Staying home for the first 3-4 years

[Anonymous]

Also, even if you stay home, you should budget for breaks for yourself. So either your husband, family, or a babysitter/nanny to come to watch your child so you can take care of yourself. And you and your husband should budget time to spend together without your child(ren). The frequency of your breaks is up to you. I would say it is worth it to financially stretch to make this work for your health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t mind advice from an older mom (oldest in college and youngest in HS)

I loved being a SAHM even though money was tight and we had to sacrifice in some areas. My plan was to stay home until K but I had 3 kids which ended up meaning staying at home for 11 years instead of 5. Then by the time the youngest was in K, we had identified that 2 had disabilities that required therapies. It just seemed easier to continue to stay home. I liked that it provided lots of opportunities to volunteer. I really enjoyed it and will never regret the time. But it came at a cost because I was out too long. I have been unsuccessful reentering the workforce and now my marriage is on shaky ground which is causing me tremendous anxiety. So my advice is go for it but have a firm deadline for return to work.

I totally agree with having a deadline or plan in place. I stayed home with my kids and found it very difficult. It also overlapped with peak COVID so things are different now.

Find a community to engage with. In this area not many mothers stay home (in my experience) and it can be very lonely. It’s hard to know what you’re signing up for and could be easy to have some resentments with your partner if it’s not exactly what you expected.

Also, the longer you are out of the workforce the harder it can be to re join. I know that’s not true for every field but something to keep in mind. At the end of the day I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who outright regrets having more time with their children, but there are real consequences both good and bad that last.

[Anonymous]

I found it much easier to plug in at work during the nanny/daycare years after about 6 months maternity leave for each kid. They had loving caregivers and were happy to spend quality time with me on weekends and evenings and i got a lot of mental stimulation and advanced my career. Two in ES now and i don't want to stay until 5/6 and want to be home for bus pick up and shuttle everyone to activities and do projects etc with them. Because I'm senior enough i can do that and go on field trips and participate in PTA etc. of course its career dependent. But I'm ok that i didn't stay home, although it was never an option as I bring in 70% of our HHI

[Anonymous]

I agree with so much of what has been said. Being a SAHM of young children can be difficult and lonely in this area because it's not the typical path, but I never seriously question my decision. I know I will be able to go back to doing what I was doing if I want to. There are other moms in the same boat to connect with and you will find each other when you have the bandwidth.

[Anonymous]

I stayed at home for 8 years. It was supposed to be seven years when my youngest entered kindergarten but Covid added a year. I do not regret it. They both love museums and libraries and art galleries now and I credit taking them so frequently to those places when they were young and spending hours each day reading books with them.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a baby now? I took a long parental leave and was ready to go back at the end- I was tapped out. Now I appreciate the time we have together more and have more mental energy to do fun activities and stay engaged. Parenting is exhausting!

[Anonymous]

Another thing to keep in mind is that you might have another child in that 3 to 4 year timespan and then that pushes back your return to work by another 3 to 4 years, so suddenly you're 6 to 8 years out of the workforce. But if it's easy to slip in and out of the workforce in your particular line of work then there is little cost to trying it out; if, as you say, you can reenter easily at any time, then there's no harm in trying it out for a year and seeing how you feel then. Don't let what others might think dictate your life choices. It's your life. You also mentioned the possibilities of remote work or part-time work—if you're feeling uncertain, maybe one of those options would be a good compromise while you figure out what it is that you want.