I had an oops baby at 26 and an intended one at 31. By the time I had the second one my husband was making enough money for me to stay home and our (very small, affordable) home was nearly paid off. Life became easier with no hassles of babysitters, etc.

I would never have stayed home with just one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how chaotic of a home do your want? How much chaos is okay for your children to experience from day to day? How often is it okay to drop the ball on making sure your family runs well? How much confusion and anxiety do you want to inflict on your children? Because working full time means chaos, confusion and stress runs your home first and foremost. Your employer always comes first -- that's the truth. Your kids know that, but they can work it out with extensive therapy after they grow up, I guess.

Your either put your children first or yourself first. If you want well-adjusted children, you put them first. Always.

You’re a moron.

Ha, I just typed the exact same thing before seeing this!

Anonymous wrote:OP, how chaotic of a home do your want? How much chaos is okay for your children to experience from day to day? How often is it okay to drop the ball on making sure your family runs well? How much confusion and anxiety do you want to inflict on your children? Because working full time means chaos, confusion and stress runs your home first and foremost. Your employer always comes first -- that's the truth. Your kids know that, but they can work it out with extensive therapy after they grow up, I guess.

Your either put your children first or yourself first. If you want well-adjusted children, you put them first. Always.

You're a moron.

OP - you should go back to work now. Decide after baby 2 is born what you want to do next.

I am I near year five of staying home and do miss working, but it’s difficult to find a position that still allows me to maintain my children’s crazy afternoon carpool schedules. I keep an eye on the Mom project, great organization for people in our position.

https://themomproject.com/

Just forget what your heart tells you and don't worry about practicality. Focus on internet trolls telling you you're worthless and head back to work asap, mysery loves company. /s

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you quit your job and stayed home while you have 2-3 kids, did you find returning to work easy or hard? Do you wish you would have continued to work PT?

If I had a do over I would have taken a short period of time off and then tried to find a comfortable way to go back to work. However with no caring grandmother nearby, I did the next best thing which was stay at home as long as I could (3 yrs) and then went back to work. IT WAS HORRIBLE.

Ideally I would take 6 months off and then go back with someone I really trusted and loved my baby. The adjustment is really hard and you will face aggressions for your choice to stay at home.

You’ve been home to long PP. I run a successful business. No way will I give this up. My kids are well taken care of.

Anonymous wrote:OP, how chaotic of a home do your want? How much chaos is okay for your children to experience from day to day? How often is it okay to drop the ball on making sure your family runs well? How much confusion and anxiety do you want to inflict on your children? Because working full time means chaos, confusion and stress runs your home first and foremost. Your employer always comes first -- that's the truth. Your kids know that, but they can work it out with extensive therapy after they grow up, I guess.

Your either put your children first or yourself first. If you want well-adjusted children, you put them first. Always.

Lol. Get a job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how chaotic of a home do your want? How much chaos is okay for your children to experience from day to day? How often is it okay to drop the ball on making sure your family runs well? How much confusion and anxiety do you want to inflict on your children? Because working full time means chaos, confusion and stress runs your home first and foremost. Your employer always comes first -- that's the truth. Your kids know that, but they can work it out with extensive therapy after they grow up, I guess.

Your either put your children first or yourself first. If you want well-adjusted children, you put them first. Always.

Wow. Im not sure what you did for a living, but it's certainly not my work experience. I have 3 kids and I've worked between 32-40 hours a week since they were born. Is it easy, somedays no. Would I change it? No.

Childcare is the hardest part of parenting young kids. If you can get a good, reliable childcare provider, you and your children will not experience chaos, stress or need therapy because you have a job. My children have a role model who knows how to balance work and life most of the time. My children will always come first, but they are not the center of my universe. They have become independent and well rounded kids who know that their parents work but they also have their backs, always.

If your life included chaos, confusion, the inability to draw boundaries and keep a calendar, you can't apply that to all mothers and all workplaces. This is the worst advice I've read in awhile.

OP: Be healthy. Choose to work or not based on your mental health, long term plans and financial situation. Your child sometimes dictates whether you can find reliable, safe and appropriate childcare. We have na autistic son and we knew he was safest and most comfortable with a nanny. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Can you return to your career easily? Can you keep taking advance classes and keep moving forward?

I have friends who are the most amazing and kick a$$ say at home moms who are raising amazing humans. I have friends who work and are balancing it all with grace. You need to figure out what works for you and your children.

The bolded is the problem. I SAHMed when my child was a baby/toddler because we could not find good, reliable childcare within our budget. Staying home was the only way to get high quality childcare for my kid. And it's not that I'm so low paid that we couldn't afford quality childcare, because there were definitely daycare centers we could have afforded. But we could not get spots in them. There are not enough of them and many gave preference to people with certain employers. We were on waitlists for over a dozen centers (and we got on those waitlists when I was 5 months pregnant, and I had a 4 month maternity leave, so there should have been plenty of time). The only two places where we were offered spots were in-home centers that were unclean and weirdly hot when we visited (they keep them hot to keep the babies lethargic and easier to deal with). Only one of them was close enough to work or home for us to feasibly be able to pick up our child without leaving work early, and both had incredibly strict rules about pick up and very high fees if you were late.

It's dumb to have the conversation or criticize women for the choices they make without having a real conversation about how this country fails working families, the cost and unavailability of childcare, and how no one in a position to do anything about it seems to care enough to act.

I felt judged by friends when I decided to SAHM and it was really frustrating because I really did do it simply because it was the best, most affordable option for providing my child with what she needed. I wasn't making some statement about what I think the role of mothers should be. I was presented with two options and chose the better one, full stop.

I had three kid’s in three years. Ex partner travelled 80-100 nights a year. Had high paying career in finance but quit to raise kids. Went back 11 years later, put earning my ex spouse who never left the workforce. I’ve been back three years. If you’re good at what you do, and had an industry reputation as a hard worker, it will not be too bad. My experience is likely not the norm, however, but sales is sales. If you’re good at sales pre kids, you likely are post kid’s. For tech or science or med or many other careers however, that may not be the case.


I will never ever regret my decade plus at home with my kids, and I’m grateful for the career I’ve had before and after my kids baby/childhood days passed and they were in school.

I’ve been home for a bit, and just kept doing a few hours of consulting a week with my same employer that I used to be FT at. It’s worked out great and I won’t have a resume gap, even though I spend 85% of my day on kid stuff rather than work. Recommend this if you have the option.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you quit your job and stayed home while you have 2-3 kids, did you find returning to work easy or hard? Do you wish you would have continued to work PT?

I would have liked to stay part time. If that is an option, try to keep it as long as you can.

It's kind of overrated to work PT for someone else. You are lowest on the totem pole and everything really interesting gets handed to people who are there full time. The most you can do is either help them out or, as someone said, work FT for PT pay so that you can keep up with what's going on.

If you can start your own business (whatever you do), and do it part time, that can be really good. Now is a good time to buy or rent some office space.

Anonymous wrote:OP, how chaotic of a home do your want? How much chaos is okay for your children to experience from day to day? How often is it okay to drop the ball on making sure your family runs well? How much confusion and anxiety do you want to inflict on your children? Because working full time means chaos, confusion and stress runs your home first and foremost. Your employer always comes first -- that's the truth. Your kids know that, but they can work it out with extensive therapy after they grow up, I guess.

Your either put your children first or yourself first. If you want well-adjusted children, you put them first. Always.

Wow. Im not sure what you did for a living, but it's certainly not my work experience. I have 3 kids and I've worked between 32-40 hours a week since they were born. Is it easy, somedays no. Would I change it? No.

Childcare is the hardest part of parenting young kids. If you can get a good, reliable childcare provider, you and your children will not experience chaos, stress or need therapy because you have a job. My children have a role model who knows how to balance work and life most of the time. My children will always come first, but they are not the center of my universe. They have become independent and well rounded kids who know that their parents work but they also have their backs, always.

If your life included chaos, confusion, the inability to draw boundaries and keep a calendar, you can't apply that to all mothers and all workplaces. This is the worst advice I've read in awhile.

OP: Be healthy. Choose to work or not based on your mental health, long term plans and financial situation. Your child sometimes dictates whether you can find reliable, safe and appropriate childcare. We have na autistic son and we knew he was safest and most comfortable with a nanny. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Can you return to your career easily? Can you keep taking advance classes and keep moving forward?

I have friends who are the most amazing and kick a$$ say at home moms who are raising amazing humans. I have friends who work and are balancing it all with grace. You need to figure out what works for you and your children.

Anonymous wrote:OP, how chaotic of a home do your want? How much chaos is okay for your children to experience from day to day? How often is it okay to drop the ball on making sure your family runs well? How much confusion and anxiety do you want to inflict on your children? Because working full time means chaos, confusion and stress runs your home first and foremost. Your employer always comes first -- that's the truth. Your kids know that, but they can work it out with extensive therapy after they grow up, I guess.

Your either put your children first or yourself first. If you want well-adjusted children, you put them first. Always.

You life should be neither work centered nor family center to be fulfilling. You’re kidding yourself if you think obsessing over your children will mean they grow into functioning independent adults. But likely that’s not what you want because then what WILL you do with yourself?