Wife wants to buy plane ticket for her parents (babysit, toddler, father-in-law)
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I'll tell you how my husband would handle this. He would very calmly and politely sit me down and go over our budget. Then he would add in the cost of a nanny. He would then show me what would have to be cut back in order to pay the nanny (college, retirement fund, vacation fund?). Then he would ask me honestly if a full-time nanny is really necessary in light of the cost. Then he would suggest a part-time alternative.
My husband has been effectively managing me like this for 20 years.
In Korea the new moms actually stay in the hospital for 4 weeks to be cared for.
Please realize you are in very dangerous territory. Put aside the flight tickets for a minute. You're getting into this whole toxic thing of having expectations of what you (the earning member) is supposed to do, and what your wife (homemaker, now mother) is supposed to do. And you're modeling those expectations on "what the world does".
My sincere advice: Please for heaven's sake, stop this line of thought. Please stop keeping tabs and please stop measuring who is bearing the bigger or smaller workload or who is spending more or less money. I also say this because with a 4 year old and an newborn infant, the stress levels are going to be sky-high for the next couple of years. At least.
Instead I sincerely suggestion: Change your way of thinking to "we are in the together.. as a team". As a team and a family unit, you guys need to navigate the stresses of juggling a newborn infant's needs with a 4 year old's needs. And you will have to take it literally one day at a time.
For what it is worth, put aside the heroic mothers who raise 5 children all on their own while also doing the laundry, dishes, and what not. If your wife wants her parents to be with her for a few weeks, please please let her have it her way. Even if you (you and your wife really) have to pay for the tickets. You should only be objecting if you have to take a serious loan to pay for the tickets.
She needs them for emotional support and for them to "just be there". Do this thing for her. She deserves it. She's your children's mother. She's in fact going to be needing a lot more help, support, and gentleness and calmness from you - some related to money things, some related to totally other things.
Any woman would want her mother to be around when she has had a baby. Not her mother in law. It goes way deeper than just having a nanny around. This is about someone she can trust, she can share her emotional ups and downs with, someone she can vent, even scream at. Someone familiar.
If you absolutely want to recover from the expenditure, once things have settled down after the baby is born, talk to your wife that the both of you need to cut a few corners and be a bit more frugal until your finances recover. Make it so that she is part of that decision. Not the spender. Do not fall into the trap where you are the one "keeping tabs of the family finances" or the "only one with a responsible financial head". It will lead to no good. I can guarantee you that.
And by the way, if she needs a nanny in addition to financing her parents' tickets, and if you again can afford it without taking a loan or depleting your emergency fund. Seriously, do that as well. Do whatever she needs for the first year at least. Probably 2 years. Resume your savings after 2-3 years if needed. You have your whole life to be frugal and save enough for retirement or to buy a bigger home or whatever.
In fact, I would say, do something thoughtful and nice for your wife. Buy her something nice. Spoil her. Jesus christ man, I speak from personal experience and from personal mistakes.
I brought up how both of us were raised differently several times before, and I don't think she can remotely understand the hard work and dedication required to achieve something great (not just financially). She also stated that she will need help when the newborn arrives so if not her parents, then she wants a nanny for a couple of months. Again, there are millions of mothers who have even 4 or 5 kids that didn't need outside help after delivery. We just have one who will be 4 years old when the newborn arrives. My mother can barely make ends meet but she even provides $100 a month for my daughters college fund. My in-laws haven't thought twice about it.
She probably can't. That said, it doesn't make it wrong, it makes it different. From her perspective she may not be able to understand your ease at supporting your mother and refusal of buying one plane ticket for her mom.
In Korea the new moms actually stay in the hospital for 4 weeks to be cared for.
That's HUGE!! HUGE!!! You're lucky if you're in the hospital for 24 hours here. With one of my nephews, my sister-in-law was in the hospital for 18 hours. She even has a blood clotting complication. She was still sent home after being there for 18 hours. 18 hours total including labor. That's just crazy!
I'll tell you how my husband would handle this. He would very calmly and politely sit me down and go over our budget. Then he would add in the cost of a nanny. He would then show me what would have to be cut back in order to pay the nanny (college, retirement fund, vacation fund?). Then he would ask me honestly if a full-time nanny is really necessary in light of the cost. Then he would suggest a part-time alternative.
My husband has been effectively managing me like this for 20 years.
The OP also had another thread about whether he should take a job for a significant pay increase if it had tons of on-the-road travel. I think if I were in her place, I would show him the costs of selecting that job over keeping the one that he had or selecting another one without the travel in terms of the ability to care for a newborn. I remember that in that thread, many people told him that he would be missing out on a lot of time with his young child (and now newborn), but he refused to listen. I think he actually revived the thread to say the job is going well, yet here we are discussing the very difficulties of having a job with tons of travel when there is a new addition to the family and one parent is unavailable to contribute because he’s on the road more than 50% of the time.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by convextech
Exactly. Your wife is spoiled, and there is no reason her parents can't pay for their own tickets to come see the baby.
It's not like they won't come if you don't pay.
I agree with you. I don't think $3k is a drop in the bucket for anyone these days. If the parents have the means they should not be holding up their kids who probably don't have much to spare.
I brought up how both of us were raised differently several times before, and I don't think she can remotely understand the hard work and dedication required to achieve something great (not just financially). She also stated that she will need help when the newborn arrives so if not her parents, then she wants a nanny for a couple of months. Again, there are millions of mothers who have even 4 or 5 kids that didn't need outside help after delivery. We just have one who will be 4 years old when the newborn arrives. My mother can barely make ends meet but she even provides $100 a month for my daughters college fund. My in-laws haven't thought twice about it.
So you're adding spice to the story which changes the issues. *shrug*
What was the plan when you chose to have the second baby?
BTW this is not the first time I've heard these accusations about FOB Korean wives. But every FOB culture has it's stuff like that.
My Greek MIL over there was an endless WELL of demands for everything she saw in the catalog my genius DH used to mail her. One trip to America and my relationship with her changed immediately LOL.
I was going to blame you for not just trusting your wife on this one and subconciously thinking your money was NOT her money....
But I changed my mind.
I vote NO on the plane ticket as long as your own mother is in that situation. Start writing HER a check every month.
You're BLOOD.
Now if there were a valid REASON, like for some reason your wife had to go back to work and needed her mom to help in your home, then yes of course you pay the ticket.
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