Some people here really seem to have a hard time grasping that one parent staying at home, or taking a low-paying part time job, can truly benefit the other in their career. If I started working full time now we would lose money as a household. My husband works extremely long hours and is on the partnership track at a major firm. If he were suddenly unable to work such long hours because he had to deal with half of the time the kids are off sick, childcare falls through and dropping off and picking up kids from whatever child care we manage to find, not to mention half of waiting in for repairmen, etc., that would affect his career prospects. Add in the cost of childcare for our children and we would likely have significantly less money to spend than we do now.
If he worked a straight 9-5 job, or any regular schedule of 40 hours a week, that would be a different story. As it is, he pretty much needs to be able to work until midnight if a report needs to go out, meaning I had better not have a job with equal responsibility.
I honestly can't say whether I will ever have a paying job again. That doesn't mean I sit around doing nothing. Volunteer work is good for me and for the community, but it doesn't pay well at all. We actually feel that as a family having me available to do more of that sort of thing offsets my husband generally being unable to do much at all.
Do you get asked to baby sit a lot? because I do!! All the moms have my phone number and since I'm home anyway why shouldn't mind, right?
