Are You/Will You Be: Staying at Home or Going to Work or Something In-Between?

Jazibel

I'm starting this post because I've be struggling with what to do in the coming months and I was wondering what other families are doing in terms of childcare? There are so many different options, and reasons for pursuing those options that EV and I really struggle with how to best raise our kids.

I've been a Stay-At-Home mom for the last 19 months, and I love my son, spending the days with him and watching him grow up.  BUT... I've realized that I am becoming more and more depressed.  It's not all related to being home for sure - but that is part of it. For me this might not be the right fit for the long run, and in all honesty wasn't our "long-term plan".  We are struggling financially to live on one income. That said with another baby due in the end of April, I'm not sure how or when I'll be able to get back to work and what that will look like.

So - what is your family doing, or want to do?  Both in the ideal world and in reality.  For instance ideally I'd love a job where I could work PT away from home and be home PT.  And make a million bucks ;-)  If I find that job I will definitely tell everyone here!!  But it's likely that whatever our future holds it will look different than that.

Louswife

I will be going to school FT ( or nearing the end. ) And working PT. My wife will be stay at home mommy : )

kboydbowman

I'm a graduate student toward the end of my program.  The first year after the birth of said baby is devoted to working on my dissertation and applying for internship, then the next year is internship, which is a full-time thing.  I do have the option to push that back by one year if I want though.  During the dissertation year I will also probably be working part-time (part of which will be home-based).

In an ideal world?  I work and my wife is the SAHM.

StacyLH24

We would continue life as it is now. We both work full time and we couldn't afford for either of us to stay home. I suppose we could find a way, but I'd rather not be constantly strapped for money. We've been there and I would rather not make a choice that puts us back there.

Part of me would love to be a stay at home Mom. I carry our health insurance though and will have NYS Retirement when I retire...it would be incredibly stupid for me to give up either of those things. We are hoping my Mom would provide daycare four days a week.

YBnormal85

I will be a SAHM, Linda will work full time. As a nanny it didn't make sense for me to go back to work once the baby arrives and pay to have someone else watch my children. Perhaps I would have the option to bring my little one along to work but honestly I just don't want to have to split my attention between my nanny kids and my own child. We live as simply as possible so living on one income should be fine. I have raised other peoples children for years...I'm ready to focus on my own

YBnormal85

@wallace323 I am excited to have a fellow SAHM near by The cost of day care as a concern totally makes sense. I have a fellow nanny friend who has her kids in day care and aftercare so she can nanny 8-6, by the time the childcare is paid she is making only about $100 a week! :-(

YBnormal85

@wallace323 Yes, totally understandable. Yes! I look forward to it.

Louswife

I am also a nanny!!

YBnormal85

@Louswife Aw really?! I just left my kiddos in Sept, it seemed like a good time to transition a new nanny in since I was unable to commit to my nanny family until May ( I am due in April). I miss my boys so much, even more so around the holidays when we would be busy baking, crafting and decorating. How many charges do you have?

Mystjava

I'm SAHM also, but there are times I wish I had a part time job teaching math or ASL. It's tough finding a job here where they have zero interest in hiring a deaf teacher. I might reconsider when my LO gets to school age. I love being with him right now.

healz413

@Manada really wants to be a SAHP and I want that for her and our imaginary hopefully someday real kids. But a lot is up in the air right now. It almost certainly won't happen for the first year of our first kid's life. I'm still working on my dissertation so M is our primary income earner. I'm trying to get stuff done on the dissertation but infertility has taken a huge toll on us and on my productivity for the last year. When I do finish, a lot will depend on my job options--both whethe I can get a tenure-track job and whether that is in Toronto (expensive cost of living) or somewhere smaller and where housing costs are lower. So we will see.

redrockmama

We will both keep working full time. My wife wanted one of us to be able to stay home but it would be hard to swing it financially and then there is the whole cost in getting back into a job once you have been gone a while. We are planning on getting an nanny and even better nanny sharing. We have a few months to figure it out. It's also likely that I will be working from one one day a week and my wife 2 days a week so that'd be nice. 

ATXmommas

Z and I will both continue to work full time. Quality child care is super expensive, but not to the point where it would make sense to give up an income. Also, neither if us wants to. We both enjoy our work and have professional goals and ambitions. I do wish I had more than 12 weeks off. I think I would like to be able to take 6 months off like HBM.

Ash will be going to center based child care. We visited several day care centers and had a really good feeling when we ended our tour. And, their compliance record is pretty spotless. They were actually on the less expensive end at the ones we looked at, which ranged from about $975-1400/mo.

GoaliesWife123

I will be staying home and my wife will continue working full time. This is something we both want. If we need to, I have the ability to work from home and take on clients as needed, but we aren't depending on that as income at all. Neither of us were ever put in daycare, and we like the idea of continuing that as well. 

trisholio

I will be staying at home with our future children.  I was also a nanny and was changing families earlier this year and decided to do in home child care instead.  It pays MUCH less, but it gives me more flexibility with my time and all of my TTC appointments.  Also when we have our own kiddos I will already be at home and they will be exposed to other children without being in a daycare.  We also just became licensed foster parents and are waiting on our first placement.  That was another big reason why I decided to do in home care, so we could have foster children.  

I have a solutions to everyone's problem.  Let's just build a big commune, a few of us will stay "at home" and watch the kids and everyone else go out and work!  haha

trisholio

Jazibel I understand wanting to have a job outside of the home.  Earlier this year I worked part time at a restaurant and then childcare before and after school for an autistic boy.  It was a chaotic day, but I enjoyed having "adult" time outside of the house.  Plus it was fun to have stories to tell my wife that didn't include kids, poop or vomit.

herbabymama you response about your MIL made me laugh.  i have had shorter hair styles most of my life and it requires a lot of "product".  So much that my wife hates cleaning the bathroom most because there is residue on everything! I respect people and wanting to live a chemical free lifestyle, it just made me realize how far from that our life is!

aslmander

i would love to be a SAHM but right now we need both of our incomes, which my salary is larger than hers so if i had to make a decision right now it would have to be we'd both work and have to utilize child care. But S/O is in school and actually in the process of taking tests for a new job what would almost tripple her salary! so if she gets that then i could stay home and she'd work full time:)

ball.and.chain

Good conversation starter, @Jazibel! (I know you weren't asking just for conversational purposes, but it's interesting to see what everyone's plans are).

We will both continue working full time after parental leave, which will be 12w for me and 2w plus a 1w vacation later on for my wife. Cost of living is very high here and although our lifestyle is not extravagant, it would be a stretch to afford our mortgage, car payment, student loan payments, etc on one salary (most people I know around here who can make it work have one spouse working a high-income job in law, finance, etc). Our salaries are within $10k of each other, and although mine is lower, I have such superior health insurance and other benefits (like 12 days of free back-up daycare per year, unlimited sick time, etc) that my job is in some ways more valuable to us. At one time I thought I would have liked to be a SAHM (mostly because I'm kind of a control freak and wanted to be the one taking care of my children), but I realized at some point that I like my job, I like my co-workers, I like working with and talking to adults, I like being in the city every day, and I like the time to myself that I get commuting. As much as I want a child, I am not really a "kid person," and I will gladly entrust my child to someone who is better equipped to care for them 40h a week. I don't think being a SAHM would be beneficial to my mental health and well-being, but I'm still a little jealous of those who can do it.

The hitch is that the Boston area has the highest-cost daycare in the country, owing to MA having the most stringent daycare regulations and a high cost of living on top of that. This means that the standards of care are excellent, but MAN is it expensive (my research has shown that the average annual cost of infant daycare here is $17,000. You can see why I was rather terrified of having twins -- and pretty relieved that I'm not)! We are actually starting to look at daycares now (and I'm curious, for those whose kiddos are enrolled in daycare, at what point in your pregnancy you started looking? @ATXMommas?). My mom friends all recommended home-based daycares, and they are cheaper, so we are focusing on that, but with my long commute it is going to come down to convenience as well (plus, you know, quality of care and safety). I'm hoping we can find a place that will let us pay for just 4 days a week, since my wife has a weekday off.

My ideal would probably be to have a FT job I could do entirely from home. I would still send my kids to daycare, but I'd have a bit more flexibility in terms of drop-off and pick-up, and I wouldn't have a long commute that would steal time away from them.

lamaitresse

I'm self-employed and work from home already; Smurf works full-time as an engineer. She will likely take some parental leave from work, but I will transition from being a Stay At Home Wife to a Stay At Home Mum LOL

Jazibel

Thanks Everyone for sharing your plans and solutions.  :-)

EV and I had originally talked about me staying home while the kids were young and then going back to work. We really liked the idea of one of us raising them for the first couple/few years.  Financially however its been a struggle, and now seems like an impossibility. I've been wracking my brain to come up with careers, childcare options, etc. to pursue.  With two kids needing care the difference between childcare and my old salary is not that great.  A friend has requested my help to start a small business and we're meeting for a second time this weekend -  I hope. Something like this would be ideal, because I could start now, and perhaps work part-time from home.  On the other hand I'm pretty sure I wouldn't make a salary until the business launched and we haven't discussed what that would be - AND I'd potentially need childcare right away.

I've been holding the intention for the last several months that I need to make money and that I want to work.  I've been pretty lonely at home, especially having moved from our friends and community (2+ hours away).  That, being broke and pregnancy hormones has me feeling overwhelmed a lot.  But - now that one potential situation is lining up I'm getting freaked out about how we'll handle things logistically. 

It's inspiring to see all of the different options :-).

ATXmommas

@ball.and.chain - I would recommend to start looking as soon as you feel comfortable. It's one of the most overwhelming and big decisions you will make during pregnancy.

I started by narrowing down the zip codes where it would be feasible to drop off/pick up without going too much out of my. Then I went to the state run child care search website (not sure if MA has something similiar) to view the center's compliance history. That narrowed down the list quite considerably. Then I started scheduling visits. We ended up visiting about 6 in all. The one we ended up feeling most comfortable with is a smaller center - I think the total capacity is around 50 or 60 and the infant capacity is 8. We visited some larger centers, but felt more comfortable with the smaller setting.

I work for Child Care Licensing, the regulatory agency for child care centers and homes, so I have a bit if a different perspective. When you are looking, definitely ask for the compliance history of the center/home. If it isn't publicly available online, call your local licensing office and request it. Also, make sure to speak with the director/principal if it are looking at a center. Some of our tours were given by one of the staff, but it's important to speak to the person who is in charge. Finally, trust your gut.

Although it may not be absolutely necessary to start looking so early to secure a spot, you never know. We're actually on a wait list because the center we chose is smaller. Also, you don't want to feel rushed to make such a big decision.

Karlamo

Our plan is to have my wife take 12 weeks maternity and I take 4 weeks off. After that she's going back to work full time 4 days in the office 1 day at home and I'll work part time, 3 days a week. Baby will be in daycare 2 days a week, which we can live with. So we'll be on 1 1/2 salaries which at the moment sounds doable.
@ball.and.chain. Being in Boston we heard horror stories of being wait listed, not getting a spot etc. We started calling around at 12 weeks and got our deposit down right away once we found one we liked. We went with a home daycare in our town and is the place our accupunturist reccomended and uses so we trust it.
You're right about the prices, they are mortage payments unto themselves!

Louswife

Kids? I have two that I care for during the week and one during the weekends and I'm in call as well through an agency!!

Louswife

Sorry I should have said that's for ybnormal

ball.and.chain

ATXmommas said:

I started by narrowing down the zip codes where it would be feasible to drop off/pick up without going too much out of my. Then I went to the state run child care search website (not sure if MA has something similiar) to view the center's compliance history. That narrowed down the list quite considerably. Then I started scheduling visits. We ended up visiting about 6 in all. The one we ended up feeling most comfortable with is a smaller center - I think the total capacity is around 50 or 60 and the infant capacity is 8. We visited some larger centers, but felt more comfortable with the smaller setting. I work for Child Care Licensing, the regulatory agency for child care centers and homes, so I have a bit if a different perspective. When you are looking, definitely ask for the compliance history of the center/home. If it isn't publicly available online, call your local licensing office and request it. Also, make sure to speak with the director/principal if it are looking at a center. Some of our tours were given by one of the staff, but it's important to speak to the person who is in charge. Finally, trust your gut. Although it may not be absolutely necessary to start looking so early to secure a spot, you never know. We're actually on a wait list because the center we chose is smaller. Also, you don't want to feel rushed to make such a big decision.

Thanks -- this is all super helpful advice.  I think the compliance history is online, but I will have to check.

I actually originally thought I had plenty of time to look at daycare, and then someone posted on PAIF about when to start and several people said they called AS SOON AS THEY GOT THEIR BFP.  I was shocked.  I think that is probably a little extreme (and I'm sorry but as a double-loss lady, that would NEVER happen), but it made me realize I should look sooner rather than later.  I did email a home daycare with an excellent location last week to ask about the wait list and how far in advance I should consider securing a spot; her answer was kind of noncommittal (as in it's hard to know but let's meet and talk about it) so I'm still not really sure but I'm glad we're starting.  I think I'm going to go check her out after the holidays and start figuring out who else I want to contact in the meantime.  @karlamo, I am glad to see you started at 12w and got one you liked because I am still under 11w -- makes me feel like we are still doing OK!

healz413

It is a not-that-unrealistic joke in Toronto that when you get a positive pregnancy test, (if there are two people involved) one person gets on the phone to the midwife and one person gets on the phone to the day care. Spots are limited in both here. But I can't imagine we will be confident enough in a pegnancy sticking until at least after seeing/hearing the heartbeat to make those calls ...

Mystjava

Wow! Makes me want to reconsider opening a tutoring center/safe center for children... can I dream?

shelly2314

Our plan for our imaginary hopefully someday real kids (stole this from @healz413) is evolving. I would love to be a SAHM for at least a year or two, but we don't want to be strapped for cash. M is considering taking the lieutenant boards in Feb if we end up pregnant.  This way I would work from 7:30am-3pm and she would work 3pm-3am. Not ideal for our life together but could save us some money on daycare for a bit then by the time our baby is old enough to go to preschool, M could switch to day shift and we could get back to us as well.

If not that then I'm not sure what we will do. Would love to give birth either two months before school is out so I would have 4 full months free and clear.

 

Fingers crossed that we will get our BFP this time so we can really start to worry about this

Pinkspark

ball.and.chain said:

The hitch is that the Boston area has the highest-cost daycare in the country, owing to MA having the most stringent daycare regulations and a high cost of living on top of that. This means that the standards of care are excellent, but MAN is it expensive (my research has shown that the average annual cost of infant daycare here is $17,000. You can see why I was rather terrified of having twins -- and pretty relieved that I'm not)! 

*cries softly at her desk* 

We're using an at home daycare with someone I've known for years and trust with my life (And my kids obviously).. I'm hoping to work from home, as well as my wife for one day a week to cut back on daycare costs for the twins.. >_<

unoriginal

I am on an extended maternity leave but will be going back to work in March. I am so lucky to have my mom nearby. She will watch both of the kids. Bean is so close with them...it really is wonderful and makes it so much easier for me to go to work everyday.

Neuron79

My wife and I will both continue to work full time. We are both neuropsychologists and part-time gigs are just not going to fly. Just discovered daycare is $19,000 which is definitely some sticker shock!!!