going back to work

Before my son was born, I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, that is, until he was born. I will openly admit to NOT being a baby person. When my son was two months old, I reclaimed my part-time contract gig for about 10 hours of work a week. It was something fun (OK, survey analysis is never fun, but it different than breastfeeding and poopy diapers) for me to do in the after hours that gave me a sense of being "me" still. But soon I was pregnant again and trying to keep up with a baby and my little bit of contract work. I could see this would be a challenge. (Side note: I remember dropping off the project near the end of my second pregnancy and the director of the school saying "Last time I saw you, you were about this pregnant. Wasn't that last year?" Hardy har har.)

When Anna was born, I wasn't sure how I could handle freelance work, but I was ready to go back when she was about 6 weeks old. (Seriously, I needed wanted to escape the chaos of everyday life.) But when I sat down to do the numbers, it didn't make sense for me to go back. Childcare in Sweden before the age of one is pricey, and Alex didn't have a preschool slot. Paying childcare for two "babies" wasn't cheap or worth me even working. So I took another part time work from home job--working nights and naptimes.

In the research for our book, we discovered that many women "baby bunched" for this reason. It's easier to hop off the career track, have two babies right in a row, take two years off, then go back. This way you haven't missed out on too much time and can essentially keep your contacts.

Funny enough, this is the way MANY Europeans and Canadians do it with their lengthy maternity leaves. Have baby. Take year off. Get pregnant during that year. Have another baby. Get another year off. Go back to work with job waiting. The Europeans have the Baby Bunching down to an art form by working the system. Way to go Ladies!

But here I am with a four and three-year old and so ready to head back to work. For me, we come back to the money. I am one year away of my oldest starting kindergarten, which means free childcare during the day + my youngest will be able to go to 5-day preschool at that point. So, waiting one more years, means I can go back to working part time without the high cost of childcare. In the meantime, I'm trying to continue the blogging and freelance writing to at least "keep up my game."

So the question is when to head back to work. Does it make sense to wait until your kids are a little older and childcare is cheaper? I imagine the decision to go back is similar one that moms to twins face. Daycare for twins is probably pretty pricey. Daycare for Baby Bunchers isn't going to be much better until they are a bit older. It's a hard call to make sometimes. I'm curious how other moms handled this decision.

Comments

[Kate]

For me - I would have given ANYTHING to stay home with my first. But we couldn't afford it. So I went back to work. Then 1.5 years later when I had the twins, I really wanted to go back to work so that my children would have a better quality of life. Yes - that's right. Their day at daycare is FAR better than the day they would have with me at home. I know stay/work at home moms would argue this point with me - but here is how I saw it:

My first son LOVED his daycare. His teacher was like a second mother and it was the only thing that DIDN'T change in his first three months of being a 18 month old big brother to twins. The transition for him was SO hard, and I'm certain that those eight hours at daycare five days a week helped him get through it.

Then after having to do a few stints as a single mom to three under three while my husband traveled for business - I realized that it would be a long time before we could all leave the house (1 adult/3 babies) and have any sense of safety. Even at age three, I can't trust my oldest to stay next to me in public places. And the triple stroller wasn't going to work for us for too many boring reasons to list. When I was home alone with the kids - we were all miserable. So I was thankful that they had a fun, safe place to go every day and play with their friends.

Now that they're starting get get older, I can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can actually drag everyone over to the nearby tot lot with out having minute-to-minute heart attacks when they run in three different directions. It can be harrowing - but it's much more doable.

So I guess I'd only be willing to be a stay at home mom once my kids are school age - and by then I'll be home without them for large portions of the day....

It's kind of a Catch 22 for me.

[mswobblybits]

I am almost done with my early childhood education degree so I can be a teacher at a daycare or Montessori school and bring my girls to work with me. (Age 18 months and second due in Oct). Its the only way I see going to work I would make any money if they get the daycare discount. I love staying home but I HATE being dependant on myhusband for every dollar and feel powerless when I bring in no income. I worry if I need to walk out or something happens to him or he decided to runaway to Las Vegas and Become a gambling drunk (Ive read some stories) me and my girls would be totally screwed! So this is my best plan.

[Betsy]

I'm very curious to see everyone's comments since I'm on the opposite end of this right now. Our second child is due in a couple months and I'm still on the fence about whether to stay home or not. With our first, I never thought I would ever want to stay home but once he came into this world and I stayed home for a few months I had changed my mind. I would love to be home with him every day. At the time, I had no other option but to go back to work full time because we had not planned for it financially. This time we've planned for it but I'm still worried about what will happen to my career if I quit completely. Also, my son (22 months) loves his daycare and I'm worried that he will really miss it if I pull him out after baby #2 comes. I'm not sure how can I keep him busy enough and offer enough social interaction to fill the void. I thought about trying to work part time but the cost of daycare for 2 eats up a majority of what my part time salary would be so it seems kind of pointless other than to keep something on my resume. It is a really tough decision as many of you Moms know.

[Betsy]

I'm very curious to see everyone's comments since I'm on the opposite end of this right now. Our second child is due in a couple months and I'm still on the fence about whether to stay home or not. With our first, I never thought I would ever want to stay home but once he came into this world and I stayed home for a few months I had changed my mind. I would love to be home with him every day. At the time, I had no other option but to go back to work full time because we had not planned for it financially. This time we've planned for it but I'm still worried about what will happen to my career if I quit completely. Also, my son (22 months) loves his daycare and I'm worried that he will really miss it if I pull him out after baby #2 comes. I'm not sure how can I keep him busy enough and offer enough social interaction to fill the void. I thought about trying to work part time but the cost of daycare for 2 eats up a majority of what my part time salary would be so it seems kind of pointless other than to keep something on my resume. It is a really tough decision as many of you Moms know.

[Alison]

I have a 16 month old daughter and am expecting my second in 7 weeks. I will be returning to work FT after my 12 week maternity leave. For us, we still come out on top (by a little) after paying for two in daycare, and to be completely honest - I think I would make a terrible SAHM. When I was on maternity leave with my first I was counting the days until I went back to work towards the end. Now, if I could find a great PT job that would be ideal, but then you have to deal with finding PT daycare which is never easy. It's a tough decision, that's for sure.

[AmyS]

I am due with baby #3 in 7 weeks and my oldest boys are 18 months apart. I went back to work parttime when my oldest was 7 months old and we had family members watch him. I became pregnant 3 months after I started working. Our situation worked for us for that one year, but it was stressful. I worked as a part-time english as a second language teacher and the hardest part for me was leaving the mental "junk" behind. I had no problem saying good-bye to paperwork/referrals at the end of the day, but had a very hard time leaving the comments of teachers,administrators, parents and even my students behind. If I want to be up at night thinking about anything, I want it to be about my own kids, not someone else's. I do miss some parts of my job, especially the kids and working with second language parents, and I tutor to make up for those parts I truly miss. As for the other mental "junk", ADIOS to it all!!!!

[geekymummy]

We are fortunate that even paying for daycare we still come out in a favorable financial position. I was lucky to get my second into the same daycare as his sister. I remember when I first left her (at 3 months) I was so torn, and so unsure if it was the right thing to do. But I felt no qualms leaving her brother at the same age, I know the teachers so well and they were so excited to have him come to their class since they had seen me every day of my pregnancy, and had known him almost since birth, as i had been bringing him along when I picked up and dropped off my daughter. I kept her in daycare most days while i was on leave, for the continuity and because I would have had to pay to hold her place anyway. I feel very lucky to have found such great care for the kids. In an ideal world I'd be able to do the same work 30 hrs a week, and I envy the flexibility my UK family have, but we choose to stay here in the US for other reasons, so we make it work.

[Cara Fox]

I went part-time when my oldest was born and continued that way until I quit in March before #3 was born. Working part-time was the only thing that made financial sense, given what I made, even when my husband quit his job and went back to school full-time. Had I gone back full time, most of what I made would have gone to child care, commuting, taxes, etc. What made the part-time solution work for us was our nanny, who was dropped directly from heaven. We were lucky that she charged a reasonable rate, was willing to come to us, and had a fairly flexible schedule so that if needed to work alternate/additional days, she was frequently available. I'm fully aware that this is some kind of fantasy situation. Definitely with part time work, hiring an in-home provider is cheaper than going the daycare center rate, since part-time slots are impossible to find and often not that much cheaper than full time ones.

I hope to never go back full time. And having worked at home, I hope to never go back to an office, which I found just zapped my productivity compared to what I could get done holed up in my home office. In my dream world, I would gradually ramp back up peaking at about 30 hours once my youngest enters kindergarten. Of course, then comes the challenge of holding down a job that would probably essentially be full-time responsibilities in part-time hours (which is why I left my job in March). It's a constant struggle, no matter how you do it, I think.

But I must say that work was one of the many reasons I decided to have all of my children so close together. I really love what I do, and I do miss being fully engaged in it. I figured rather than drag out all the maternity leave and baby years, it was easier to do everything at once, focus on the kids now, and return focus to work when they all get a little older. We'll see how that works out for me - even my best laid plans tend to go awry - LOL.