Women's Money Wisdom

Episode 223: The Invisible Costs of Child Care with Heather Boneparth

• Melissa Joy, CFP® • Season 4 • Episode 223

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Struggling to balance work and childcare responsibilities? Heather Boneparth, Director of Business and Legal Affairs at Bone Fide Wealth, sheds light on the challenges parents face in today’s world. Learn helpful tips on dealing with changes in taking care of children, finding new ways to contribute besides earning money, and juggling family duties well.

Listen and Learn:

  • Tips for juggling work and childcare
  • Strategies to deal with changing childcare needs over time
  • Ideas for balancing career goals with family life

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Melissa Joy:

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. I am so excited about this topic. We do not talk about it enough, we just write about it and we don't really get into the details. We're going to be talking about the cost of child care, both the ones that you know about the parts of your checkbook that are just overcommitted at the beginning of the month, but also the parts that are under the surface. And we have an expert guest along for this conversation.

Melissa Joy:

I'm pleased to have Heather Bonaparth, who is a recovering corporate attorney and now runs Business and Legal Affairs for Bonafide Wealth in New York City. Along with her husband, heather wrote her first book on millennials and their money while on maternity leave with their first daughter. Now she's working on her second book about love and money and writes a weekly newsletter called the Joint Account, and actually that newsletter, which we will include in show notes is the inspiration for this podcast episode. She had a recent article on the invisible costs of child care. Let's talk about it. Heather, welcome to the podcast.

Heather Boneparth:

Thanks so much for having me, Melissa. I'm so happy to do this.

Melissa Joy:

Well, this is something that's always on my mind. My kids are a little bit older and so our child care costs are more like summer camp nowadays, but on the Pearl Planning team. But on the Pearl Planning team we have baby in utero, newborn twins and kids all the way up to in their 30s. So we know you know, just talking amongst each other and caring about each other here on the team how hard it is nowadays to deal with child care. Was your article just, or your you know blog really highlighted? Can you talk to me about what everybody's going through here?

Heather Boneparth:

Yeah, sure, Absolutely. You know this. That may have been one of the easiest newsletters that I'd written in a in a very long time, just because, like you said, we're living this every single day. And for the past, you know, eight years. My children are five and eight now and we've already lived through at least one life cycle of care, which is, you know, having small children.

Heather Boneparth:

I mean, I had an 11 month old and a four year old when the pandemic began and kind of turned childcare upon its head.

Heather Boneparth:

I mean, it was always a strained industry and I think we've only seen it get worse and the demand has has risen and risen for formal childcare and people have kind of, as the demands have risen and the supply remained the same, if not decreased, we've seen people kind of have to put together these patchwork systems to make their life work, and I don't just mean make your life work so that you can go, you know, go lay out in a pool somewhere, I mean just to do your job and to fulfill your obligations during regular business hours, because there's really a mismatch between the way that our society has an infrastructure to support working parents and what's actually like being offered. Like there it is not one to one and it's really tough and I struggled with it. I see people struggle with it every day. We're interviewing couples for a book that struggle with it. It's just ever present and it's constantly in motion, as I'm sure you know.

Melissa Joy:

That's one of the challenges is, I was trying to think back as I prepared for this episode and we went through so many iterations, starting with an in-home daycare when we had our son, and I remember dropping him off at like 7 or 7.30 as I had an hour commute. Back today, 15 years ago his birthday is actually next week, so turn 15 all the way to, you know having two different sets of places to drop off when he was in Montessori and our daughter was in a traditional daycare.

Heather Boneparth:

Right.

Melissa Joy:

And we also spent several years with a full time nanny and went through the process of figuring out how to pay for that, including her taxes and benefits and things like that. So one of the constants is like what she was going to drop, what problem are we going to have? Where we need to change? For you know, they're just aging out of one situation into another.

Heather Boneparth:

I think that is probably. If there was one piece of advice that I could ever give a new parent or a parent to be and I actually just gave it to a girlfriend of mine last year who was pregnant and trying to figure out child care was very much like she spoke about it in such a finite way. It was like once I get this worked out, it'll all be fine. And I said you know I hate to burst your bubble, but the only thing that you can plan for with children is your ability to sustain change and to kind of weather, whatever that change is. Because, yeah, every year is a different labyrinth of plans that need to be made, I mean in different complications that have to be addressed.

Heather Boneparth:

Like you may have something that works for six months to a year and then you realize the following year it no longer works, whether it's because your job obligations have changed or because the care situation has changed. It's just too dynamic to ever really think you've won and I guess that's similar to like money in many respects. Like it's too dynamic to ever think you've won when something happens once. You just have to kind of be able to have your finger on the pulse of like is this working for us? Is this not working for us? Like support is fluid and you may have to tweak it. You may have to tweak it as you go and like not be afraid to switch things up.

Melissa Joy:

Well, I think sometimes two people start with oh, I've got.

Melissa Joy:

Like when they are in the birthing room they're thinking about how do I get and this depends on the location, probably more for you than us, where there's more prevalence of public school but it's like, how do I get them in the right school if you're in, you know, new York City or something like that for kindergarten, when you just need to first of all take care of your health in the first, you know, in the postpartum phase, and then be figure out if the very first childcare situation is okay.

Melissa Joy:

And I have friends that are worried about, well, if we don't get into this school I'm just rewinding so this isn't a recent conversation but if we don't get into this, you know, elementary school then we might not get into the right high school, which might not be the right college, and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. You have no idea what your kids needs are going to be and they may or may not be long term, like 20 years from now. Sometimes it's just the short term that you need to be okay, right right, it's so funny when you said that it just reminded me of.

Heather Boneparth:

I'll tell a funny quick story. So we gave birth to our first child in New York City, where I lived for over a decade. So our office is still in the city, but we moved to the suburbs. Spoiler alert we moved to the suburbs.

Melissa Joy:

It happens that's another. Like you know, we can spend the same amount of money as we are now. It's pretty much gonna look the same. And then that first kid starts walking and you're like this is not the right amount of space for what happened.

Heather Boneparth:

No, but it's funny that you said that about the schools. Because New York City so we gave birth at. I gave birth at this at a very large hospital, mount Sinai, and I'll never forget, like everyone told me, the minute the baby comes, douglas needs to run out of the room, go find the nursing station and there's one woman who monitors a clipboard, and the clipboard is who dictates what prime, what room you get and you have to like and you have to. Of course, you have to pay for the room because it's new york city, so you got to pay cash for the room. So he like I haven't even like, like the baby just came, he's out. I'm like you gotta get the room, you gotta get the room.

Heather Boneparth:

That was as like much of a metaphor of raising children in new York City. It was like you can't even breathe. I had friends who are worried about grade school when their kids were one. I'm like this is not a world I can sustain life in, like for me. So we knew within a year that we had to move to the suburbs and we live in New Jersey where we're very thankful that the public school system is pretty good and it's kind of like you can go where you live and it's okay, but that was a serious consideration. I mean, I have friends and who are going through that all the time.

Melissa Joy:

It's so true.

Melissa Joy:

And the other thing that I think is important to remember in this childcare conversation is just because you're in a fishbowl where everybody's doing a certain thing doesn't mean that that is what is best for you. So sometimes having and I do think a financial planner, friends outside of your city therapists, doctors can be a good sounding board. I remember personally being at a conference and just talking about how difficult it was as we were trying to navigate an early diagnosis of ADHD for one of our kids, and just talking about, like, our needs, I remember my friend who actually doesn't have kids, telling me Melissa, like you need household help. You do not need to be dropping off at a center where if somebody needs to be picked up at school, you know that's on you and your husband. You need a higher level of care.

Melissa Joy:

And just in my own like small town suburbs that wasn't typical at the time. I think it's more happens more frequently, or at least it wasn't publicized just because of the way like the culture of the community wasn't, like you know, to have full time nanny, and so having that perspective of like oh, would that be acceptable? Was, you know, a game changer for us. It really helped some challenging years.

Heather Boneparth:

And I don't know if I mean you just brought up something that just triggered this thought in my mind about how hard it is to find context as a new parent, Because you really are limited to the sample size of the people you know who are like going through whatever you're going through in your immediate area, unless you kind of broaden your bubble and search outside of it.

Heather Boneparth:

I mean, I wish I had people to kind of give me some better wisdom, but I didn't. I had similarly situated friends that were around the same age as me, going through the same thing as me, and we were all just causing each other to like spiral and get more and more anxious about whatever it was we were talking about. Like I didn't need 20 mom friends with newborns, I needed a friend with a six-year-old is what I needed when I had just had a baby. And so finding that context to your point not just in terms of your social circles but in terms of the support whether it's a financial advisor, whether it's a therapist like finding people to kind of like help, check your thinking and kind of maybe even give you some tools that just you didn't even think may have been at your disposal so important.

Melissa Joy:

Yeah, you may be a more accommodating to a friend than you would be to yourself. So having that voice, says Melissa like, it sounds like you need some extra assistance or things that you wouldn't think possible for you and your family that you would absolutely advocate for.

Heather Boneparth:

Yes, and we did the same thing. Actually, we were the first family in our area that I knew that hired supplemental afternoon childcare, which meant, yes, we had our kids in a in a preschool setting that required us to like run to work on the train late, run home early. We were always late.

Heather Boneparth:

Like the door school director was like holding her in the office every day and I'm like I feel like I'm on the clock and there's like a ticking clock every day and I can't live like this. Like I was stressed and we were the first I mean this to Douglas's credit. This was kind of his thinking of we don't need a full time, maddie, that's not what our needs require. But if we could just find a grad student or somebody who could spend between the hours of four and 7pm with us, they could pick up our daughter she's not stuck there in aftercare Like she can be in the comfort of her home. You know, we can get a little flexibility on the back end of our day, whether we're home or not, and just kind of like, even if we were home, enjoy her a little bit, get to ask her questions, not just be running into the next thing, the next thing, the next thing.

Melissa Joy:

Well, and how do you even have the space or time, especially for A? I want parents that are staying home to be seen in this conversation. But also I'm thinking back to when I was commuting and working and didn't know my own business. Dan, had you know to figure this stuff out. There wasn't a lot of like I didn't have that mom's group to be like what are you doing for this or that? And when I went to the car line to pick up, I was so busy like dropping and running that I wasn't have that mom's group to be like what are you doing for this or that? And when I went to the car line to pick up, I was so busy dropping and running that I wasn't building the social connections to have that backstop of like hey, I'm running late, can you grab my kid? Or things like that. So making sure that you're not isolated and do have the space and time for your own self-care is really important.

Heather Boneparth:

And the same goes for mothers who work in the home as well. Right, because I think, to your point, they need to be seen as well, and that's one of the goals of the book that we're working on. I mean, there's a whole section in this book about contribution, and I think we have way, way, way too narrow of a definition of contribution in this country.

Melissa Joy:

Yeah, and you don't give up. I just had a conversation over the weekend with my kid's friend's parent talking about some household chores that she needed to do and she mentioned well, I don't work outside of the home, so this should be on me, and it's like well, there shouldn't be an assumption in a financial calculation necessarily. It should be open to discussion, because you didn't give up the opportunity to ever have, for example, landscaping done by anyone except for you, if you can afford it, or things like that.

Heather Boneparth:

There's no judgment, earning an income can't be the only thing that's assigned value in terms of your contribution, because by that measure, how could that possibly make sense? Right, like the example that you just gave. But I think that we see far too often women fall into that pattern and it may not be intentional. I mean, you know what's interesting is and this is anecdotal but I find it very interesting because even I felt a little bit of this when I left corporate law to join Douglas in the practice and I still work full time In fact I think I may work more now that I'm part of the family business and we're writing a book and doing all this stuff but when I wasn't receiving that paycheck that the paycheck that was tied to, like Heather Bonaparte lawyer receives this much money.

Heather Boneparth:

This is the income. I've worked hard. I found a really. I found that I had a really, really hard time allowing myself to spend money for like at least a year on anything I mean, things for the kids, sure, but like I felt, like I like I wasn't allowed and it wasn't Douglas's fault. He said what are you doing? I'm like no one told you to like, to like stop living your life. But there was something about like I don't think I realized how much I tethered my self-worth to my job until that's a whole nother episode.

Melissa Joy:

And I 100 agree and I would also advocate for anyone listening in. I mean, it's so hard for Douglas to say don't just spend the money. That doesn't fix it right. It's talking about a mindset. That is not an easy on-off switch. It needs to have some deeper discussion about what does this mean and why. And so if you work with an evolved financial planner where they can see that that would be more Because it would be easy, for there are many financial advisors, that would also be like nope, you can spend it case over, you know.

Melissa Joy:

But I do think if you have a discussion with someone who can be a little bit deeper in terms of meeting and understanding, that that can help to uncover a safe zone, whether it's needing to replicate, you know, $1,000 a month that is like yours in a like spend how you would have spent it otherwise, or whatever it is to, you know, fix it for, not fix it, but like, introduce that concept for you in a way that's healthy and fair, 100%. So part of your article to talked about, you know the need and this isn't just a cost like dollars per week, but it's also a cost of mental and this isn't just a cost like dollars per week, but it's also a cost of mental baggage, the need to maintain and who in your family is doing it. Holiday care, summer camps what is the plan for summer when your kids get like? I have kids now in the in-between age. It's few and far between what boys 15 year olds, for example, my son really wants to work.

Melissa Joy:

But if he does work, we're going to have to take and pick up. He's not driving, it's. You know? That's a job for all of us in the family. Thinking about you know sick days, now the assumption is, oh, you're sick, you work from home instead of you know like you don't want to use up burn that day for your vacation, stuff like that. Teacher gifts. I'm constantly like, oh, I signed the list, but then did I bring that tea? I signed up for it at school. I just need to send the whole office a gift basket and be like, disperse it as needed.

Heather Boneparth:

Baggage is the right word, because these are things that require decisions to be made by someone Oftentimes they are us and they add up. They add up mentally, they add up mentally, they add up financially and they do have an impact on the other stuff that you're trying to do too. I mean, yeah, I could not, now that I've had two kids in two different schools for two years now and my youngest is in pre-K and is about to go to public school, so it's going to get a little better. I put in quotes in that regard, but you know two different methods of communication. One of them has an app, one of them sends email. One of them puts it in a newsletter, one of them has links within a newsletter. I mean, who could possibly manage? You know, the invisible cost includes an invisible load and it's really hard to quantify that, but we feel it. We feel it and it impacts our work and it impacts everything we do that but we feel it.

Melissa Joy:

We feel it and it impacts our work and it impacts everything we do Absolutely, and I think that so I work in a very I live in a very egalitarian household in terms of time spent like in the car line and pickup.

Melissa Joy:

Just as we're talking, there's a text between my husband and son saying, hey, can you walk to my office after school until daughters pick up? My husband is like like that's on his mental load typically and I'm the exception where I'm doing that. But then, like all those gifts, all those things like nobody cares who the birthday party, like who's doing the birthday party, or if it's not me, and so like I do think sometimes maybe it's worth. I always recommend like a monthly, like kind of financial coffee with your partner or significant other where you're going through like what's going on. This would be a good thing to be on the list, like make a plan for the school year and if you're just the one that has all things on the list, maybe you can lay it out in a spreadsheet of like this is all that happens and who's gonna be responsible for what in the you know, for the summer or for the calendar school year, a hundred percent.

Heather Boneparth:

Two points on this, two, two things that we've. We have at the beginning of each season when the girls start a new activity, we now have a discussion about who's going to own that activity. And from start to finish I told and this was cause, this was a problem in our household and Doug owns it Like this was a major problem and I don't, and it was not, again, intentional, it just kind of happened because I'm a doer, I'm an organizer, I'm on top of my stuff and so I just kind of, you know, assumed that role. But as the things piled up, it was just too much and I told him I'm like you don't even know what they're even doing, like you don't even know what the activities were. This was like a couple of years ago.

Heather Boneparth:

So we decided this year Doug would own swim, let's say, and it needs to be every email. I said my plan, I need to be to the point where I can delete the swim emails. I'm not even going to read them and I want you to know I'm not going to read and everything from buying the bathing suit all the way through the party at the end of the year and the gift it has to be you and he did, and it was honestly like the great. It sounds crazy, but it was like the greatest change and I think it felt good for him to take that ownership too.

Heather Boneparth:

I mean, I don't think that a partner necessarily feels good when they don't know what their family's up to Like. I don't think that it's a good feeling for them either. I mean, I think that there's a level of ownership you have to kind of give people and they can run with it. So that was that was really good for us. And then the second thing we did that was great this year was we implemented a family calendar Like you can use whatever version of it works for you. We like team up and it's it's a really cool. Yeah, it's just, it's a really cool tool. Every family member has their own color and their own like calendar, basically, so you can filter by calendars.

Heather Boneparth:

But everything's on the calendar social holidays, days off from school activities, so you can't say you don't know when it's laid out for everybody and I think it makes our household run better and it doesn't feel like it's just me harboring that information. It's the family's information and everybody has access to it.

Melissa Joy:

That's perfect and I think that I agree with you like it's such a trust exercise, first of all, to give up. When you're the planner, I like to know what I'm doing, you know the next seven days in advance, and my husband, when it's Friday afternoon, is like who should we hang out with this weekend? Like oh no, that should fail for many people. And so we have done similar where when we add in a new activity or appointment, it's who's in charge of this, and so when you agree to it up front, it totally changes the dynamics, so that it's not just a he said, she said, of what's going on. You have accountability. And then I know, for example, next week I'm going to be at a conference, and so on Wednesday, the appointment that I take my son to, automatically it's my responsibility to make sure that it can work a different way, which is a big deal.

Heather Boneparth:

It's so important, not only for how it, you know, for the reasons we've just discussed, so that things run more smooth, smoothly but there's resentment that can build up slowly, slowly, and then all at once, I mean it's.

Heather Boneparth:

You know, I had my like aha moment towards I won't call it the end of COVID, but I guess towards middle 2022, like late 2022.

Heather Boneparth:

And I just feel like we had gotten so far from what felt fair to me and it wasn't intentional. It was just the combination of us sitting in our house, me having a job that was work from home, doug's opportunity cost for his business to grow was greater than mine at work and I had a very stable corporate job that, like, really wasn't going anywhere from my standpoint and it just kind of like the other stuff fell on me but it was too much for one person to handle and we reached a point that I was like I was getting mad at his success and that was so far from who we are. I mean, we've always been a team. We met in college, we've been together for years. This was, and we're very intentional to, and I don't really know how we let it get to that point but I resented him and I was starting to resent his success and that that's not a good place to be. It's it's not a good place for a marriage to be or for a career to be.

Melissa Joy:

Well, let's go there because let's talk about how the invisible costs of childcare goes into countless conversations about what your human capital as a couple. So, in many cases, with many of the people that we work with, at many points of the relationship they're both working. But there are also transitions. You guys have gone through a transition where your career changed. I think so many times there's a binary consideration of, hey, child care because now we have two or three, goes from 20,000 to 50,000 or whatever the numbers are. And then you start to look through well, who's working? And then you do a calculation of that opportunity cost of like, well, if one person worked less versus the other, and what would the impacts of career and it's easy to be like this is the person that will discontinue working and not that.

Melissa Joy:

That's not the right answer in some cases, but there's a lot of implications over time. You pointed out in your article that there is costs in terms of the net worth of it or human capital of an individual person that multiply when someone takes time out of the workforce. You know, I know, working with divorcees and widows that you know you're it's very difficult to go when you're 55 and say, oh, I want to. I need to restart my career. I should be making 150,000 a year right now because I was, you know, attorney 25 years ago, or things like that.

Melissa Joy:

So how do you, how do you talk about? Well, how did you navigate those decisions yourself?

Heather Boneparth:

First of all, well, you know, our own personal decision was something. It was a long game. You know, doug and I played a long game in terms of in terms of the risk that you know. I mean you know there's inherent risk in having your own financial planning practice.

Melissa Joy:

I was gonna say, if you're entrepreneurial to begin with, which, if you know, we know that you both are in terms of this book project, other books, etc.

Heather Boneparth:

Yes, we both are conditions. Yes, well, but we both are. But we've always viewed risk as like an ebb and flow in terms of, and we've always viewed our careers as holistic isn't the right word. But yeah, like a team like we have, like we have communal aspirations in the sense that, like we knew that it made sense at a certain time for Doug to take risks and at that time it was also the right time for me to hold down a stable corporate job. It gave us the health benefits. It gave us stability and certainty and income. The hours were not terrible. I had the support of a corporate infrastructure, kind of like we built the firm on the back of my corporate job for over a decade and that worked for us for quite a long time.

Heather Boneparth:

But there comes to be a moment where you say to yourself it's really hard, when you've gotten comfortable with something, to change that thing. And I think that goes back to this idea that I guess we were almost leaning into, which was like there's numbers, like saying, okay, it makes sense to not hire a nanny and for me to leave my job because the cost of childcare is about the same as my salary. It is not as simple. We cannot look at numbers in a vacuum. We have to look at the overall of how people feel what it's doing to your family, to your relationship, to you individually, what the long-term opportunity costs are, what the long-term return will be on the risks that you take potentially, and kind of consider all of those things in a much more dynamic way than just like, well, childcare is $50,000, you make 60, maybe you should just leave. It is just a way more dynamic thought process than that. And so when is the right time to make a move?

Heather Boneparth:

I think that's what's a really hard thing to figure out, right? I mean, the numbers said that it was great, firms doing great. I had a job that was also bringing in a salary. That's great. We were both working from home, we were saving a ton of money on commuting costs and about like all other sorts of things. Like everything was great except I wasn't great, right and it. That matters, and that and that matters and that matters.

Heather Boneparth:

And so I, and when we think about, like you know, it was really it was a difficult, it was a difficult moment to even say out loud that I feel like we lost the plot on my own ambition and that I was ready to say like, what about me? On my own ambition, and that I was ready to say, like what about me? You know, this is this, like I'm supposed to have been a part of this the whole time, and so, and there's no like price to to really put on that, you know. But I think financially you want to be in a stable enough position to kind of like make that make sense, which we were, I mean, it's not, you know, and and so it's it's tough, though there is no like one right answer.

Melissa Joy:

It's so personal and I've been in two kind of oh crap moments over the last seven or eight years. At one point in time I was in a partnership and before starting my own firm, and the partnership fell out and I was the person that needed to leave, and so I made that phone call. We had a full time nanny and the first person I told was my husband, and I called Jeff and it was like hey, I'm coming home, shit's hit the fan, I'm out of here and everything's fine Because of our financial planning and, of course, advantages, because that's what I think about all day but because of our financial circumstances, then everything's okay, was the first thing I was able to say. And then the next was like, please tell our nanny that she has a job. But even though she's going to find out about this, like you know, we didn't have to like, we did have a backstop, so that the first thing it didn't have to be like how do we completely change our lifestyle? Because we were overcommitted, sure, and then, similarly, my Jeff got laid off during the pandemic.

Melissa Joy:

And same thing like you know, it's okay, we don't have to replace your income this week, we don't have to find whatever job will take you, and that is such a gift, right, and it's so personal. Then it's like, okay, what do you do next? It's not like, okay, what do you do next? It's not like, how do you replace this exact amount of income? In our case it was. It felt right to start a company. I didn't want to, you know, marry it like work for somebody else, when I'd been a partner before and you know for all the reasons. But we had the space and time to figure out what was going to be best, and that was a financial planning.

Heather Boneparth:

Yep, absolutely, and I think that that's the goal right Is to marry the feelings to the finances to come up with what makes sense, but what makes sense in the sense that you can both feel good about it too, not just what the numbers dictate you have to do, but what you can agree to and you both feel good about. You know, like I had almost left my career a couple of years earlier when I had a major like shake up right after the birth of our second daughter. And from an emotional standpoint, you know, doug, he Doug is such a fixer, he just wanted to. He's like come work at Bonafide Wealth, it'll be fine, like blah, blah, blah, and like I really almost did, like we thought about it. He's like, you know, just, it's fine, it makes complete sense.

Heather Boneparth:

This was before the pandemic. And if I was more of an emotional person and you know, and I was pretty emotional because I had just given birth, but if I had, if I was more of an emotional person, I would have said totally, screw it, I'll just come on board then. But it wasn't the right time. It wasn't the right time for me professionally and it wasn't the right time for the firm and the size that the firm was when it was still in growth mode. It just wasn't the right moment, and so I ended up getting another job that I stayed at through COVID. They treated me incredibly fairly and well and I'm very thankful that I didn't go when I did and that when I did go and join the firm, all signs in the universe pointed to it being the right time and we all felt really good and it was something we could celebrate. And yeah, we got it right. And we all felt really good and it was something we could celebrate. And and yeah, we got it right. And that doesn't mean that it'll be right forever.

Melissa Joy:

You know, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about, as we before we wrap up is what's right for right now isn't always what's right for always. So, just thinking back from my pathway and I know it's probably been quite similar for you we haven't always done the exact same thing. So you know, we went from that daycare to preschool, with aftercare, to private care in the home with a nanny, to afterschool programs, the family, coddling it together, cobbling it together. Do an audit periodically about when you might need to change and what might need to change and what might need to change, and an assessment of what's going on with everybody else, so you can kind of get a feel for what may be right.

Heather Boneparth:

100%, 100%. That is something that should be a part of your regular money dates and conversations that you should be having, often in a which and we always say make sure that you're having them in a time and place that you can both really be incredibly focused and dialed in on what's happening, Not only not distracted but not stressed. It's not a conversation to throw in while you're making the kids dinner and you're thinking about your night call that you've got. Don't be like this isn't working, blah, blah, blah. That's not the time to be doing it, you know. Make it part of a larger, more dedicated conversation and schedule them and commit to them and keep them.

Melissa Joy:

Well, I had that moment last week where I was taking a kid to an activity, drove across town through traffic every road is under construction in Michigan in the spring and got there and it had been changed to virtual and I just like had that phone call.

Melissa Joy:

My son was also present but and he overheard me just saying I cannot do this right now, like I'm still trying to get this for her, and that you know like we have to go to the band concert right after, and blah, blah, blah, and it was just like, okay, let's put a pin in it. Yeah, somebody, I needed somebody to be listening to me at that moment, which Jeff did well. But then, you know, the next phase is like okay, now we should. We have a plan for the summer. We should be thinking about what we should be doing next fall of, like you know, do we need to do any adjustments? Would it help to have somebody that can drive to some activities? Does we still have to wait another year to have a 16 year old? Some of those things. So, like always be thinking when you know, like have your contingencies for your discussions about what may your house?

Heather Boneparth:

It's just, it's a fluid and constant state of change and just being nimble, emotionally nimble like, like being willing to accept that it's going to change and there might be times that it's really tough and there might be times that you have it all worked out, but even knowing when those times are good, that there's going to be days that don't work out for you and like that has to be okay.

Melissa Joy:

I see people over time with the money and time and mental, emotional resources and it's it's ironic because it feels like it's the hardest part when they're young and you have that childcare costs. But the irony is everybody figures out pretty much a way to pay for childcare and maybe some people walk away, walk along with credit card debt, but not as many as like actually. Ironically, the costs are quite similar for college, but a lot of people, because loans are options, end up walking away with loans, whether it's the parents or the kids, and it can just be like there's a tension there. In those middle years when the kids are getting more complicated, their needs may, or their opportunities may be more complicated and or extensive, and then your parents may need extras too. So don't assume that it's just like. You know it's smooth sailing after you only have to deal with after school and summer camp, Because I see a lot of people with kids in their teens and early 20s that are great long term for their retirement, but it's hard right now.

Heather Boneparth:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it just kind of happened to us. We just made our last preschool payment of all time, high five, yes, but we're sending our older daughter to sleepaway camp this summer for the first time, and that is expensive. And so well, one cost is out the door, another comes in. So yeah, we're living that. We're living that right now.

Melissa Joy:

We'll keep up the conversations. This is a part of a series right On the invisible costs.

Heather Boneparth:

Yes, yes, the invisible costs will continue and some of them will be silly, some of them will be serious. I think we did travel a week ago, but I've got a whole lineup. I just I love the idea of poking into some things that might just be overlooked conventionally and just not spoke about, just making the space.

Melissa Joy:

Especially the space where you were writing with a point of view Many of our clients. This podcast is for women, but many of our clients are in a relationship and so there's two people in the room. I love that you write something that is a conversation starter amongst each other versus his or hers.

Heather Boneparth:

Thank you, that is the goal. That is the goal.

Melissa Joy:

Well, thanks for being on the podcast, heather, thanks so much for having me. Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to pearlplancom and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned.

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Melissa Joy, CFP

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