Any working moms already dreading going back to work?

Re: Any working moms already dreading going back to work?

• highbornhunter member

  May 2014

  This is going to be a bit of a ramble, this has been on my mind constantly lately.

  
  

  DH and I are seriously debating this at the moment.  Daycare in our area is expensive, and I don't make THAT much more than the cost of it. We have some number crunching to do to see if it's workable for me to stay at home with LO with LO and me going on DH's benefits.  Literally, just today though, I got an email at work that they are posting a new internal position.  If I got that and it was a decent bump in pay, that might be enough to sway things the other way.  I've considered what it would do to me future job-wise to stay at home for awhile. I've always worked with the exception of two very brief periods of unemployment since college.  I'm used to having my own money and making my own decisions about how to spend it. Not a lot changed when I moved in with DH and when we got married.  We both had our own bills and took turns paying for going out, and I'd mostly pay for groceries since he's got the mortgage and all the big bills.  Part of me is afraid if I am not working that I'll have to beg DH for money.  This fear is entirely based on my first marriage, my ex would have LOVED to have that kind of absolute power over me.  DH is not like that.  He would be encouraging me to get out there and try to teach more Zumba classes so I would have some money coming in, but could still be home with LO as much as possible.  That fear is butting up against the desire to be at home with my kid(s), we already know we want more than 1.  We can probably swing daycare for 1 infant, but for an infant and a toddler in another year or two?  Probably not.  Of course I could be making money up until there was definitely a 2nd kid in the picture.  But being there for my family is more important to me than working.  I'm not a ladder climber.  My parents ran their own business and my mom was always with us during the day, and sometimes she'd take us to my dad's shop.  That's the example I have of how I want things to work.  DH's parents live close and certainly could and would help, but neither he or I wants to ask them to take on an infant full time.  They are both older and my MIL just retired last year.  It's one thing to ask them to occasionally watch their grandchild if we want a night out or if I am teaching Zumba for a few hours a week, and a whole other thing to ask them to watch an infant 40+ hours a week.

  
  

  Long story short (too late!) I am about 95% sure I will be going back to work about 12 weeks after LO is born, and I am 95% sure I'd prefer not to.    

  
  

  

  
  

  N14 January Siggy Challenge - What Sucks About Work

  
  

  
  

  Report1 Reply