Working mother vs stay-at-home-mom, what are the pros and cons for each?

I can’t really answer this cause i’m not a mommy.

vice versa

^ Had to give you a “high” for the day. ;-P

When my first son was born I took a job that paid me enough money so that my wife did not have to work. After 2 years as a stay at home mom, my wife was at her wits end near insanity and took up teaching yoga to get out of the house and do more than change diapers all day long. I am certainly not complaining as we did not really need the extra money but IMO it created more problems and stress we as a family did not need to go through and she only worked part-time. My kids experienced a lot of extra grief and stress because my wife had to rush off to work and God forbid they ever get sick. I do admire the mom’s that have to work and juggle a full time job, kids and a household at the same time.

I would never work if I didn’t have to. If you don’t need the income, why oh why would you want to work.

Now about those kids – they create so many reasons to not work outside the home. I could have been a much better mom if I didn’t have to work. I wouldn’t have had to throw them together and drag them to daycare. I could have had more time with them. I could have volunteered at their school. I could have had done my housework during the day, so that I could concentrate more on them and their needs when they got home.

In short, as @Cruiser just mentioned, I just about worked myself to death, trying to keep the house up and take care of the kids AND work full time. It’s too much, so nothing gets done properly. Everything is slap-dash, and that is not the way I would choose to raise kids.

I think there are benefits to both, working mom gives a child a better social skills because they are interacting with several other children daily. A child who is home with mom has a closer family bond because that is what they know. A child going to daycare will get sick less in grade school because most of the illnesses they were already exposed to in daycare causing less sick days when the go to grade school.

If your wife worked, she would be ready at all times to take care of herself and the family if something were to happen to you.

Working can often give women a sense of security and independence that being handed money just can’t compare with. You already know how I feel about it.

My mom worked at a daycare so she had the best of both worlds, me and work.

I think it’s best to have at least one parent in the home during the younger years.
Mom or dad. As a stay at home mom for about 10 years I have no regrets. I raised a great, well adjusted and secure and creative daughter. Consistency is very important in young childrens lives.
However, as much as I loved being a mom I can also say that going back to work was 100 times easier than being a domestic slave. lol
Your kids are only little once, be there if you can.

As long as the child is being taken care of, the mother can do whatever she wants.
And to clarify my answer through the specificity of this question, it’s either parent, not just the mom.

@dxs Yes…but…it is not just about “taking care” of a childs needs for basic care, it is about providing a healthy and psychologically stable environment. I used to say that you don’t get a puppy and keep it in the neighbors yard. If people are going to have kids they better commit to more than just caring for them. haha

@Coloma I definitely agree with that. Parents need to be teachers, too. I used to be so much more double-standardy on this issue before I realized how sexist I was being towards mothers. But it bothers me when children aren’t given the attention they deserve. There should always be a person there for them to feed them, help them learn, provide support, and love them. And I have concluded that this doesn’t have to be the mother. It can be father as well. Maids, I’m not really sure.

I had the best of both worlds. I had my son while I was in grad school, so I stretched my last semester into two part-time semesters. Then I went to work 3 days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (my then-husband worked Tuesday-Saturday; so we only had him in day care 2 days a week). After being home with the baby Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I was eager form Monday when I could be a “grown-up” again. I do not have the temperament or energy level to keep up with little kids. Some people are wired that way, but I am not. I’d have lost my mind if I’d had no choice but to be a homemaker – I am incredibly undomesticated.

We did need the money, but chose to do without for those first few years because I did breast feed and I felt it was important for him to be home as much as possible in those early years. The in-home childcare he went to was awesome, though. She was great with kids, had 4 of her own plus a dog, her house was frikkin’ immaculate, and she didn’t need the money! Her husband was a well-paid executive, but she just loved kids. So this was a great environment for my son, and she was cheap, too! Her husband later got transferred out of state. We really did need the money, so I went to work full-time when my son was 3 years old, and we went through a rough couple years until we found another awesome home-based childcare provider.

I feel that child care was a good thing for my son, because it gave him structure and socialization that he wouldn’t have had if he’d been home with me. I am not structured or disciplined, and I am not very sociable – and was even less-so 20 years ago. I feel that as long as the child/ren’s health and well-being are given top priority, families can find what works best for them.

Whatever works. I was fortunate to be able to be a stay at home mom when my kids were preschool. However, my sister would have totally lost her self esteem and self confidence had she been a stay-at-home Mom. Her high level management position at Boeing defines her. My kids define me.