Stay at home parents- (kind of long)

"No amount of success at work can make up for your failures at home."

My fiance and I have three kids. Ive been a SAHM and he is currently a SAHF. We try to live by this quote.
Good luck!

Ha! Blow outs, I remember those days! Thanks for your response. We make similar sacrifices...who am I kidding, we like camping more than fancy hotels. I think they make my husband uncomfortable, dress clothes make him break out in hives .

I just recently started wearing long pants. (jeans)
That's only because I finally got another street bike!
A birthday present from my wife for my 40th.

Yeah, I hate dressing up. Especially living down in
the South, where it's hot and humid. I wear shorts
year round. :laugh:

I'm going to add this one thing for you to think about. In the end of your life, when you're old, sick and on your deathbed, will you look back on your life and say, "Gee, I wish I worked more."?

If you have the opportunity to stay at home with your kids, I believe you should take it. Can any job compensate you for time lost with them? I'm expecting a baby boy right now, and since we can't afford to be a one income household, I'm working on getting my Enrolled Agent certification so I can work out of my house and have a more flexible schedule. I don't want some day care provider coming up to me at the end of my work day saying, "Oh little Danny said his first word today!" or "Danny took his first steps today!". That should be me or his dad seeing that. You know what I mean?

Ditto this...when my son was a toddler/preschooler he was in daycare from sun up until sun down while I went to college full time and worked real estate. I was able to spend about the last year or so before kinder at home with him and it was so much fun, but when I walked him to his kinder class that first day of school and thought about everything I had missed, it was heartbreaking. I promised myself I wouldn't do it again.

I have 5 children, ages 7 to 17. I have been a SAHM since 2000 and I haven't regretted it once. It has been difficult financially at times but I am here for my kids. I get to drop everything and have tea parties with my little girls. If my son is having trouble at school I can schedule a meeting or just "pop in". When my 16 year old was having trouble in school, I was able to pull her out and enroll her in an independent study program to help her catch up on her credits, and I am home each day to help her with her work-now she's 17 and scheduled to graduate in June. The elementary staff knows me by name, and they welcome me on campus. Currently i'm training with my little girls and the rest of 4th, 5th and 6th graders for a track meet. I am able to go to the school and get out on the field and run with them and just enjoy encouraging my little girls as they train. Instead of hearing about it after work, I get to be a part of it. I was room mom for all my girls' classes two years in a row, and got to bring in goodies for the parties, set them up, and stay for the party with my kids. I get to see what is going on at the school by being there. I can drop everything for my husband's lunch break and pack a picnic lunch, show up and take him to a park and we can just hang out together enjoying a nice meal and each others' company before I take him back to work.

My job *is* my husband, kids, family, household. If I want to start dinner at noon and make homemade yeast rolls to go with it, I can. My husband works outside of the home and my job is inside of the home, and I am absolutely grateful that I have a husband who supports me in doing this. I love that I can be there for my family pretty much whenever they need me, and I hope one day they will look back and appreciate all of the love, time, effort, and hard work I put into caring for them. I have worked outside of the home and I never felt anywhere near as happy as I do staying home.

Doing some soul searching about the future. Those of you who are stay at home parents, how do you feel about it? If you are not a stay at home parent, but could be, would you?

We have a son who is 5 and we are hoping to have another child in the future. I have a degree and a career and have been considering going for my Masters Degree for awhile. My parents both worked and I appreciate how hard they worked. However, my mom worked long hours and I really missed having her around and she has some regrets about how career focused she was.

My husband and I have discussed how we think it is sad that in this economy, some families who would like to have one parent at home simply do not have the choice. In most cases, two incomes are needed.

My husband is in med school and he still has about 7 years before he will be a doctor, he starts clinical rotations in June. He will make good money but depending on his specialty, could work crazy hours. I want to ensure one of us will be there for our son or future children. So now I am torn. Do I go back for a Masters and continue my career path? Or do I stick with my current career for the next 7 years and then plan to be a homemaker? So hard to decide!!

I know I am lucky to have the option, I don't take it for granted. And I know everyone has different opinions on this sort of thing. I am just curious if people have been in my shoes or have experiences to share about being a "stay at home" parent or the spouse of one.

Does it feel strange if you don't make your own money? What about when you need a new car?? I am financially responsible so I don't think we would have arguments about spending etc. but I feel like it would feel strange to be entirely financially dependent on someone.

I know this is a long post. I have been thinking long and hard and thought it might be nice to get some thoughts/opinions.

Thanks in advance for any input!

Get the degree while you can. Whether you stay at home or not can still be decided.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Our boys are 14 and almost 12. I've been a SAHM since the end of tax season 15 years ago (2 months before kid 1 was born). We worked and saved so that I could stay home until our youngest was in school full time. By that time we realized that it's just as important, maybe even more so, to be home when they get home from school. At this point we wouldn't have daycare expenses any more but I like knowing that our kids are home, do their homework, and aren't getting into trouble for the 3 hours between the end of school and when we'd get home. Plus, I do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc and I'm afraid if I did go back to work everyone would continue to walk past the stuff I set on the stairs to go up and we'd eat a heck of a lot of take out. :laugh:

I've been doing taxes and finance for 20 years. I used to work during tax season for a select few clients and giving financial advice to them as necessary. About 8 years ago I started to grow my business. I still work from home but I set my hours. I specialize in ex-pats and small businesses and most of my clients are in other states or overseas so I don't have to worry about having a client over when a kid needs me or the phone rings or dinner needs to get done or any of that. It's been wonderful. Because I work from home we were able to move to Germany for 1 1/2 years when hubby had that work opportunity. When that ended and he got transferred to Virginia it wasn't a problem. Except for being out of service for a few weeks my business didn't suffer a bit. Most of my clients didn't even know until I mentioned it when they contacted me the next tax season.

I don't make nearly what I could if I were in the corporate world. I also don't work 60+ hours/week. I make enough to cover the mortgage and having that extra free time enables me to focus more on our own portfolio. I figure that we can count the actual worth of me staying at home and running my own business as about double my actual income. I don't need a work wardrobe. We don't need a second car (we could only take 1 car to Germany and since we weren't there very long we didn't buy a second car. I didn't really mind so when we moved back stateside I didn't see any reason to get another car. I ride my bike or walk or wait until DH gets home.) We never paid for daycare. I keep the house up and cook at home all but maybe 1 meal a month so we don't pay for maid service, lawn care, or extra for take out.

I don't feel the least bit guilty about spending money. DH makes a lot more than me but if it wasn't for me handling the money in the first place he'd be scrounging in the sofa cushions to get change for pizza. He'll be the first to agree with that too! :laugh:

There should be a group for SAHParents. I see a couple for
Mom's, one for Dads. (which only has one member) Why can't
there be one for both?

I am now a SAHM to two babies. One little girl 2 1/2 and a boy who turned 1 last month. It was a very difficult decision to make.

I worked for one of the biggest banks in Canada for 10 years. I put my all into my various positions and climbed several rungs of the proverbial ladder. Something difficult to do as a woman in the "Big Business" world. Toot toot, but I won a cruise offered yearly to only the top 2% employees of the company. I was a "wild card" choice, meaning that the one of the executives noticed my hard work and personally chose me to go, different from the rest which are screened before hand. Needless to say, tho it wasn't education related, I did put in lots of time and effort to get where I was. After I had my daughter, I went on the 1 year maternity leave offered to us in Canada. The month before I was to return to work, my boss called me and offered me another promotion. The kicker was (if you did the math already) I was already 20 weeks pregnant! I turned down the promotion (it killed me inside) and told them to offer it to someone else who wasn't about to take another year off. But returning to work was KILLER. I had 16 weeks to work in order to qualify for maternity pay. I think I cried for about half of them. I missed my little girl so much, and I really despised being at work. She was learning things without me. I would pick her up from daycare and she would smell like the care worker, not me. She was learning new words that I didn't teach her. It was terrible.

Fast forward to the birth of my son. I was injured by my epidural, bed rest and medical procedures for months. I spun into a deep post partum depression. Was put on Zoloft. My daughter continued to go to daycare a couple of days per week while I was dealing with all of those issues, plus a new born baby. After being on the Zoloft for 6 months, I was told I could wean off. Thank God, because I gained weight after I birthed my son. The Zoloft had bad side effects on me - hence the reason I am on MFP in the first place!! Anyways... I left my daughter in daycare for 2 days a week because it was a good tax write off, and because it was giving her social skills I couldn't give her alone. Her brother was still too small to interact with. One day, I was picking her up from daycare, and the worker said:

"If Scarlett talks about being spanked today, it's because I whacked her on the butt when she wouldn't go to sleep. She cried and cried and I said to her 'If you won't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about' and then I spanked her on her bum."

That was the LAST TIME we EVER saw that woman.

In a nutshell. I was robbed of at least 6 months of the beginning of my boy's life. I have zero trust in daycare providers, unless they are province run germ factories that cost a fortune. I want my children to smell like me. I want to be here when Sebastian starts talking. I want to be present for everything. No amount of money or success will make a difference to those moments.

When it comes to loss of income, that's been hard. But we prepared for the worst before we even had kids. Meaning, I grew up with a single mother and disabled brother in the recession-80s. I know how to be cheap. It comes natural. LOL I will never regret the decision to stay home. Because I can always get another job if I need to. I can always go to school if I want to. I can take night courses. I can wait until they go to school. I feel liberated in that I no longer identify myself as a successful worker for Big Business. I no longer feel THAT stress. Other stress, yes, but I no longer feel tied down tot he career path other people carved out for me. I am master of my own destiny, and I have both of my babies standing right next to me.

God that was cheesy.

But true.

Good luck with your journey!

I did not read all the responses beacause there are tons lol My mom worked and so did my father. I was always lucky enought though to have a mom who worked at home (in home daycare) I loved having her home when I was younger and when I was older it was nice to have someone to come home to.

I was in school to be a teacher and then got married to my husband who is in the navy and despite what everyone thinks we do not make much money lol I am a stay at home mom because he and I want it that way so we dont always have tons of extra cash but we dont mind.

Its hard to answer your question because I have friends who hate the idea to stay home all day and not work, I guess its not for everyone but for me its perfect. I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old and plan to have 1 more in a year or two. I love being abl to be home with them and see everything as they grow. It helps our family because my husband is not around much with his job so its stability for the kids to always have me here. I worked for years before I had kids but for me this is he hardest job I have ever had lol But in the same aspect I would never trade it. I ignore the people who think I do nothing and stuff cause there are always haters but for me and my family this is the best. When my kids grow up and are in school full time I plan to work. I have been a SAHM for 6 years I started when we moved for my husbands job and I got pregnant and had a rough pregnancy.

To me there is nothing more rewarding then staying home with my kids and seeing them grow.

I know im gonna get flamed on this, BUT....its funny to me how many moms say that once the kids get into school they wan tto get a job so "they have something for me"....as a man that just seems ridiculous. Id love to have a job thats for me, but unfortunately I have a job that pays bills.

I know (I hope) you all mean it differently, but just giving you the insight of most men (at the Men Meeting of 2011 held in Vegas, I was voted to speak for all men)

I want to go back to work so I have something to contribute to the bank account! lol My hubs works his keister off so I dont have to and it would be nice to take a bit of the money worries off of his shoulders and be able to have a little cushion.

what ever is best for mom is best for the family

What an interesting idea. We function as a unit in my household. Whatever is best for the family is best for the family.

what ever is best for mom is best for the family

What an interesting idea. We function as a unit in my household. Whatever is best for the family is best for the family.

Most definitely. I thought being a mom was about putting others first-maybe not obsessively, but for the most part.

I feel like such a weirdo here! Am I the only woman alive who has zero interest in being a stay at home mom???

Nope, I'm with you! I'm in the "I feel like I'm a better parent by working" category. My son LOVES daycare. He gets the socialization and play that i can't provide for him at home. He gets bored quickly at home because he is busybusybusy all the time! Bored to the point of tantruming (terrible 2s) at not being able to "play" with the outlets and other things. Dont get me wrong. He has plenty of toys and I play with him, but he moves on quickly. He's happier at the end of the day after daycare.

I was able to spend 6 months with him at home when I was last laid off, and i enjoyed the time I had with him. he still went to daycare (for less time however) to get his extra play in, but nearer to the end of that 6 months I was really wishing for more adult conversation and time. I LOVE my new job. 8-5 M-F, so it's nothing ridiculous, and I LOVE earning money.

Not to mention we love having the extra money to spoil him with (we're filing for bankruptcy atm due to outstanding medical bills and the desire to give up our home though)