For how long could you tolerate being a stay-at-home mom/dad if you had the option of working instead?

Removed by me

Actually I WAS/ Still are the stay at home dad, the Wife has a full fledged grooming business so I would work for several hours after taking our daughter to school and then do laundry, clean and pick her up only to go home and make dinner.

For me it was about 3 years, then I went back part time and that worked out great.

@Sampson: Fixed. Some of us.

I wish I had stayed home. working long hours and then trying to manage with two young kids, I feel like it ruined my life and theirs

I would love to be a stay-at-home Mom. Those years with the children cannot be replaced.

I loved being a stay-at-home dad, which I was for four years, with my twins, but I also had work to do in a home office, so maybe that helped.

I am a stay at home mom. I have been for 31 years. My youngest is now 13.
My family has made financial sacrifices so that I could stay home. We all feel that it has been worth it. I work very hard, but I feel privileged.

I love being at home with my baby. I tried working for a while. The tiny bit of extra income it offered (after childcare, gas, and auto maintenance expenses) was not worth the stress on myself and my child. He was very young, and stopped eating for the babysitter. After he lost a significant amount of weight, I decided to quit my job.

As you know I love the shit out of my job. But I love a lot of other stuff too. I think it would be sweet to hang out with my kids all day and make them go running with me and go to museums and do laundry in the middle of the day and play games on the beach while all the other suckers are stuck at work.

@nikipedia It is great, and then sometimes you feel the need for the stimulation of work and colleagues. Being able to choose to switch back and forth as needed or to work part time after a time at home is ideal. At least, it was for me. I have not achieved all the status and career goals that many of my colleagues have but I have had a very rich and satisfying life and my children are great.

I have been one for ten years, and I could do it for another ten. I love it. I went to school and worked when my sons were toddlers and I was miserable. I felt like I missed so much of their younger years. When my youngest son entered kindergarten I lost my job. My husband and I decided that the little extra income we were making with my working just wasn’t worth the stress. My sons are in high school now, doing very well, and my daughter just entered kindergarten. I am available for their school parties, awards ceremonies, after school activities and am here if they are sick.

I could tolerate it for the rest of my life. :-)

As much as I love being a stay at home mother, I could only tolerate it for so long.

For me, once the children are school age, I will be bored out of my mind. I know how difficult it is to run a household, but I can’t imagine not working when all of them are in school for up to 8 hours. That’s just me though. Oh, and my husband would honestly never allow that…the fact that I’d have time to bring in income would be the deciding factor.
Currently, I do it so I can go to school and be with the kid(s) the rest of the time. I love it. Of course there are days where I want to shut myself up in the bathroom and pretend Mommy has disappeared..but, who doesn’t have those days at work?! lol

I find it crucial to be home with the children when they are infants and toddlers, to form the bond that I want to form and care for them. I have nothing against daycares..so please, I hope no one takes it that way.
It is a blast though, it’s just as @nikipedia described. My son and I go to museums, the zoo, orchards, parks…all the time. We have so much fun, and it’s just amazing to be there when he discovers something new, or says a new word. Teaching him the basics is also great, but I could never be a home schooling parent. I find the socialization of school to be crucial, plus..I can admit that I’d be a crappy parent. I’m not educated nor patient enough to homeschool.

I do desire to work, and have my own career. I am extremely proud of being a parent and my mothering abilities…but I want to be proud of accomplishing educational goals, and career goals as well. All in good time.

Given the insecurity of the workplace these days, I wonder how could you then tolerate working if you can return to being a stay-at-home mom/dad. ;-)

My mom has been a stay-at-home mom since I was really young. She has a nursing degree and worked doing that from before we were born until we were a few years old. Then she decided she wanted to be around for us. She loves being a housewife. I once asked her if she gets bored; she said absolutely not. She always has something to do. She keeps herself busy… PTA, community awareness, errands, the gym, volunteering as a religion teacher, etc. I personally think I’d prefer having a career, but it works for her. She’s considered going back to work now that my older brother and I are in college, and my younger brother is a sophomore in high school, able to look after himself, but she’s never got around to it. My dad bitches about it sometimes cause she doesn’t help out financially, and he is probably jealous that she doesn’t work, but meh. We seem to get by fine on his salary.

Well, I’m a traditionalist. So I like my wife to stay at home.
Fortunately, she prefers that alsoLOL!!

@denidowi What would you do, or how would you feel if she didn’t want to stay at home?

I wish I could have a do-over. I would have chosen a different mother for my children (while keeping the identical children of course) and I would, with my current acquired knowledge and insight do so much better as a stay at home Dad.

In a healthy marriage, I would have the joy of raising my children and could still have worked and studied at home without the resentment and verbal abuse to which I was subjected by the ovum donor (biological maternal unit). She never was a mother or at least that is how my now adult children see it.

I am not the best suited person in the world to be a stay-at-home parent because I multitask poorly. I would make up for that with love and patience and greater calmness than I exhibited the first time around. ADHD was no advantage and having children who also had ADHD was a challenge.

I will, proudly, be a stay-at-home Mum! It was the greatest thing my Mum ever did for me and my sister <3 Nothing beats when I was sick and she would pick me up from school wish some of my favorite juice and s little snack. We’d go home, she would pop in a great cartoon movie (Usually Beauty and the Beast, I wore out 2 of those poor tapes haha!) Having the comfort of my Mum there was the best feeling in the world <3

However, in saying all of that, I am not, in any way, against both parents working. It’s all up to the family and what they feel is best for their children. I know having a stay-at-home parent is not an option for so many families. I just wanted to clarify so I didn’t sound like I was sitting here bashing “both parents work” situations ^.^

@ElleBee , you made me feel good. My kids have hinted at just the kind of things that you said, but I liked hearing it said so nicely.

Until my daughter had her own kids so I could be a stay-at-home grandfather.
I usually worked (part or even full time) for most of the first 4 years of my daughter’s life, but never more than 5h/day max. I spent every single minute beyond that with her, and could never get enough. I also love doing housework, cooking, tidying up etc (everything except ironing basically).

But as you said, some people are more well-suited than others. I can imagine it could get on someone else’s nerves, especially if you don’t have a choice, but I enjoyed every second of it.

I’ve been home with my kids for the past five years. I worked full-time (other than maternity leave) for about the first six years we had kids. When my daughter was 9 months old, I left my office job and took a job as a daycare teacher in a large, very wonderful, center. Even though I was working full time, I didn’t feel like I missed anything. I saw my daughter, and later my son, often throughout the day while I was working. I could hang out with them on my lunch break, and if one of them got upset or hurt I could usually manage to pop down to their classrooms for some extra hugs. The income wasn’t great, but the benefits were. My husband has his own business, so being able to have health insurance, dental, 401k, vacation time, sick time, and all that, really helped us out.

When we were expecting our third child, we were also getting ready to move. It didn’t make sense for me to drive farther to work, and even though I had a huge discount on the daycare tuition, with three kids my paycheck would have been about $10 every two weeks. We were also, finally, in a position to be able to afford for me to stay home. I’ve loved it, no doubt about it. It’s nice to be here when the kids come home from school, to have long lazy summers, to be able to go to their school functions, doctor and dentist appointments without any hassle, and even to go grocery shopping in the middle of the week when the store isn’t crowded.

However, there are days when I get bored and really sick of housework. I miss having a lunch break! Now that my youngest is in preschool three afternoons a week, I enjoy that time to myself (when I don’t spend it running from the gym to the store to the post office and on and on). Kindergarten here is a half day, so I am waiting until he hits first grade. Then I will find a part-time job during school hours. I can’t wait to have adult conversation and structure to my days again. I fantasize about working at the bookstore here in town! I think I would go a little crazy staying home once all the kids are in school.

My wife and I just started a transition. I currently work full-time and she stays home with our children. However, she just started college (again) and plans to eventually become a full-time nurse. When she moves to full-time I’m going to be the parent that stays home, doing part-time, freelance work. I enjoy working and I enjoy my kids; both options are fine for me.

I get the itch to go work and make money quite frequently (working on it!). Though, I know I’ll miss all the fun times with my boy, soon to be boys. I started feeling the urge around 6 months after our son was born.

I would rather spend the rest of my life at home with my kids than go to a shitty job that probably makes me miserable. I’d be a stay at home mom forever as long as it was financially possible for the family.

@casheroo – as long as you look like your avatar, you can afford to still have ‘faults’ LOL – as long as your working didn’t cause you to lose any femininity about you ;) and related brilliantly to your man as a man.
Can you achieve that??
I select my women rather well, @casheroo , and determine exacly what it is they DO believe in before I go very far with them.

@ItalianPrincess1217 – I like your style ;)

@denidowi ;)

I have a lovely new story to add to this thread. My grandson who is 7 months old, has just started going to a creche in Paris. My son, who has been a stay-at-home Dad while working on his dissertation, said that while dropping him off one morning, he saw another baby on the floor who was crying. My son picked him up and said that is never something that would have occurred to him to do before he became a Dad. He said that becoming a father maeks a different kind of man out of you. Yay for Daddies!

AND Mummies too @janbb LOL!!
Where would we be w/o them??!

Maybe one year. I don’t think I’m well equipped to be a SAHM and I have nothing against daycares. I loved going to daycare as a kid, so did my sister, and we have an excellent relationship with our mother, who went back to work within six months of us both being born.

No comment @rockstargrrrlie
I love it that you’re working on it as SAHM though; you can obviously see the value :)

@denidowi Why no comment? I’m not currently a SAHM- I have no kids. I just know that I enjoy working and get antsy being in the house too much to think that I’d enjoy being a SAHM or ever want to be one. I also was sucessfully raised by a working mother. While I think it’s important to have a SAHP for at least a year, I know that I personally would not want to do it beyond that point if I had the option of working- especially if I was working part-time or had a decent amount of downtime to spend with my child.

@rockstargrrrlie – if I may ask: Are you currently happily married??

@denidowi No, I am not. I am currently in a long-term relationship.

So when you say you “were successfully raised by a working mother”, in what sense “successfully”??

@denidowi Dude, what do you think it means? It means her mother worked, yet despite that..@rockstargrrrlie is successful in life, and it had no ill effect on her whatsoever. I’m all for staying at home if you want to, but not everyone wants to..and that’s the beauty of parenting. You do it as you see fit and people can mind their own business.

I don’t… Rockstar made her statemnt, I think she needs to clarify
People use that term in ALL MANNER of references!

@denidowi It means exactly what @casheroo said. My mother went to work (as a special education elementary school teacher) and I went to daycare. Once I was in elementary school, we did a before and after school program. I excelled in school and went onto college, and I’m a happy, well-adjusted individual. I adore my mother and have had a terrific relationship with her my entire life. Despite working, my mother spent a lot of time with both my sister and myself.

I think “successfully raised” means your children can look back and say that they are proud of the job you did as a parent and feel that they turned out all right as a result of your efforts. That’s how I feel about both of my parents.