David and I have been talking about whether or not I should be a working mom since we decided to get married. When we first met we were both all for me staying home once we had kids. We didn't plan on it being a permanent thing, just until they were all in full time school. Over the years our opinions on staying home have changed.
I am still a major fan of staying home for a few years. I compromised and came back after one baby, but I really do not want to comeback after the second. With David doing shift work and childcare being so expensive I just don't think having me go to work is the best thing for us. I am also not finished with school. My hope has always been that during this time off I would go back to University to complete an education degree. It would only take me another couple of years and then I would be on the same schedule as our kids and I would be doing something that I love.
David is now leaning more towards having me go back again. He is the cautious one in our family. He is really worried about maintaining our lifestyle and ensuring that we can still do all of the extra activities that we love to do. He loves all of the travelling at will and things that we have gotten involved in over the years and I am willing to give some of that up for a short period of time.
The one thing that I do understand and feel bad about is that all of the financial pressure will be on his shoulders for those years. We bought our house based solely on his income and I know that we can buckle down and make it all work. We have to come to an agreement at some point. I know that we have time, but my last maternity leave just flew by on us.
Does anyone have any advice for us? Any stay at home mom's out there who can give us some insight?
Mrs. E
Best way to test it out if you can survive and how you feel is to do a trial run while you are on maternity leave. That's what we did to see how it would work. Instead of spending your mat leave money put it all into a savings account for the year and see how it goes on one income. It will also show you what you may need to cut back on to stay home and if you need to work how much money per month do you actually need to survive. I can totally chat more about it anytime! And I totally understand the leaving it all one person's shoulders is scary!
ReplyDeleteI know we're not the typical 'stay at home' parents, but I agree with Laura - when I quit my full time job to focus on the business we did a trial where we put away my salary (put it towards the mortgage) to see if we could get by without it. Because we could, we knew I could quit and we'd be fine.
ReplyDeleteAlso, just a bit of a personal feeling - you can't ever got back and get that time with your kids. Now that we have a nanny I feel like we're missing out on things (although we try to make up for it with our crazy family vacations). You'll never look back and say 'gee, it would have been so much better for my kids if I had worked full time' but you might look back and wish you had been home with them for a few years. (BTW - nothing stopping you from opening up an Etsy shop! Just saying!)
I totally agree with you guys. I think that starting after Christmas we are going to practice living on one income. It means that we will have to buckle down a bit but maybe if I finally get my crafting business off the ground it can bring in enough extra income.
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