An Interview with John and Rebecca

I am so pleased to publish this interview with “John” and “Rebecca” (these names are pseudonyms to protect their privacy). Rebecca and John are a married couple with young children. For them, a breadwinner/homemaker family structure has been immensely valuable. Rebecca works full time as an attorney, and John stays home with the kids. Couples like this (mom at work, dad at home) used to be rare, but they are becoming increasingly common. I found their thoughtful insights to be very valuable, and I trust you will too.

If you would like to be included in this interview series, please send me a Direct Message on Substack or email me at ivana.d.greco@proton.me. If you would like to read this post as a PDF, it is available below.

Interview With John And Rebecca

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• I would love to hear about both your educational and work backgrounds.

Rebecca – John and I met at a university affiliated with our church and married shortly after graduation. I had a liberal arts degree and no clear idea of what I wanted to “do” with it in a bad economy, and I was deeply interested in what it might mean to be a wife. So after college I spent a few years underemployed while reading books like Home Comforts. I learned to make a home on a small budget and prepared to educate our eventual children at home by learning about Montessori and Charlotte Mason methods. Later I attended law school on scholarship at a public university, and I have worked in transactional law at large national law firms ever since.

John – My undergraduate degree was in theater and media production. Like many people with theater backgrounds, I worked retail at an Apple Store during and after college. I’ve always had a wide range of interests and am competently self-taught in coding, photography, banjo, sourdough, woodworking, day trading, and a number of other pursuits. When Rebecca went to law school, I worked for the university while getting a second degree in web app development. I have been the primary caregiver for almost nine years and haven’t received a regular paycheck in about five years.

• When did you become parents? What was that transition like?

Rebecca –We intentionally had our first child during law school to avoid postponing it until after I graduated (or worse, made partner).

John – We were 27 and had been married five years. I liked having a few years with no kids; it was fun and allowed us to time to align our values as a family. The transition to parenthood felt very appropriate. Not sudden. 10 of 10, would do it again.

Rebecca – We had been intentional about why we wanted children, how we wanted to parent them, and how we would handle various hypotheticals based on our values, so much of the transition was very easy. I had grown up doing a lot of baby care, and one of my college projects was working with a professor to publish a book on women’s transitions to motherhood; there was not much about early motherhood that really surprised me.

But there were things that were very hard: my medically complex delivery and immediate return to school made postpartum recovery and initiation of breastfeeding difficult. I was also shocked by how much my daughter’s existence took priority over everything else – I had intellectually assented to the idea that family and children were more important than education and career, but suddenly, I felt the truth of that prioritization in a frighteningly strong way. I continued to care deeply about my schooling, but I was surprised by how much more I cared about being present for my daughter.

• How many and how old are your kids now?

John – We have three children: 9, 6, and 3.

• How have you made decisions about who stayed home with the kids? Did you do different things at different times?

Rebecca – Do you remember what our discussions were like before we had kids?

John – We had an idealized view that we could both work part time and share home-based responsibilities – like a pre-industrial model where the family is home-based but everyone is contributing economically. Neither of us had “careers” immediately after college and we were making plans to go to graduate school or change paths. Because of that uncertainty, we didn’t have a firm view about who, if anyone, should stay home. But having children immediately convinced me that it is best for everyone if someone has the home as their primary focus (whether or not they also work outside the home).

Rebecca – We knew it was idealized but we were clear that we wanted to be our children’s primary caregivers (in terms of actual hours of awake caregiving, not just “quality time”), whether that meant both working part time or some other arrangement. We planned from the start to also use paid caregivers in moderation (since we lived very far from family). We have almost always had a nanny for about 10 to 15 hours a week, often a Bible college student. (I think that is important to mention. Being a homemaker has never meant doing every last thing all by yourself).

John – At first our shared caregiving approach worked perfectly. I worked four days a week. Rebecca did most of her class reading from the rocking chair while nursing the baby, and we studied for her bar exam together while pushing the stroller. Having a baby during law school was pretty fun; we recommend it.

Rebecca - John’s job and career potential were excellent, especially after he finished his second degree. But it was obvious that I was a on a career path to more easily support a large family immediately. So after I graduated and started work at a big firm, John cut back his hours and worked three days a week from home.

John - Those first couple years out of law school were pretty rough, and we often talked about how we were not going to do this forever – we would pay off the law school loans and then I’d go to work and you’d stay home and have more kids. But then things got a little easier with your job and we realized it would be hard to replicate the freedom we both had if we did swap.

Rebecca - With each of our second and third babies, I took six months of paid leave. I became the primary caregiver during that time while John had space to acquire some new skills. I went back to work at an 80% schedule, which in practice is still “full time” but gives me the time I want at home.

When the pandemic started and our kids were home from school, we found we loved being home together, and John had enough projects he was pursuing from home that adding a wage-earning job on top of that seemed foolish.

John - Given different circumstances, we could both switch roles – there is nothing inherent in my personality or giftedness that makes me the person that should stay home or you the person that should be wage-earning. It’s just that a job that supports someone being fully home is difficult to get in and out of – you have to be in it for the long haul, or not.

Rebecca – At some point market conditions or the needs of our family may change and we will shift our arrangements. But we plan to keep things pretty much as they are for the foreseeable future – as our kids grow, so do their needs; my job is not getting any smaller and John enjoys homemaking.

John – People ask if I will go back to wage-earning work when all the children are in school. But our oldest two are already in school and I’m still pretty busy. I hope to be a stay-at-home grandpa in another 18 years.

Rebecca - Our oldest two children attend a lovely Charlotte Mason school and we moved much closer to my family so that we could have grandparents involved. This is a good balance that feels sustainable for everyone – and allows us all to fulfill our responsibilities to extended family, church and our community, in addition to our responsibilities to our immediate family.

• What do you think are the most important skills to be a competent homemaker? How did you learn or how are you learning them?

Rebecca – For me, it is paying attention to the people in front of me. I am deeply interested in the skills of homemaking and in my children’s upbringing and education. I have arranged my wage-earning job to permit participation in and an orientation towards homemaking as much as possible. But often my interest is in the theoretical – what would theoretically be optimal for family and society? – rather than paying attention to the actual home and children in front of me, and noticing and attending to their actual, rather than potential, needs. I believe my children are worthy of my close attention; I often fail to attend.

John – The most important skill is developing the psychological resources to manage a potent combination of boredom and stress. Boredom because children move so slowly. But then also the stress of not being able to get everything done in a day. For example, it is important that I don’t transmit the stress or boredom I am feeling to the small child who is putting their own shoes on – slowly - when we need to leave this very moment to get to swimming lessons. The child needs my patience, not my stress or boredom.

Rebecca – How did you learn to manage the combination of boredom and stress?

John – The retail training at the Apple Store was actually very helpful. It is based in good human psychology and oriented toward how to help people. I had a lot of practice continuing to be patient with a stressful customer who is really unhappy with the nice things I was doing for them, which is identical to the experience of parenting a three year old.

The other important skill is food. Planning it, cooking it – being proactive, so that a snack is made before a snack is needed, because once a snack is needed, it is too late to make it. The planning ahead, especially around food, is very much not in my personality so I have to do extra work to make that happen. I’m learning it from you.

• What do you think is the most difficult part of becoming and being a homemaker? Any suggestions for those who might be facing similar problems?

John – I did not experience this as a difficult choice! It seemed like an obvious way to provide for the needs of our family and the benefits to our life were immediate.

Rebecca - While there may be criticism “out there” in the world, it doesn’t seem related to us. Work of all kinds can be dignified and fulfilling, but because of the fall, work can also be tedious and dehumanizing. That is true of homemaking work as well as wage-earning jobs.

I hear complaints (often in online spaces) that “society doesn’t value x” or “the church doesn’t have space for y” but my encouragement is: that has absolutely no bearing on what you have to value or make space for. You can make different choices! You can do a hard thing and then choose to be happy about it! And you can change your mind – make a hard choice, find out it was not the right thing, and make a different choice!

John – I think it is easier for us because we share the load. We both have the role of homemaker. We have decided over time, based on opportunity and personality, the things that each of us care more deeply about – and we have looked for ways to help each other and rise to the other’s standard. We both take responsibility for the household finances, thinking about our household budget and how to be faithful stewards, where money comes in and where it goes out.  

• John, have you faced any particular challenges in being a homemaker as a man?  Do you think there are any particular benefits?

John – There are some very obvious challenges to being a homemaker as a man – I cannot nurse the babies. Pumping and feeding bottles is harder for everyone – it’s hard for me at home, it’s hard for you, pumping at work, and it’s harder for the baby. There is a huge loss of efficiency in terms of flexibility around pregnancy, postpartum recovery and breastfeeding, and that in itself probably makes it more sensible for a woman to stay home most of the time.

The other challenge is that being a homemaker as a man is less common. Communication from church or school about kid and community events is always directed to the moms. It would be inappropriate if I went to a daytime moms’ Bible study. Moms do not talk to me or include me in the same way that they would include other moms because I’m not a woman, and that’s just how it is. I think if more men were homemakers it would be much easier to set up playdates, make friends at the park and build more of a community around our family, and participate in the knowledge-sharing and mutual help that women, rightly, offer one another. My group of friends are dads but not stay-at-home dads so it just doesn’t work out that way for me.

There are quite a few benefits to being a homemaker as man.

One is that I don’t feel trapped in the same way I hear women talk about. No one believes that a man must stay home in the same way that some people believe a woman must stay home. The “trapped” feeling is tricky because of course, in a real sense you are trapped – for many years with young children, someone will be upset every time you leave the room, much less leave the house. But I know that this is a choice that we made – that I made – to provide for my family’s needs, and while I have clear reasons that this is right for us, I could make a different choice if it becomes not right.

Another is that we have a margin in our lives – having me at home gives me the opportunity to take care of a lot of things that would otherwise get pushed to the weekends or evenings, and instead we have that time to be with each other or take care of others in our community. For instance, when I am home, I am also inspecting the windows and adjusting the storms, replacing an electrical outlet, fixing a sink, chopping wood. Obviously a woman can do all of that as well, but the fact is that women don’t tend to be as interested in those things as men. And if I do need to hire an electrician, I am there during the day and can supervise, in a way that is sometimes more uncomfortable for women.

Our middle daughter’s favorite book is a home repair manual, and I think that will help her be a great homemaker because she won’t be afraid to just fix a light switch – she won’t have to wait until her husband gets home and then try to get him to fix it after work, which I think adds a lot of tension to some people’s lives.

• Rebecca, have you seen any particular challenges in being the breadwinner as a woman? Do you think there are any particular benefits?

Rebecca – Being a wage-earning, work-from-home woman with a homemaking husband is great. I do not experience any of the “working mom guilt” many acquaintances and coworkers talk about because my kids are being cared for at home with their dad – and I am there too. I don’t have daycare pick up time cutoffs; I don’t worry about what to do when my kids are home sick. I am very grateful for the trail blazed by many generations of working women and acknowledge the difficulties faced by women in many career paths, both historically and currently – but wage-earning is the easy part. The challenges are logistical – mostly with babies, since babies’ need for responsive maternal care (which for me means breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and babywearing) are challenging to align with being always available for work.

• What do you think is the most rewarding part of being a homemaker?

John – I have a lot of agency in my life and the lives of my children.

Rebecca – Yes, I was going to say a sense of liberty, and confidence.

John – We are at liberty to make the choices that are in line with our values and what is best for our kids. As a tiny example, many day cares would move all one-year-olds to a one-nap schedule regardless of whether they are really ready to switch or not. One of our children would have been ready but the others kept taking two naps for a lot longer, and we could let them do that. I do not feel like my ability to be a good parent is constrained by outside institutions or systems that I have no control over. Now as they are in school, I can volunteer at their school and have a direct impact on their education, and it is very rewarding to observe their day-to-day progress.

When the kids were small, there were times I desperately wanted to be able to walk down the street without worrying someone was going to run headlong into traffic – I just wanted to be at liberty to walk down the street. But I am so glad that it was clear to us that somebody should be home – and in our situation, that was me – because now I am so happy I’m doing it. I feel strongly that I am needed.

Rebecca – Knowing that I have put effort into not only my wage-earning job but also my vocation of home and family gives me confidence that I can, God helping me, meet the needs of the people who rely on me. Our lifestyle is resilient – I could work more, or less. I could stay home full time and John could go to work. We can have the kids in private school so long as it serves them, but if it does not, they can easily stay home and we have the time and education to homeschool.

John - The biggest reward is that I really know my children. I know who they are; who their friends are; what they’re thinking about; why they do what they do; what is important to each of them. A lot of dads don’t get the time that they would like to have with their kids when they’re young, and maybe have regrets about how much time they spent with them, and I’m pretty confident I won’t have regrets about that. Our girls will hopefully have a deep, nuanced, long-term relationship with their dad, which a lot of children don’t get. I hope that helps them and grounds them for the rest of their lives.

• Can you give us a sense of your family’s philosophy towards home and work? I know this is a vague question, but would love to hear any responses you might have.

We have a lot to say on this topic and think about it a lot.

Rebecca: My vocation is home and motherhood... even while I spend a decent chunk of my waking hours working as a commercial real estate attorney for a large law firm! I enjoy my paid work, I seek to be excellent at it and my ethical obligations to my clients weigh heavily on me, but the telos of my job is creating a strong family culture and a secure environment within which children may be born and taught to know and serve the Lord.

Men should provide for their families. But not all families need providing for in the same way. The idea that “provide for” means “earn money” is a very thin and morally dubious idea; for one thing, many societies have functioned without a great deal of money changing hands and men had no less of a duty in those times and contexts to put their strength and leadership in service of their families. It is a mistake to think that men can only lead or provide by wage earning: a “traditional”, but ahistorical, view of the roles of men and women mistakes money for power and power for leadership. This is wrong. Historically, most economic production happened not “out there” but in and around the home, and men and women both contributed to the economic flourishing of a household.

There are some parts of homemaking that only women can do, both tangible - I have been breastfeeding or pregnant or both for over nine consecutive years! - and intangible - the perspectives and concerns of women and the sense of “home” provided by one's own mother are not, in my view, replaceable.

But because it is what our family needs, John excels at homemaking: he is literally making our home, one restored window and replaced floorboard at a time. And also all the food and laundry, floors and beds, child care and community work.

When our daughters ask about looking for a husband, we talk about looking for someone who will provide for their family in whatever way their family requires providing for. Someone who, if he is a wage-earner, will work hard to give his family the best of himself, not just the money he earns.

For now it is not efficient to fully duplicate wage-earning and homemaking - while we are aligned on the goals and values of our family and both orient our time and labor towards homemaking, we have specialized. This avoids the unhappiness that plagues two-earner families where both partners strive to be “equal” and both feel that their contributions are not adequately valued. But we see our family as a single unit. Men and women both have a great deal more to offer a family than wage-earning, and the specifics of where the money comes from should be close to irrelevant in a healthy family.

Some additional reading:

• I recently published a long-form essay, When We Outsource Every Hard Thing, What Do We Lose?, with Public Discourse. The essay examines which factors a parent might weigh when deciding what to outsource (and what to keep “in house”) when it comes to childcare and homemaking. Specifically, I reject the philosophy that parents are always best served by maximizing their market potential and outsourcing the “drudgery” of homemaking.

• This superb essay by Rachel M. Cohen, We deserve a more nuanced conversation about working moms, at Vox, is well worth your time. Cohen reports on new research that indicates the “motherhood penalty,” or the differential between the pay of mothers and childless women, is either non-existent or much smaller than generally reported by popular media. Disturbingly, Cohen finds evidence that academic journals may be resistant to publishing research that disputes the popular narrative regarding the motherhood penalty. She provides an e-mail with a Cornell sociologist, who writes that academic gatekeepers “seem to like the narrative that women are always screwed by family.”

• I find Oren Cass’s work at American Compass to always be thought-provoking and invaluable in understanding our current political economy — and I think this is true regardless of your political leanings. He has recently created a newsletter, Understanding America. This quote, from his opening essay, was both depressing and striking:

You are probably familiar with “deaths of despair” and know vaguely that somewhere out there an “opioid epidemic” rages. You probably didn’t realize, though, that on top of 82,000 deaths from opioid overdose in the most recent annual data, other forms of drug overdose are climbing faster: Psychostimulant deaths rose 13-fold in the past decade, to 34,000. Americans are now dying from drug overdoses at a higher rate than Russians died from alcohol use disorders in post-Soviet Russia’s worst years..