Reply to Choosing to stay home or to work when kids are babies/toddlers

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "Choosing to stay home or to work when kids are babies/toddlers"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I unintentionally became a SAHM because we were living overseas when I had my baby and I wasn’t permitted to work on my visa. At first it was really difficult. I hated not being busy, not engaging my mind in a professional way, not earning money. But once I settled in a bit to being a stay at home parent I realized how nice it was to take a break from work stress (trading it for a different kind of stress of course).

Even though I was/am in a solid relationship, same as you, what has helped me during this career break is to have my own separate bank account. We always have had separate accounts (along with joint for bills etc) and that has helped me feel like I had a “back up” plan of sorts. If you have your own account, that may bring you some relief coming from an impoverished background.

As for your career and staying plugged in while you take a hiatus from professional life, keep up your professional relationships, attend interesting webinars or in person events when possible, if you are in a field with academic writing, keep up that momentum and try to publish even if you’re not affiliated with a company or institution. Continue to monitor and send messages to colleagues and people in your field on LinkedIn, stay in touch with industry recruiters, and up-to-date on your field and industry news and happenings. You can also take a training course for a particular technology, enroll in a certificate, volunteer in a related/adjacent capacity, or audit an online class if you want to show expansion of skills and recency on your résumé during your planned gap. Lastly, I would not be too concerned about having a career gap on your resume. These days, people are working in all different formats, taking sabbaticals, switching industries, changing careers completely. It is not frowned upon any more to take a planned break for Family care, personal reasons, health reasons, etc. So I would not sweat that. The only expectation I would level set with yourself is that you may not immediately reenter the field at the same level, position, and salary as you left it. If you are OK with that, then I think there are a lot of benefits for spending a year or two or more at home with a newborn. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics