To work or not to work (Working Mums vs. Stay at Home Mums)

Member Name: dibuzz

Product:	Working Mums vs. Stay at Home Mums
Date:	27/08/01 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: can watch your kids grow up, can spend more time with your kids, always there when they need you

Disadvantages: don't earn extra money, no break from the kids

I am a stay at home mum, partly through circumstances beyond my control but also because I wanted to spend the early years of my children's life looking after them myself

At one time it was the working mums who felt guilty but now it has changed. I always feel I have to make excuses for being a stay at home mum.

I am an only child so have no sisters to help out with child care. My mother is still working so she can't help either. Because of the hours my husband works we can't work it between us. The main problem is that we have 4 kids and child care is beyond our financial reach. I would have to have a very skilled full time job to make it worthwile. I would also need regular time off for various hospital appointments for 3 of my kids.

I am now in the minority at my children's school as most of the mothers work at least part time and am sometimes made to feel inferior.

Although I would love to work part time now the kids are getting older I just can't manage it as child care is so expensive and there is no one who can help out. My eldest is now 13 but I feel that is too young to have such a responsibility (although many kids at the local school are looked after by older siblings sometimes with disastrous results).

Now I've got my guilt out of the way must say that I love being a full time mum. My kids do lots of activities which they couldn't if I was working in the evenings or holiday time.

A girl at my daughter's school had great problems mixing as both her parents worked 12 hour days and she went to 3 different nurseries. She could speak French and German at 5 but she couldn't play with the other kids as the nurseries were very expensive ones which didn't believe in play. It took 2 years and a lot of hard work from the teachers for her to adjust.

I enjoy the time spent with my kids. I get all the housework and washing done while they are at school so I
can spend the time with them when they come home. If they need help with homework or a lift to an activity they know they only have to ask. I enjoy watching my kids play rugby. There are only 3 of us who watch as the others all go home to do the dishes or the tea or the washing.

Sometimes my kids come home and ask why I don't go to work because then we would have more money and could go on holiday like their friends but I explain that my job is to look after them and if I worked outside the home they would gain money but lose the time we have for all their activities.

Often when they are fighting or being naughty I think it would be easier at work but I know that for me and my family being a stay at home mum is right.

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