International Nesties
dulcemariamar1
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
SAHM or Working Mom?
How did you decide about being a SAHM or Working Mom? Do you think it would have been different if you lived in your home country?
I was just wondering because I am starting to think about these things. It seems like such a huge decision that I really cant see how you could make it until you have the baby. I understand the pros and cons of both options. So how did you make your decision? Did you end up changing your mind once the baby was home?
Re: SAHM or Working Mom?
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5K - 24:57 10M - 1:28:20 13.1M - 1:57:29 26.2M - 4:28:29
It didn't make sense for us for me to keep working. My pay would have been completely gone to daycare, so I decided to SAH.
ETA: To finish answering the question
If we were in the US, I would have kept working. We have a lot more options for child care there (family to watch D), which would have been the better option. Here we don't have anyone to watch him, and DH and I both worked second shift. It would have been impossible to find a DCP (even an in home day care) who would watch him from 5 pm until 11pm.
I have actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I always thought I'd want to be a SAHM for at least a year, but just being a SAHW for a couple months after graduating has me totally stir crazy...but I think it will be different when the baby is born.
I would agree with you that I don't think I will have an answer until Aurelia is here and I have a better idea of what being a SAHM would actually be like.
Right now I am thinking I will want to start working next summer though. DH's mom has offered herself as free daycare and I could work just part-time which would make enough to pay my student loans. That's another big factor for us I think. We know we are fine for me not to work if we just consider regular expenses, but my student loans will go into repayment in February and we don't have enough saved up to pay them for too long and we couldn't afford it out of DH's pay. So I may end up having to work whether I want to or not. Luckily I know can always find work as an english teacher which pays well for the hours!
I will be a SAHM and the decision was actually quite easy for me and DH. DH makes enough money for me to stay at home and because I grew up in a single parent household and was a latch-key kid my entire life I have always had this desire to be a SAHM for my children. I know I am sacrificing a career I love and we may have to stretch our money sometimes so that I am able to do this, but for us we decided the pros outweigh the cons.
DH supports any decision I make and while I think being a SAHM isn't for me forever, I do think I will stay at home until all our kids are in school full time. Once they are in preschool part of the day, I may work part-time or volunteer too.
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haha, the golden question. Who ever has the perfect answer to this will rule the world LOL
For me, I'm a SAHM here and going crazy. If I were home, I'd like it more because all my friends SAH and I have a huge family. I'm sick of being in house clothes all day, DH has the car for work. I will say right now that I do have a nice situation. DH's company pays for LO to go to DC so I do have 3 days a week to myself. I enjoy it until about 2 (once I hit the gym, store, plan dinner, do a load of laundry, etc), then I'm lonely.
But I keep delaying going back to work because I fear I will lose family time, house keeping, etc.
I'm too much of an all or nothing person to work part time.
Good luck w/your decision.
This is me as well. I would never be happy being at work all day with my kids somewhere else and we are fortunate that we can afford for me to stay at home. My mom was home with me, and dh's mom was home with him, so maybe that helped sway our decision, who knows.
I also got my masters in journalism so I would be able to work from home as our kids got older, and I do currently do some freelance work so I do contribute (very slightly) with some money.
I'm so all over the place with this as I try to make my decision before the baby comes. I work one job from home and will continue to do that when the baby comes. My other job, I was originally planning on taking only 6 months now I'm thinking 9 or the whole year. I feel like without family/friends around to have a back up person to call that I feel like I need to be readily available to take care of my daughter and worry that she would be stuck sick at the daycare while I tried to battle an hour of public transport to get there.
It's also possible that in the next year we move back to the states. In the states I always thought I would go back to work. Now, I just have no idea. Can I go to work and bring the baby with me? I'd be good with that.
Yes, this is us as well. We've made some pretty hefty sacrifices, but we knew from day one of TTC that we both wanted me to be a sahm.
I figure I'm on a long-term career break. I hope to be able to go back to academics when M is in full-time school, at least, I only want to do PT. IT's important to me that I am raising my kids. If I had family around, or was already immersed in my career, perhaps things would hav ebeen different, who knows? But I think this is the most important job in the world and it's important to both of us that I (or DH in different circumstancs) are home wtih the kids as much as possible.
A question we evaluate and re-evaluate. With DH's job our situation, location, opportunities, and support all fluxuate. For now it is working out and BabyD is doing great at his school. We're also pursuing avenues for me to work in San Diego. But we also know there is a lot to figure out to make happen.
We've talked about it and I still don't have an answer. We really buckled down our first few years of our marriage and have been able to get rid of most of our debt, so we have the option. I just don't know what I, personally, want to do.
I guess only time will tell. I will definitely take my maternity year off.
We don't have kids yet but DH and I have talked about this before. I will be a SAHM until our kids are 5 or 6 years old then we'll probably hire an au pair (if we can afford it then). I would really like to be home with my future children when they're young and once they are at school I would like to resume working (hopefully in early childhood education) and hire an au pair. I was an au pair and would like to be on the other end of the spectrum one day
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But, even as a SAHM, I will start working my way into DH and FIL's business. My MIL does the book-keeping and general secretarial, and she has started showing me how she handles certain things. I can see myself probably following in MIL's footsteps and working with DH when he takes over the business. So, unless things change, there is a real possibilty that I will be a work-at-home mom.
We were on the same page and I think DH was more relieved about our decision than me. I'm happy in my role as a SAHM. I joined a gym where they have creche and that helps in getting me a break every now and again.
I have to say, it's the hardest decision I have ever made in my life. Before having Cole I was always so headstrong about returning to work afterWards. It's very hard decision for any mother to make and that's why I will never understand why mothers on TB argue with who has the toughest job. Everyone makes it a competition. If you make the decision that works best for your family then why question another's.
It was never really a choice for me, I never thought I wouldn't work after having children. I studied and worked hard to get to where I am, it is what I always wanted to do and a large part of who I am. I am fortunate that I can combine it well with my family life as both DH and I work part time which is one of the biggest reason that keeps us here and the reason we turned down a few offers that were very tempting, both financially and career wise but would require us to move to the US or Germany where this arrangement in our field would not be possible.
I also love that we equally share child care so the kids spend a lot of time with both parents. If I (or DH) worked long hours and didn't spend enough time with the kids we would reevaluate our situation.
Both of my parents worked and I have a great relationship with them so I never thought the two were mutually exclusive.
I'm currently a SAHM. It wasn't really planned, it just happened that way.
If we were still living in Vietnam I would be a working mom for sure. I loved my job and full time nannies were really cheap. Since moving to France I've worked a little bit teaching English and doing translations work for a magazine. Now that M is at school, I'm looking for work. Part-time would be ideal, I've gotten used to having time with my friends during the day that I don't want to miss out on if I start working full time again.
I fully intended to work after my oldest was born. (He's 6 now.) Actually, I had the perfect set-up, because I was able to keep my job and go part-time, but keep my benefits. Then about a month after I returned to work, I was laid off. I'm sure my "perfect set-up" was what made me the most expendable. I interviewed like crazy for a few months afterward, not having much luck. We had always talked about me eventually being a SAHM, so we decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. Luckily DH was making a good salary to be able to afford it. We definitely had to change our lifestyle for it though.
I really enjoyed being a SAHM, once I found my groove. Found some playgroups, took the kids out for different activities, etc. But I definitely wasn't in love with my job, so it was easier for me to make the decision. Now that my kids are 6 and 4, and both in school full-time, I've started planning my re-entry into the working world. Ideally I'd like to avoid the 9-5, not only because I want to be home for the kids after school, but because I was miserable. Still working on what I want to do. Plus, we don't return to Houston for at least another 1 1/2 years, so I've got time to figure out a plan of attack. I'm trying to figure out the legalities of working freelance while we're here, to give me some current experience. I may continue it when we return home, if it works out well. I'm scared sh*tless to go back to the working world. I've been out for 6 years, and I feel completely incompetent.
Well I am a SAHW currently because of visa issues. If we have child while we are living here I will be a SAHM, but when we get back to the States I will be working...at least part-time if not full-time. Here we don't have many expensives so it is feasible, in the US we would have more expensives and daycare so it might be necessary.