Throughout households in Florida and across the U.S., there aren’t many families who can financially pull off having a stay-at-home parent while only one of the parents works outside of the home. Life is expensive. Kids are expensive. And, hey, many adults simply want to work. The idea of not using their education and skills makes them uncomfortable.
Still, there are some households wherein one parent is at home with the kids and one parent goes to work to financially support the family. In a tradition-shifting twist, there are more and more households wherein it is the wife who is financially supporting a household wherein the father stays at home.
The Pew Research Center reports that in 2012, there were around 2 million dads staying at home to raise the kids. Researchers looked at more than those numbers; they looked at the reported reasons for the non-traditional household situation. Basically, there were two common reasons why a dad was staying home: he couldn’t work or he preferred to be home to raise the kids.
Of those pools of stay-at-home-dad households, the households with the dads who choose to be home tend to make more money than those with the dads who are unable to work. That means the mothers who support the family through their work are making relatively healthy incomes on their own.
This societal trend does have potential divorce repercussions. For example, if there are more men staying at home, it is natural to assume that more women will be asked to provide alimony for their ex-husbands after divorce.
If you are one of those women and are worried about the amount of money your ex wants and the duration of alimony payments, work with a divorce attorney who has your best interests in mind. Spousal support arrangements should reflect the reality of what you can afford but also what your ex can earn on his own.
