Are you saying that despite education and experience as a medical laboratory technologist that you can no longer work in that field?

Are you sure about this?
Do they take away your degree and permanently revoke your license to practice b/c you stopped working?
Isn’t there like a “refresher course”?

I’m asking, b/c I keep hearing this line of reasoning (being a homemaker ends your previous career), but I haven’t seen any real substantiating evidence. It sounds to me like most people don’t want to go back to their previous career not that they were banned.

So many times in life people want to attribute other’s accomplishments to luck. It’s sad to me that people never consider the sacrifice that comes with reaching a goal. They just see the victory, and then say “well aren’t you lucky!” And then they go home and get angry that their life isn’t like that.

I have found that the more success I have in life, the more people do this! So, really it means you’ve moved in the right direction, eh?

Working at home while raising a child is a true sense of the word “blending”. My daughter is in my lap as I type right now. Being able to work from home is a joy that I am thankful for every day of my life, because I get to be here with here. But there are downsides too. I’m frequently awake late into the night while I complete projects, My daughter watches too much tv while I complete projects. (I usually make sure they are learning videos, but still).

It’s a whole lot of give and take, and it never works out perfectly. All I can do each day is get up and do the best I can, just like every other parent out there. In my mind, it is the best solution, but it is never easy.

@ Julie You are so very right about everything lol. It is difficult not to expect perfection from our children. My mindset on that changed a lot when I discovered Flylady.net. Still though, I fight it every day.

You are also right that you can adjust to a single income. My husband and I have often noticed that no matter how much money we bring in, the bank balance always returns to a set amount – the amount we are most comfortable with. This is something we are working on, but the truth is, exactly as you said, we adjust our spending to match our income and always have.

Thanks for your comments!

Secondly, you do lose a lot financially and career wise when you stay at home. I was earning a decent wage as a medical laboratory technologist before I stayed at home. Now I’m doing grunt jobs for half the wages or even less. It’s hard to reconfigure your ego around this drop in returns for extended educational investments made in your twenties and even thirties. You pretty much have to retrain if you want to return to the workforce and not be stuck in the grunt job ghetto.

Thirdly, if you aren’t a naturally patient person, if you tend to be type A and into perfection, maybe you should go back to work. I’m a type A person and the boys have had a hard time with me for a mother.

Would I do it again? Yes. I wouldn’t have been able to spend the quantity time with the boys if I’d been working. My belief is that you should always do what makes you happy. Life is short. Kids grow up darn fast. It really is not a question about money but about values. Your values and the values of your spouse. Somehow your spending seems to increase with every increase in salary and similarly, it can be decreased with every drop in salary. It is amazing how little money you really need for clothes, junk purchases and entertainment. If you buy all this stuff at thrift stores, you can pay for essentials (rent, taxes, transportation, utilities and food) with one income. But of course, you’re right. You can’t be servicing a megadebt load and be able to do this easily. But it can still be done. In my opinion, you can do pretty much anything – if you really want to.

It’s funny how much child care eats into a budget isn’t it? I am so glad that you and your wife worked through everything.

Congratulation on your beautiful baby!

Considering taxes, child care, and other job related expenses, her $40,000 salary was only going to net us a little over $12,000 net gain!

It just wasn’t worth it for us!