Well, 40 comments later on my first post about working part-time as a mom and – if nothing else – I think we have answered the question of whether or not this topic is interesting or helpful for anyone :) As always, you are my people: here for a thoughtful discussion, generously sharing your own experiences, and offering up insightful questions. Today we are going to chat about why we chose me over John to shorten a work week, why we chose shortening a work week over other solutions to our pain points, and a bit about how we handled the financial impact. Part One: Background on my work history and some reasons (or not) for shortening my work week A mostly-unrelated photo of my beautiful Catherine loafers on a recent work day at the office! Why did we choose me over John to shorten a work week? Per usual, there are some very simple and straightforward reasons, and then there are some squiggly ones :) First and most pressingly, John’s job adds significantly more to our family’s budget than mine does, so cutting back on his hours would have taken a much larger chunk out of our family budget. He has not always made more than me: for our first year in North Carolina, he was unemployed, and then he made less than me, then we made about the same, then he made more than me, and now he makes way more than me, ha. This discrepancy is almost entirely a reflection of choosing jobs in very different industries at very different companies – though both, thankfully, jobs we love. It does not bother me, and it doesn’t change how we spend our money: for us, all money coming into our family is funneled into the “income” side of