Stay at Home vs. Stay at Work Mom

My career allows me the best of both worlds. I have summers off, and also had an extended maternity leave due to my summer vacation falling just three months after my daughter was born. Being at home for five months gave me much time to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of stay at home vs. stay at work moms. I thought I would share what I have discovered through personal experience and professional books I have read.

Advantages of Stay at Home Moms:

~Spend lots of time with your kids

~Breastfeeding is much easier

~Appointments are easier to make

~Easier for your child to attend preschool programs (No transportation worries!)

~Dinner preparations are easier

~Get to see all your child's "firsts"

~Flexible schedule for traveling, lunch dates, meeting up with friends/playdates, etc.

~No childcare costs while you are at work

Disadvantages of Stay at Home Moms:

~Children have less social interactions with others (THIS IS A HUGE ONE!)

~Children have less social interactions with adults other than mom

~Long days while the hubby is away at work

~Moms who previously had a career may miss the professional escape

~Mom may feel obligated to cook, clean, do laundry, and other household projects all by herself

~"Quantity" of time together doesn't equal "quality".

~Mom may miss social interactions with old coworkers or other people from professional life

~In my experience, stay at home moms tend to "lose touch with reality" about their working mom friend's lives. They expect that you have time for hour long phone calls or playdates during the week.

Advantages of Stay at Work Moms:

~Maintain a sense of self other than "mom".

~Provide income for family to maintain a living

~Professional relationships stay in tact.

~Become better at time management as your time is much more precious

~Become a better balancer of work and family, even if you don't feel like it.

~Quality time spent becomes much better than just the quantity of time spent.

~Set a good example for your children that you are motivated to succeed and provide for your family

~Giving your child the opportunity to play with others and develop social skills that are crucial for growing

~Forming a bond with other stay at work moms. Trust me, they can relate!

~Husband and wife take responsiblity for the child rearing and house keeping duties. Husband and wife are more equal for doing this.

Disadvantages of Stay at Work Moms:

~Childcare costs

~Not a flexible schedule for scheduling doctor appointments, etc.

~Missing work for sick kids

~Being run down and tired ALL the time

~Stay at Home mom friends not understanding your life (even if they used to work full time!)

~Losing touch with stay at home mom friends because lives are busy and so different

~Harder to enroll your child in preschool because of transportation issues for half day preschool programs

~Missing out on a child's "firsts" and not spending as much time with them as you would like to

As for me, I go back and forth on the stay at home vs stay at work thing. When I'm not working (summer vacation or having 5 months off for maternity leave) I realize how important it is for my son to have social interactions with others. He needs and thrives on the discipline, schedule, and peer interactions that daycare provides. I didn't always think this. After I had my son, I didn't want to go back to work...ever. But it does get easier. I pumped for one full year for my son, and am five months shy of meeting that milestone with my daughter. After pumping, you start to realize that kids do need social interaction and time away from you. It is so important for developing social skills. When I'm not working, I get restless and feel like I've lost a part of myself. When I am working, I wish that I weren't so that life could be easier.

This is a personal decision that every mom needs to make. Moms shouldn't look down on other moms for the choice to stay at work or stay at home. It really tends to ruin relationships. Stay at home moms need to remember that stay at work moms are incredibly driven to provide for their families, set a good example, and do the best they can. Stay at work moms know that stay at home moms have a tough job as well. The days can get long lonely, especially if you alienate people by choosing not to discipline your child or provide a stimulating environment for your child. Nobody wants to have playdates with people like that. Stay at home moms bear the burden of raising the children and taking care of the house. Stay at work moms don't mind if their homes are a little dirty at times. :)

Opportunity of a Lifetime

So in less than a few months, I went from being a stay at home mom to a mom who got her job back. I was very excited to have my job, but was really worrying about how I was going to handle pumping at work, a new school, and taking care of a three year old and infant. My worries would soon be diminished. In my situation, it took quitting my job to get noticed for my efforts. On Aug. 1st, I received a phone call from our director of personnel about a new position that had been created due to a grant. The job was brand new and I would help to shape it. It is basically a literacy support position for three Title One schools in our district that don't qualify for extra teachers like our other Title One schools do. Since I had worked in a Title One school for eight years, they thought that I would be a good fit for the job. I would travel to three schools on a rotating schedule and work with Kindergarten through Second Grade students on guided reading and other literacy related skills. This is pretty much my dream job. I get to spend all day focusing on the at-risk reading students in a small group to even 1-1 setting. I jumped on this opportunity, knowing that if the grant money ran out in a few years, I would still have a position in the district. My worries about going back to the classroom while pumping and with young kids had vanished. I was one lucky woman. My new job allows me to set my own schedule, pump when I need to (for the most part), and also not have to worry about sub plans if my kids are sick, which seems to be often!

Unbelievable

Well, it has been a few months since I posted. We have had an insane summer. We sold our house in May. We received our financial aid package for PhD school for my husband. It was crap. Since we both have full time jobs and on paper (via our 2010 tax return) we make good money, we did not qualify for much in the federal loan department. Private loans had interest rates of 10-20%. After four hours of discussing our future, we made the painstaking decision to call off the whole PhD school thing. Let the freak out begin! We sold our house, so we had less than one month to find a place to live. We didn't want to buy right away, so that meant we had to find a DECENT house to rent. Much harder than we realized. Luckily, a friend stepped in and saved the day. Next up was me trying to get my job back. I called my former principal (I had literally been released from my contract for one week). I reapplied and she told me that she would contact our personnel director to explain the situation. One week after I applied, I got called in for a "formality" interview. I had to go buy a damn suit! What a mess. I interviewed and was offered a different position in the district...first grade at a different school. I jumped on it immediately, eager to begin working for my old principal. I felt much better and was so thankful that my district had offered to rescind my resignation due to the circumstances. Next up was moving, finding a new babysitter (since our old one decided to retire), and finishing my grad class, all while juggling a 3 year old and a new baby.