Stay at home mom vs paying for babysitter

amother

Fri, Aug 29 2014, 12:58 pm

I have two kids and I've been a stay at home mom for the past 3 years. I had a stable job at a hospital but I decided to follow my mom's footsteps and just raise my kids. I'm very happy that I managed to see all of their big milestones (crawling, walking, talking...). My older one is starting preschool next week but my younger one has another year until he can start preschool. I'm in such a dilemma because I don't know what to do anymore. I don't want to neglect my younger son and I feel like it will be great to be at home alone with him in the mornings and give him more attention. However, we still live in a one bedroom apartment and I feel like I have to help my husband (who's a teacher) financially. He told me I should wait another year and then start working once both of them will be in school. We pay for the private jewish daycare for my older one and in a year we'll have to pay for the younger one as well. So of course we won't have any money for savings and I'd have to work. However, I also want to have another baby. I know my husband's telling me that first I should work like a year or two but I'm a little over 30 and I don't like to wait too long. Also, I don't like to find a job and then stop working once I have the baby and then find a job again. It would be great if I could find a job from home, but I heard it's difficult (especially while taking care of little kids). I just feel so depressed lately because I want to have another baby...but then we'd need to move and we'd need a bigger car. That would be too much money for only my husband to be paying. So I'm not sure what to do. Is it better to still be a stay at home mom? or should I just get a babysitter?
Also, once my kids start school, the hours are 9:00-3:30pm so I'd still need to hire someone to take them and bring them home until I come back from work because there's no way I could find a full time job with their school hours.

I just feel like a mess and I'm not sure what to do. I also don't like feeling jealous whenever I see my neighbors or friends moving to a bigger place whenever they have another baby...sorry for venting.

asp40

Fri, Aug 29 2014, 1:40 pm

I don't understand why you are paying for a private Jewish daycare now if you are a stay at home mom? Also, if you cannot afford preschool and you are a sahm, then they do not NEED preschool now. If your husband is a teacher, you will eventually need to go back to work. You can even do something like work in a preschool for a few years to earn a bit of money and get a discount on tuition.

pesek zman

Fri, Aug 29 2014, 1:42 pm

asp40 wrote:

Yes. Exactly this.

amother

Fri, Aug 29 2014, 1:45 pm

asp40 wrote:

If I had the choice, I'd just take him to a good public preschool that's free. However, all of these jewish preschools/daycares cost money, of course. I can teach him lots of things at home, but I think it's time for him to be with kids since he's not very social and he's 3.5 years old. This jewish preschool is good because the teachers also speak in hebrew and so he won't have to speak in english right away (even though he understands english but doesn't speak it as much).

amother

Fri, Aug 29 2014, 2:11 pm

Are there any part time jobs that you can get? Then you can still be at home with your kids a lot, won’t need to pay babysitter after 3, and can help your husband out a little financially. Depending on your field/type of job, sometimes you can increase your hrs later on to full time. Even if you can’t find p/t in your field, it might be worth taking on something that you can do p/t and switching later on – even though you mentioned that you rather not – if you want another baby it will be at least 3-4yrs till you want to work full time so it’s not so bad.

Also what about doing something like babysitting from home? Its probably not your ideal job, but it can help out till you decide to go to work. Other typs of work from home is hard, but is do able. I used to work from home p/t - two hrs while baby naps and two hrs at night.

SRS

Fri, Aug 29 2014, 5:50 pm

If you were to go out to work, after paying the increased taxes and paying for daycare and whatever expenses are necessary to do your job, how much additional income would you need? Do you have a field where working a regular day job will give you advancement opportunities so that at a certain foreseen point you would be able to cover your expenses easily and really benefit financially if all goes right or are you just seeking "a job"?

To get ahead right now it sounds like you need to just cover the cost of the private playgroup if you aren't willing to "homeschool" the pre-school age. Could you cover that expense by taking a night job or Sunday job or even being a nanny for someone else?

It sounds like your husband is in favor of you going back to work and then leaving the job market and returning home to be with the kids. This is my own observation, but it seems that it is easier to just have your kids and do the SAHM thing and put your all in to it and benefit the house through inexpensive meals and providing the daycare and shopping the bargains and then go to work when the kids are older and make that your primary concentration rather than spreading the kids out to work and continually stepping in and out and out and in of the workforce, never quite getting a foothold in the SAHM role or the working Mom role which both require different types of specialization.