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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.
For all you moms (or moms to be..)
Did you quit working when your child/children were born? or go back to work?
H and i are waiting another year or two before we TTC, but we had a conversation about this the other night and H thinks I should go back to work after the baby is born, while I think it would be more beneficial for me to just stay home with him/her, at least until they start school, to cut down on daycare costs and such. I was raised by a stay at home mom as was H, so i have had it instilled in me that the mom should be home with her kids (kind of old fashioned maybe?) I know finances have a lot to do with your decisions, but I am just curious.
Re: For all you moms (or moms to be..)
My mom was a college student until I was five, then she opened her own practice, so she worked a lot. My husband's mom stayed home until the kids were in school. We're open to both options.
ETA: Other factors were that my dad didn't contribute to our household, Joe's dad did, and my mom was college educated with a decent earning potential, while Joe's mom was not.
I went back to work, but 2 months ago quit my job to be a SAHM and finish my master's degree. Half my paycheck went to daycare and it just was not worth it to us.
For several years before I had DD, my entire paycheck went into savings and a 401K and we lived entirely off DH's income. This made the transition easy.
I merged the two options...I work from home and keep my daughter home with me. I was thinking about getting help in for a few hours a day because she was becoming a handful but she's get more mobility now so she's able to entertain herself and doesn't need (or want) me in her face 24/7.
I think once she's a year or so this summer I'll have a college student come in for a few hours during the day so she can go outside and then come the fall we can investigate day care.
We don't absolutely need both incomes but we are far more comfortable with the flexibility and the options having an additional income provides us.
I dont have children, so take this with a grain of salt, but I doubt my personality will change that drastically with birthing, so I feel confident in my answer.
I am personally not the kind of person who would be happy staying home with the kids. I have worked to get my degrees, and will be going back to get my Dr hopefully next fall. I think my kids will be happier if I am happy, and this will be the choice that will get me to that road.
My mom put off college and her career to have and raise kids, and TBH she has always seemed really resentful of that fact. As kids we knew how she felt and that she wasn't happy with her choices about it, and that sucked knowing that. I dont ever want to be in that place or put my kids in that place.
Bottom line, every family is different and every mom (and dad) is. If you would feel happiest going staying home, and that choice will be the best for your family, then you should do that. Vice versa, you should go back to work if that is the best choice for you guys. Either way, as long as you're both on board, then it will be the right choice.
I changed my name
I worked full time until I was put on bed rest. After they were born I went back about 10 hours a week when they were 8w old. About 2 months ago I started working about 30-35 hours/week again (which I'm not thrilled about, but we're paying off stuff much quicker). We're moving in Feb and I'll be 100% sahm there.
We're adjusting our spending and paying off debt so we can live comfortably with me not working.
I think ideally its nice if mom can stay home with the baby(ies), but if you've got financial responsibilities (bills, mortgage, etc) that you can't afford on one salary, there's not much of a choice.
ETA: both my parents worked, both my H's parent's worked also. We feel that I should be at home until they reach school age.
Can someone explain what those of you who say "half my paycheck isn't worth it" mean by that? Even with daycare, there's a greater household income if you're working than if you're not, right?
Do you mean that you don't particularly like your job so working for little take home pay isn't worth it? Or is it something else?
H doesn't say that his work isn't worthwhile when so much of his takehome goes toward housing (oh, hello VHCOL Hawaii). Why do we discuss daycare in a different manner than every other expense?
Except for my Reserve duties, I've been a SAHM for the last 6 years. I have recently picked up two day bar shifts to help out a friend. It's nice to work again, but it isn't worth having to find someone to watch my youngest who isn't in school yet.
In our situation, MH is gone a lot between deployments and training missions. It is far better for me to stay at home than it is for me to work. That being said, next year we will have 4 kids in private school. I've been offered a part time job during school hours that will help offset the cost of school a bit. I'll be doing that.
Because it's a far more emotional decision, I would assume. By "not worth it" I think they mean it's not worth it to them to only bring home X amount of money when they'd rather be home full time.
I understand what you're saying, and that's precisely why we don't have a decision set in stone. I currently bring home 49% of the household income. Daycare will only cost us $1200, and I take home close to $3k/mo, so there's definitely still a huge chunk coming in should I continue to work. For us, the greater issue is putting together a family care plan for when Joe and I are inevitably gone at the same time.
Because it's not a purely quantitative decision. I like being with my kid, so to voluntarily give that up would take a lot of incentive. It wouldn't be worth an extra couple of hundred bucks a month to me.
We chose for me to stay home with DS. When we got married we lived off of only H's salary and put mine in savings so we would be accustomed to one paycheck.
67/200
Where I live, day care can cost up to $200 a week. Average would be about $180 a week. If that takes up half of your take home income on top of gas, food and such, it isn't worth it to a lot of people to work when they could be the person at home caring for their kids.
One of the reasons I stay at home with my kids is because I know I can provide them a better and more well rounded education, at this point, then a day care can. I'm here when my older kids come home from school. I'm feeding them snack, helping them with their homework and speding that quality time with them. To me, that is far more valuable to our family than the extra few hundred dollars I'd be bringing in. I only took the job I have now to help a friend and because my mom can watch my son and pick the other kids up from school.
When I start working again next school year, it will basically only pay for my gas to and from work and tuition for the all four kids to go to school. At that point, that will be worth it to me knowing that they are in a top notch school.
I quit my job to join DH out here at our PDS. I'm not working now and won't when the baby comes. We both want it that way. He doesn't even want me to get a job now (of course he would be supportive if I did he just says my job is to stay at home and grow the baby haha).
I might consider working again when our daughter is a little older (like after a year). I think I would go stir crazy sitting at home.
I'm hopping on Jilly's train, except I worked less hard to get my degree and certificate, lol.
I do not see myself wanting to stay home, at all, and honestly, half a paycheck (or more) going to daycare is very worth it to me to stay in the workforce and not have a long gap. I don't want to try and reenter and be irrelevant.
I don't have kids though, so who knows what I'll do then? I hope I stick with my plan.
I have to agree with PP, my thoughts are this- why am i paying (say half my paycheck) to have someone else to raise my child when i feel i can do a better job myself? i dont see how it would be worth while to work..but then again i dont have kids yet, so my opinion may change. thats just how i was brought up so thats what i believe.
I'm working partly out of necessity and also because I truly cannot imagine being a SAHM. I love my DD and the kiddo that is on the way; but I am a better mother for having the work balance for myself. I find myself valuing the time spent with L even MORE because I do work. And I love what I do for my career.
If anything; should we find ourselves in the financial position to do so; I would rather work part-time and be home in the afternoons for when L returns home from school. To me, the school-age child needs a parental figure even more than ever.
I am 3 classes short of my MBA, yet the best job I could find in the area we live is a crappy $10/hr job. We felt financially comfortable with this choice. We are not in debt, our vehicles are paid off, my school is covered by my GI Bill, etc. It just didn't make sense to continue working at a job I hated plus I felt like I was missing out on so much. On weekdays I would pick DD up from daycare, make supper, give her a bath, and before I knew it, it was bedtime. I didn't getting any quality time with her except on weekends. It was tough.
I don't have a college degree, so it simply doesn't make sense for me to work. I would only be bringing in a little more than what I was spending on day care and other working expenses, and that would just make me sad to be away from DD all day, and not have much to show for it financially.
We have no debt, and I craft and sell my things on base to bring in some extra cash. I also try to save us money in other ways, by using coupons and finding the best prices for things we want to buy. What I do is rewarding to me, and it works for our family. Every situation and family is different!
28/100
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Our decision was based on a few things.
The first was that after daycare was paid for, I'd have slightly less than half of my gross paycheck. Staying home with Will and not having the money outweighed going to work FT and having the money.
The second big reason was my job. It wasn't going to be permanent since we are PSCing next week anyway. That would mean that I would have had my 3 months maternity leave, and then work for 3 months before quitting. The job I was working was constantly changing and evolving, and it took a lot of studying to be good at the job. I would have had to relearn a lot of new things in addition to new information if I had returned. In the end it just didn't make sense to work for 3 months and then leave when my employer could be training someone to take my position.
I have 2 kids and still work. I'm active duty. It was very difficult to go back after the first child, but not nearly as difficult with my second child because I realized that her childcare providers do love her and snuggle her and care deeply about her also, and I also realized that I'm providing quite a bit for our family financially.
I probably earn a little more than the average military spouse, I make 6 figures and also have a job that gets bonuses. I also really want a pension, so that has kept me in too. If I had an hourly job that didn't earn very much and didn't have a pension at the end, I definitely might decide it wasn't worth the hassle of getting the kids dressed and out the door so early every morning, because it does get stressful.
I am sure I will love my future children. But I am on the Jilly/Stan train. I want to be a working mom. Not only for the fact that I find joy out of working and contributing to the household, but I don't think that staying home would be beneficial to me. I don't particularly enjoy hanging out at home all day. Someday our children are going to have to figure out this out for themselves and I don't want them to remember me as a sad depressed stay at home mom. I don't have anything against anyone else doing it, it is a hugely personal decision, but I know that it isn't something that I can handle.
With my older two kids, I was miserable being a SAHM. I felt like I was trapped in a house all day long. This time around, I'm not that way because I'm not trapped in the house all day. We are members of our local zoo, so we visit it almost once a week. We participate in toddler story time at the library. We go to the beach. We walk around the many parks around here. We meet friends for lunch. We volunteer. I love working, but I love being able to be home with my kids more. I try to contribute by finding ways to save our family money. Using coupons and codes, I save our family over $400 a month. That helps. It is a very personal choice, but I wouldn't count it out just because you are afraid you'll be bored and unhappy. Just like any job, you have to find your happiness.