compact car we’re driving now) standard of living for my family back home. My wife and kids, by the way, have a great support system back home, anchored by my wonderful and very supportive parents-in-law, who run a daycare. My wife is not willing to relocate. But if I do take this job, my wife and kids would come to be with me when she has vacation, which would be at least 3 weeks (and possibly 7 weeks for reasons that I don’t need to get into) every year. I would spend all of my vacation time in our ‘hometown’, so this all adds up to at least 6 weeks together every year (possibly 10 weeks, again for reasons that aren’t important). I realize that that is not much or even enough time together, but at the same time, it would be a far cry from never seeing each other. Also, traveling back and forth would not be a huge expense for us because we are eligible for discounted airfare due to a family airline connection – this would allow us to save even more money – and saving money of course would be one of the main justifications for living apart. But saving money just for the sake of it is definitey Not the goal here (niether my wife nor I are very materialistic, in my estimation). Due to our working and (what I consider to be) our fiscally responsible lifestyle, neither my wife nor I have any debt any longer – however we don’t have much money, either (to give you an idea – she and the kids have been living with her parents, while I have been working temporary but reasonably well-paying jobs away from home). There would be two main justifications for my taking this job. Number one is that it provides an opportunity to stock away a moderate amount of money, in a relatively short period of time, for the purpose of putting a down payment on a modest but decent home in a couple of years – and to achieve a basic level of financial stability. Secondly (not as important but still important) it provides me an opportunity to work a great job in my field of study (I just graduated last year, and honestly I would consider it a big sacrifice to give up my career this early after graduating – and an important point here is that jobs in my career really don’t exist yet in our hometown). I would plan to return to our hometown to live in about two years, at which point our kids would be 5 and 3, I’d be there when our oldest begins school, and it is generally expected that by that time, jobs in my field will be more widely available in our ‘hometown’. As far as getting a job closer to home now, I could probably arrange that, but it would almost certainly pay less than half of what I could make at this job that I’m considering that is far away from them, and at present my field of work is virtually non existent in our ‘hometown’, so I would have to change careers or (more likely) or take a job that has little meaning to me (btw the debt that I recently got out of was mostly incurred getting an education in the field that I now have an opportunity to work in). And btw I’m not implying that my career is more important than spending time with my kids – please remember that one of the major motivations for taking the far away job would be to provide a better life for all of us. So my question is, is it worth the sacrifice? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.. and for reading all of this!
How to get rid of Man Boobs
