Being a Stay at Home Mom is an interesting endeavor. I have gotten praise for doing “the hardest job in the world” and ridicule for being “just a mom.” In reality, neither of those characterizations is fair. Anybody who classifies running a house and raising a child as being “just a mom” or “not a real job” has clearly never tried it. In my experience, odds are they are also a jerk, so this type of comment tends to put one on my People To Avoid list. On the other hand, I am certain that there are quite a few jobs that are harder than staying at home to raise my own offspring.
The choice to stay at home is a very personal one with a lot of factors, and every parent has to make that choice for themselves. I can only speak on my own choices. I never really had a huge amount of career ambition, but I always wanted a family, and I didn’t see the point in paying somebody else to raise my children. I am sure that stay at home parenting is not the right choice for everybody, and that’s fine.
What I do want to address is the myth that you have to have two incomes to raise a family these days. Now, I don’t mean that EVERYONE can get by on one income, or that even if you can, that you should. My point is that in a lot of cases, having one parent stay home with the kids is an option, if you want it.
When people hear that I stay at home, a common question is, “Wow, what does your husband do that allows you to be so lucky?” When they hear that my husband is a teacher, people are always surprised that we can get by on such a “meager income.” His paychecks are $3800 a month after deductions (not really meager at all.) We pay $1600 a month toward debt payments. So, we actually live on $2200 a month. I have a friend who, until a recent job promotion, was getting by on significantly less than our $2200 a month. We have enough money to pay the utilities, rent (which is admittedly low) and put food on the table. We even have enough to have an occasional night out. What we can’t afford is to go out of town every weekend, go out to eat every night, or buy new décor every few months. I often think about what we could do with that $1600 a month, if we hadn’t racked up all of this stupid debt, but if we can stay on track, we will be able to answer that question in a year or two!
Of course, if you have debt, it will add to the amount of money you need to make ends meet every month, but even with debt, you might be better off with one parent home. We considered having me go back to work to help pay off our debt, but for our family, that would almost cost us money. I have been out of the work force for over a decade, and when I worked I did serving and retail jobs, which don’t pay a lot. Presuming I could even find a job, I would likely get minimum wage. If I worked full time, we would have to pay for child care, if I worked nights, we would save on child care, but I would be tired (and crabby) and wouldn’t have as much time to do a lot of the money saving things I have been doing. For my family, the money we save by cooking at home, making our bread and cleaning supplies and other things is more beneficial than the small paycheck I would get if I had a “real job.”
In order for me to stay home with the kids, we have sacrificed a lot of things that many families consider important, like cable TV. We don’t have the latest gadgets or electronics and we don’t go on a lot of vacations. We decided that these things were less important than having me home with the kids. There is no magic solution that allows one parent to stay home and still allows for all of the luxuries (unless, the other parent has a very high paying job.) Choices will have to be made, and in most cases living on one income will involve sacrifices. If having a parent at home is something you desire, it is worth really crunching the numbers, seeing what you could live without, and then deciding if those sacrifices are worth it for your family.
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