Part of it is that to be able to work they need transportation and having my wife and I play taxi driver to 3 kids is not really workable. Worse is that we set a precedent with their older brother. Yeah, that's my fault and actually another source of stress that I did not enumerate is bad parenting choices that I cannot go back and fix and now pay the price for.

No penalty for accessing the 401k in about 4 months. It is reasonably well funded, though no matter how much you have it seems like the magic number is higher. The only upside to ending up in a lower paying job is that we will be forced to adjust our level of spending and the 401k balance will be a larger percentage of income for more years, if that makes any sense. My family has been spoiled by a fairly high income for a number of years. Yet another stressor is the apparent failure to realize how lucky we have been instead of anticipated disappointment in me for bringing in less in the future. I need a bright spot badly.