Recently I read a HuffPost article about regrets about being a stay-at-home mom. It was a good article about the long-term economic, social, and psychological costs of leaving a career to stay at home and raise children. (You can find the article here.) The comments after the article come from many different perspectives.
Is it a good idea for a mother or a father to stay home full time to raise children?
There is no simple answer. If you leave the paid work force, you know that you are giving up your wages and your benefits for a time, but you may not realize what the long-term implications of your decision will be. If you stay employed, day care is expensive, especially if you have more than one child. It can be hard to trust an individual or a day care center to take good care of your young children. On the other hand, taking even ten years off from your career can make your skills and connections almost obsolete when you want to return to earning money and/or doing work that is meaningful to you. Being economically dependent on your spouse comes with risks — sometimes huge risks for both parents if they later find that they cannot sustain their marriage.
For most of my life as a parent of one or more minor children, I believed that working part time was my best option. When working full time, I was usually too exhausted and too stressed to enjoy my time with my kids. Staying home full time was almost never possible. Our family needed me to be contributing economically, both when I was married and when I was a single parent. In some ways I was very lucky. With a Ph.D. in Psychology, I could get part-time work helping with other people’s research projects. I could get part-time work as a counselor in a group psychotherapy practice. I could work part-time as a researcher and later work in the IT department of a large addiction treatment agency. In some fields, finding part-time work is difficult or impossible, so I know how lucky I was. Even so, it is very difficult to advance in your career field when working less than full time.
One of my daughters is staying home full time with her first baby now. I think her whole family will be fine. Her marriage is strong and healthy, she is a good mom, her husband is a good dad, they postponed having a child until they were sure they could live comfortably on just his income, and both of them are happy with the decisions they have made about roles in their family.
For other moms, and for other dads, staying home to take care of the kids would not be the best choice. They would hate leaving the challenges and social interactions of the workplace. They would be bored living in a child-focused world where the most exciting thing that happened this month is that the baby started crawling.
Some parents who are healthy and energetic can do well working full time AND being highly involved in their children’s lives. Both of my parents did that.
Parents who stay at home with the kids are indeed working. Parents who have full time jobs outside the home can be terrific parents. I hope we can respect each other’s choices. Comments welcome.
The author, Virginia Colin, is a Professional Family Mediator certified by the Virginia Supreme Court. She is not an attorney or a therapist.
