Being a stay-at-home-mom is an amazing experience, and I would say to anyone who wants to be a SAHM and has the opportunity to do it should go for it. That’s not to say that being a working mom is a bad thing, or that staying home is the best. Being a mother is always going to be the hardest job I have ever done, but also the most rewarding, whether I was working outside of the home or not.
If you do decide to become a stay-at-home parent try not to let other people’s opinions influence your decision. I lived a lot of my earlier SAHM mom years with a lot of extra stress and guilt on top of everything else that made my life at home a lot harder. Being a parent is not for the faint of heart, and making a choice to stay home can be difficult for different reasons.
Here are some of the reasons I decided to be a stay-at-home-mom:
- Economically, it makes sense- When I had a job, all of my paychecks went to child care. It made more sense for us to have me stay home with the kids and spend time with them. We were lucky enough to already be adjusted to one paycheck from my husband, so losing what tiny bit of income I brought in after daycare and after school care cost wasn’t a big loss to our family.
- Spending more time with my kids- As I said before when both my husband and I were working our kids were in childcare for at least 8-9 hours a day. Staying at home has let me spend more quality time with them, instead of feeling like all I did was get them ready to leave in the morning and put them to bed at night.
- Less stressful home life– I would never tell you that being at home all the time is a walk in the park, but it does give me a lot more flexibility with my schedule. During the summer I can do more activities with our kids on a whim and during the school year, I have time to run errands or things I enjoy during the week.
- You can always go back to work- If you decide to press pause on your career to stay home and realize it’s not for you, or you just come to a time in life where you need to go back to work it’s definitely doable. A lot more companies are open to hiring moms with a career gap now. There are also classes you can take from home or volunteer work to do that can be added to a resume during the time that you were away from the workforce. Also, there are so many places that are hiring people to work at home now, if you wanted you could have the best of both worlds by staying at home with your children, but also working.
- You just want to – Sometimes you don’t need to justify your reasons. A lot of parents choose to be at home because they want to. You don’t have to explain anything, it is your life and you get to decide what’s best for your family.
At the end of the day, whether you’re a working parent or a stay-at-home parent, we’re all doing our best, and I think that is really the most important thing we can do for our children in the long run.
