If you had a choice...

If you had a choice, would you:

  • Stay home and raise the kids

    Votes: 20 54.1%

  • Work part-time

    Votes: 16 43.2%

  • Work full-time and send the kids to daycare

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Total voters
    37
JabbaJawz

JabbaJawz

Be about it
kwillia said:
For me, it wasn't the infant years I really yearned to be an "at home mom"... it was the early elementary school years that got to me instead. I wanted to be a volunteer mom at the school, I wanted to go on every field trip (I did manage to make most of them!), I wanted to cook them homemade snacks for when they got off the bus (my daycare mom does this most days!), I wanted to give them undivided attention when it came to homework. Both my kids are pretty self-sufficient now, so I don't have those yearnings anymore, but I did from pre-k thru about third grade.
Click to expand...

Same here - I'd love to go part-time so that I could do more volunteering, etc...
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I think it's ideal if you can stay home with your kids when they're little - you miss so much. How would you like to have the babysitter see them take their first step, then have to tell you about it?

But, at the end of the day, no kid ever died from going to daycare instead of having Mommy home all day. At least not under normal circumstances. And I honestly don't see where daycare kids are any less developed than stay-at-home-Mom kids. You will actually suffer more by working and not staying home than the kid will.

So whatever works.
 
MargeInCharge

MargeInCharge

New Member
vraiblonde said:
I think it's ideal if you can stay home with your kids when they're little - you miss so much. How would you like to have the babysitter see them take their first step, then have to tell you about it?
Click to expand...

This happened to me once, but as the babysitter. I watched a little girl for a teacher before I had my own kids, in her home. Sort of a "live-out" nanny. Anyway, my husband worked about 1/2 mile away and had stopped by on his lunch break. Melissa, the little girl I watched, took her first steps to my husband that day. We were very excited (we both adored her--she was a doll), but I knew that her mother would be sad that she wasn't there to see it.

So, I had my husband stop by after work and he was there when Melissa's mother got home. While her mother had her, my husband held out his hands to see if she would walk to him again, and she did. Her mother was SO excited to see Melissa's "first steps", and we were excited for her. I never would have knowingly taken that from her. So anyway, when her mother put it in the baby book that Melissa took her first steps to my husband on that day, it was the truth :)

I am fortunate enough to be a full-time mom to our 2 kids. But I learned SO much from Melissa's mother. She worked full-time, but she was an excellent, involved mother. She was definitely a parenting "mentor" for me.

That said, your kids are only little once, so if you can be at home while they are little, I'd recommend it. There are so many milestones in the first few years. They grow so fast then.
 
fttrsbeerwench

fttrsbeerwench

New Member
I'm a single mom and when I had my oldest I went back to work when she was three weeks old.. I regret that alot because I missed out on EVERYTHING...I worked two jobs until she was nearly four.
When I had my son, I was hell-bent on being there for all those things I had missed with my daughter.. I worked part time at night. It has been wonderful.. My son and I are closer. It's been very tough but definatly worth it.
Now that he is 3. I think I can start working more hours.. So that I can be home in the evenings more with both kids.. He won't start school for another year but I am going to put him in daycare now, to ease the separation when he has to go to school. Plus, I think I'm ready to make more money and have more time for me..

Oddly, when I got a list of daycares in the area from the childcare resource center, I was kind of freaked out.. The list is 5 pages long.. And there's supposed to be a shortage????? Wow, that means that there are ALOT of folks who leave their kids in daycare.. It made me think about the quality of a childs upbringing.. How much their parents are missing.. I think it's really sad.. Even in two parent homes, most are having to go out and earn two incomes.. :ohwell: That sucks!
 
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