Reply to Would you stay at home with small children, or wait for more work flexibility for kids when older?

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[quote=Anonymous]If you could only pick one, would you:
- stay at home with your children when they are little and figure out bigger financial things (purchasing a bigger house, paying down debt etc) later
- gain financial security when your children are younger and have more flexibility with work when they are older (say, teenage years)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be totally financially secure before having kids like a lot of parents on here. Our children are 2 and 4 and I hate leaving them in day care. If I don't work, we'd have little flexibility as a one income family in this area. Thus far, I've maintained my job to pay down massive student loans and to try to get ahead on 401k contributions which I was behind on from a series of low paying jobs, internships, and unemployment during the downturn almost a decade ago. We're super financially responsible- its just that the money was much less before...we've been on a great path financially for the last 5 years, but a huge chunk of our earnings goes to (modest) housing and day care.  When talking to another mom who is about 10 years older than me, she said she feels bad to have missed the time with her children when they were babies, but it was important financially for her to work, and now that they are older (teens), she has somewhat more flexibility with her work schedule and she can be available for them now. That has always stuck with me as a reason to keep working now but its also tough for me to miss so much of their younger years.

I hate that for us, it feels like an either-or scenario, but I'm hoping that parents of older children can lend some perspective on your own experiences. (Moving out of the area isn't an immediate option for us, but may be in a few years).[/quote]

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