To stay home or work...

I am totally for staying at home with kids. As the lady above me says, there may be financial reasons for working, but I believe that staying at home is the best thing. Of course kids need outside stimulation. I have always stayed at home with my kids, I'm glad I have done, not only because I feel better for doing it, but I sometimes compare my kids to those who have been left with childminders or in nurseries since they were babies and I can see how much farther advanced my children are. I'm not saying that's all because of them staying home with me but I don;t feel they would be the same people had I left them with someone else. Also, I don't understand why people have children if they aren't going to look after them themselves. I knw if I went to work now, we'd probably be financially worse off because all I would be doing is working to pay for child care. I think the only real advantage of working while your kids are little is that you might have a bit of extra cash. I would rather bring my kids up with the basics and spend quality time with them than to be able to buy them everything. I worked a full-time job when my oldest child was 2. I left him with my sister while I worked from 8am til 5pm. I hated it and only did that for 2 weeks because I couldn't bare leaving him all day. I felt he was missing out on all the things I should be doing with him.

I was a working Mum but that was due to circumstances of needing the money so we could keep our farm and allow our son to grow up in the country. However had our circumstances been different, my choice would have been to be a stay at home Mother. However I did manage to come to an arrangement with my employer which allowed me to go to those special events for our son that related to school, Chapel service, plays, school assembly, sports days etc. The advantages of working are that parents can afford to give the children things that they might not be able to afford without that extra income. I don't mean material things, except perhaps for a house or in our case stay on the farm and allow him to grow up in the country. The disadvantages are unless you have an understanding employer you miss out on things like sports days etc. Also the time you do have with them is lessened considerably. I used to phone home every afternoon when he arrived home from school and tell our son a story and this went on for a couple of years till he outgrew it. Also I made sure that we had quality time together in that I used to read to/with him every night as well as play games like monopoly, draughts etc.