Want to quit my job and stay at home with my kids

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NurseyJ

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I’ve been a part-time working mom since my first child was born (we now have two kids: 3 and 6 years old). I make 1/3 more than my full-time husband only working 3 days a week as a healthcare professional. I always wanted to be a SAHM, even before we were married, but it never seemed possible with my husband’s income and my student loan debt (approx 20k). We also own a house in the expensive bay area (bought it when the market was down) and if it wasn’t for me also working, we would lose it. I know many would say, “just go move somewhere else less expensive,” but doing this would sever some extremely important ties for my children. They’d miss out on seeing their grandparents (with whom they are extremely close) as well as their first cousins who are like siblings to them. It would be extremely traumatic for them to lose these connections and support systems. We also homeschool. I find myself wanting to quit my job and stay at home, knowing it’s the best thing for my children. I cry often at the fact that I can’t stay at home with our current expenses (mortgage, student loan, bills). I’m torn between wanting to be a SAHM knowing that we’d probably lose our house and possibly not being able to afford staying in the area on my husband’s income. At times I find myself very resentful towards my husband for not doing more (commanding a better income) to ensure that I could stay at home with our children. I was wondering if anyone could chime in with personal experience in making the difficult decision to give up your home an/or lifestyle to stay at home with children. Thank you.
 
NurseyJ said:
I’ve been a part-time working mom since my first child was born (we now have two kids: 3 and 6 years old). I make 1/3 more than my full-time husband only working 3 days a week as a healthcare professional. I always wanted to be a SAHM, even before we were married, but it never seemed possible with my husband’s income and my student loan debt (approx 20k). We also own a house in the expensive bay area (bought it when the market was down) and if it wasn’t for me also working, we would lose it. I know many would say, “just go move somewhere else less expensive,” but doing this would sever some extremely important ties for my children. They’d miss out on seeing their grandparents (with whom they are extremely close) as well as their first cousins who are like siblings to them. It would be extremely traumatic for them to lose these connections and support systems. We also homeschool. I find myself wanting to quit my job and stay at home, knowing it’s the best thing for my children. I cry often at the fact that I can’t stay at home with our current expenses (mortgage, student loan, bills). I’m torn between wanting to be a SAHM knowing that we’d probably lose our house and possibly not being able to afford staying in the area on my husband’s income. At times I find myself very resentful towards my husband for not doing more (commanding a better income) to ensure that I could stay at home with our children. I was wondering if anyone could chime in with personal experience in making the difficult decision to give up your home an/or lifestyle to stay at home with children. Thank you.
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I think you are being unfair to your husband. It really isn’t always possible for only 1 parent to work sometimes and you are both a team; sometimes it makes more sense for the husband to stay at home, but obviously if you have your heart set on being a SAHM then that probably isn’t a solution either. I’m sorry, I don’t really have any advice.
 
Hmm.

Prayers for you, but it seems perhaps foolish to give up a well paying job that only requires 3 days a week, and disrupt your home and family?

You are asking for personal experiences so I’ll tell you mine. I also am a health care professional who receives a much higher salary than my husband. We also homeschooled through grade 8.

Our solution was to have my husband stay home while I worked fulltime (which frequently involved nights/weekends and occasional 24 shifts). I never was fortunate enough to have a 3 day/week schedule! (Although I expect you have 12 hour shifts and probably take 1-2 days to recover )

I don’t know if staying home is a good idea for your husband. Mine continues to work/volunteer around my schedule.

Now your children are still young and of course there may be more still to come. It seems to me that it’s the under 2yo’s that need Mom more than Dad but you may have a different idea.

My kids are now teens in an expensive Catholic high school with college expenses looming down the road. I’ll need to keep working full time for some time yet.

Prayers for your family!
 
NurseyJ said:
I find myself wanting to quit my job and stay at home, knowing it’s the best thing for my children. .
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Also, why do you “know” that staying home is the best thing for your children?

Better than being close to their grandparents? having a good and safe home? having parents not fighting about the financial strain of bills and loans? having all their current supports?

And why are you upset with your husband for not making enough money to pay YOUR student loans?

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m judging you, I’m not, just some things to think about.

Perhaps you just need to recognize that you are not living the SAHM life that you had hoped for, grieve that, and move on to enjoy and appreciate the life you do have.

Again, prayers for you all
 
You live in one of the highest cost of living environments in the U.S. This is a choice. It would take an enormous salary to life comfortably as a 1 income family in that location, so IMO you are being unreasonable. If you bought the house when the market was down, you have equity, no? Is selling and moving to Sacramento an option? Cheaper yet still close enough for kids to see grandparents and cousins frequently. Hopefully you husband could find a similar job there.
 
smswife said:
And why are you upset with your husband for not making enough money to pay YOUR student loans?
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Yes; you cannot hold this against him. You endebted yourself and chose to live in an expensive area. If you want to keep up that lifestyle you should continue to work and accept that you are doing no more than your responsibility.

Ask yourself: are you sure you want to be a SAHM because it’s best for the kids, or because YOU want to be? Because they way you describe it, it doesn’t sound great from the kids’ POV.
 
Have you sat down with your husband and told him how you feel about this? Until then, nothing will change. I think you’ll have three options:
  1. Work out a way for your husband to start earning more, allowing you to stay at home;
  2. Quit your job and move away from family to a cheaper area;
  3. Accept that you won’t be able to stay at home and maintain your lifestyle the way it is, so stay working.
I do think though (and I may have said this to you in threads before), that you have to let go of your resentment of your husband. It’s possible that your desire to stay at home won’t be able to happen - then what? You can’t place the blame on your husband for not having a higher paying job than you, and it won’t help your relationship. Also consider that if staying at home full time means you have to move away from your family means you would resent your husband for not having a high enough paid job, you may not want to make the switch.

The best thing for you to do? Sit down and discuss your options with your husband. I would suggest spending some time with him one on one to reconnect and to let you focus on all his positives instead of the negatives. Nothing will change until you talk to him.

Lou
 
OP, you need to continue working to pay off your loans. You could move to a different, less expensive house. Your children will survive seeing grandparents and cousins etc not quite as often as they now do. People move across the country and manage to stay close. Skype is a wonderful thing. Your children are young enough to do this, I think the move worries you more than them. It will only be traumatic if you do not assure them they will see everyone. No one is telling you to move to Mars.

But the reality of it is that you cannot afford your mortgage and your loans. Something has to give. Perhaps you need to consider a different shift. It would allow you to be there in the daytime. And I have to agree, a 3 day work week? Many people would love those hours.
 
Houses and cars are just material things, however nice they may be. Living in the San Francisco bay area is a very expensive luxury. Look at your financial situation realistically in terms of costs and benefits.
 
ShrodingersCat said:
Ask yourself: are you sure you want to be a SAHM because it’s best for the kids, or because YOU want to be? Because they way you describe it, it doesn’t sound great from the kids’ POV.
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Not sure what you mean when you say “the way you describe it, it doesn’t sound great from the kids’ POV”. Sounds a bit uncharitable, IMO.

Reasons I want to be a SAHM:
-I was raised by a SAHM and know that I benefited greatly from it.
-My children always ask me if I can stay home instead of go to work. They have even cried many a time that I have to go to work. This breaks my heart and distresses me greatly that I can’t given them this given our current situation.
-It is very difficult to tend to the family properly when your time is divided between work and home. Something’s gonna suffer–be it work, or home life.

I don’t hold my student loan debt against my husband. It is my responsibility and I accept that. However, my husband has done little to better his work situation. I find myself envious of the families with fathers who go out of their way to ensure that mom can stay at home for the benefit of the children and the whole family. Maybe I’m being a bit idyllic here in an unrealistic situation. Getting others’ feedback does help me see that I need to be more reasonable about the situation though.
 
Lou2U said:
Have you sat down with your husband and told him how you feel about this? Until then, nothing will change. I think you’ll have three options:
  1. Work out a way for your husband to start earning more, allowing you to stay at home;
  2. Quit your job and move away from family to a cheaper area;
  3. Accept that you won’t be able to stay at home and maintain your lifestyle the way it is, so stay working.
I do think though (and I may have said this to you in threads before), that you have to let go of your resentment of your husband. It’s possible that your desire to stay at home won’t be able to happen - then what? You can’t place the blame on your husband for not having a higher paying job than you, and it won’t help your relationship. Also consider that if staying at home full time means you have to move away from your family means you would resent your husband for not having a high enough paid job, you may not want to make the switch.

The best thing for you to do? Sit down and discuss your options with your husband. I would suggest spending some time with him one on one to reconnect and to let you focus on all his positives instead of the negatives. Nothing will change until you talk to him.

Lou
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This is a great reply and an excellent point. Thank you.
 
NurseyJ said:
Not sure what you mean when you say “the way you describe it, it doesn’t sound great from the kids’ POV”. Sounds a bit uncharitable, IMO.

Reasons I want to be a SAHM:
-I was raised by a SAHM and know that I benefited greatly from it.
-My children always ask me if I can stay home instead of go to work. They have even cried many a time that I have to go to work. This breaks my heart and distresses me greatly that I can’t given them this given our current situation.
-It is very difficult to tend to the family properly when your time is divided between work and home. Something’s gonna suffer–be it work, or home life.

I don’t hold my student loan debt against my husband. It is my responsibility and I accept that. However, my husband has done little to better his work situation. I find myself envious of the families with fathers who go out of their way to ensure that mom can stay at home for the benefit of the children and the whole family. Maybe I’m being a bit idyllic here in an unrealistic situation. Getting others’ feedback does help me see that I need to be more reasonable about the situation though.
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You described it as “traumatic”. I didn’t mean to offend, I was just taking your word for it sorry.

There is nothing wrong with a person who doesn’t want to get caught up climbing the career ladder, not everyone is cut out for the stress of it. I’ve seen plenty of threads on here when women complain that their husbands spend far too much time working and their wives feel neglected. Maybe just see SAHM-ing as a goal to slowly work towards rather than something that needs to happen ASAP 🙂
 
You need to adjust your thinking. Your husband provides you with a nice home in an expensive area close to your friends and family allowing you to work only part time. How can you look at this and feel anything but grateful? Do you know how many families are not so well off? How many families need both parents to work full time, or more?

It would be insane and selfish to throw everything away to move to a cheaper area. Since your a nurse, would it be possible for you to work more during the school year and work much less in the summer to stay home with your kids when they’re off? Or for you to earn additional certifications so you can work less for more? Or working full time for a year to aggressively pay off your 20K loan so once it’s gone you can drop down to 1 or 2 days a week? There are workable compromises that are good for your whole family, not just you. Your kids will be fine if you work, especially if it’s part time. Just because they cry doesn’t mean it’s as big of a deal as they feel it is.
 
Sounds like you’ll need more income, lower expenses, or both.

I’ve been a SAHM for many years now, but I did have to work for a few years when my oldest kids were young. I, too, badly wanted to stay at home with them, and my husband agreed. So my husband and I worked together to plan for that. And prayed a lot about it. 🙂

It was not an immediate change, and we both had to make a lot of sacrifices to make it workable. My husband took some additional training while I worked, and he was able to find a better job that increased his income and gave us better benefits, and that helped immensely. Still, it wasn’t enough at that point, because our expenses were still high.

In order for me to stay at home, I first had to work on getting our monthly expenses down low enough that we could/can get by on my husband’s income alone (even with more children now than when we began–plan ahead!). That means we don’t have many luxuries, don’t drive newer-model cars, don’t have cable, don’t have brand-name clothing, and we don’t eat out even 1/4 as often as we used to. I do meal planning to avoid food waste and make the majority of our meals from scratch. We shop at garage sales, clearance racks, and thrift stores for most of our clothing. We can’t afford the interest on loans or credit cards, so when something breaks unexpectedly, we make do while we save up and then buy the needed replacement with cash (I was stuck without an oven/stove for 4 months once when mine stopped working–used a toaster oven, outdoor grill, microwave, and slow-cooker to make meals). We use the library quite a bit for entertainment (books and movies, as well as free events). We make most of our Christmas gifts for others by hand, and have learned some new skills in the process.

Also, my husband was able to work overtime on a temporary basis and we used that extra income to get our debts paid off more quickly. If you are able to work more hours for a while and use that to pay off some debts, it might free up some income so you’d be able to stay at home, or at least work less than you currently do (maybe weekends?).

If you can get to a point where your entire paycheck is going into savings, you’ll be in a much better place to make the changes you want (and have a nice “emergency fund” in place as well).

There’s still the possibility that even doing everything right, the only way it will work is that you have to decide which is more important and better for your family: you staying at home full-time, or living where you currently are.

As for dealing with resentment, when you feel it, remind yourself that you’re a team, and ask yourself what it actually is that you expect your husband to do differently. Is it realistic? (Hint: going back in time to make a different choice isn’t!) 😉 Is it a workable “team plan,” that is, best for all of you (not just you)? If so, then respectfully talk to him about your options and work out your goals together. If not, then admit that to yourself.

Will pray for you. :gopray2:
 
My mom worked full time and raised 16 children plus foster parented. There was absolutely no way for her not to work and we lived in one of the cheapest areas of the country. She also enjoyed her work, was very good at it, and needed that time to be something other than a mom. We did not suffer due to her working and it mainly was because we saw her confidence in her decision to work. Kids feed off the emotions of their mother.

I am a SAHM but I have worked as needed throughout their lives. I can honestly say I see no difference in terms of best or worse for my family, but working is exhausting for me personally and emotionally drains me. So I prefer to stay home. My husband prefers me home. It works for us. But we sacrifice a lot in order for that to happen. We have never lived near either of our families for more than a few months at a time. We move a lot. We are apart a lot. Life is full of choices and sacrifices. The trick is making the ones you are most comfortable with confidently, and then projecting that confidence to your kids. Sometimes this takes terrific acting experience but as young as your kids are you can get away with that. Eventually life calms down, you begin to feel confident for real, and you find that you are no longer pretending to be confident on most days (or maybe ever!).

It is really hard, but you are blessed to be able to work part time instead of 50+ hours a week like many moms must do (including mine). Try to remind yourself that things really can be much, much worse. Take the time to pray thanksgiving prayers each day. If you really feel it is best to be home, decide that moving is your best option and confidently make it happen. Your children will adjust especially if they see mom and dad growing closer because of it. If you decide you need to stay where you are, confidently decide to keep working and make the time with your family joy filled and peaceful. there is no moral requirement to be a SAHM so don’t feel guilty or ashamed, and do not ever resent your husband either.
 
I think the desire of your heart means something. I know that being a SAHM can really improve your kids lives and your homeschooling lifestyle. I do think, especially because it is your desire, that your kids will be better off. And so will your husband if you are all happy. Enriching your family life and your children’s lives will benefit those secondary relationships, too. You will gain flexibility enabling long visits with extended family or for hosting their long stays in the country with you. Living in one of the most expensive areas of the country is a huge obstacle for staying home so probably realizing your dream includes moving. If the market was down when you bought your home, it sounds like you could get ahead a bit on the sale. Maybe enough to pay off your loan!

We live in a world that discounts the value of the real work of a mom, and values the market place dollar earned more. So its a counter-cultural move. Yes, you chose to get a loan, and yes you chose to settle in an expensive place, but you are not tied to stick with inferior decisions. You can change your mind. You can find another way to pay off your loan, which includes paring down living expenses. Also, your kids are young. If this idea came ten years from now, it would be much more difficult. But 3 and 6? That sounds like a good time to make a move, if you solve the problems you posed.

I think your discontent means something and that you should not ignore the desires of your heart. You know who really cares about the desires of your heart? Jesus. So don’t give it up or push it aside. Ask Him to help you realize it. Pray a Novena, and visit Jesus at Adoration and implore His help there. Ask for Wisdom. Implore the Seat of Wisdom for help. God promises that if anyone asks for wisdom He will give it in great measure. You can count on it. You need all sorts of things, particularly with coming up with a plan your husband can be on board with. It sounds like where you are is not a good place for him, because he is not ambitious to earn the extra you need to live where there is always a need for extra… The pressure to earn more won’t be as urgent in a more modest area, and he may really like being out from under that pressure.

I think it would be helpful if people gave you some brainstorming ideas for how to accomplish this. One place to get that is from is from homeschool Moms who are making the creative sacrifices to be able to live this way. maybe check out one of those forums. I think you will get ideas!

I will pray to the Blessed Mother for your intention now.
 
If it was me, I would keep on keeping on. You must not realize how blessed you are that you are able to get away with only working three days a week and still have a nice home in a convenient area near your extended family. Most family can only dream of that.

I wouldn’t mess with that, but then again, I was never raised with this idea that not working was a realistic or fair option. My mother was poor and/or divorced for most of my childhood. Her mother, was widowed with three kids and supported her children powered by an 8th grade education. HER mother was abandoned with her young daughter when her husband decided to start over with a new woman in another state. He never sent his wife or daughter a dime of support and that was in the 1920’s, so you can imagine being a single mom with no death certificate to show charities. Even my father’s mother, who “married well” to an architect, worked in a shoe factory until her babies came along. When her kids were school-age, she worked part-time in the cafeteria of the school and giving piano lessons. When they were in high school, she became a real-estate agent. They could have survived without this extra income, but they considered it important to demonstrate a good work ethic and the importance of using your talents and contributing to society beyond the family. No one “suffered” because of it. Everyone who knows the family considers them a model of a strong, close-knit, Catholic family.

If you are able to be with your kids four days a week and homeschool, it sounds like you have the perfect opportunity to do the same. You’re giving a good example to your children when you use your talents and some of your time to save lives, heal, and alleviate pain. They will be proud of you when they are old enough to understand the value of your work.

Of course, if staying at home is more important to you, you have every right to make whatever choices necessary to make that dream come true. Either way, I think you should cut your husband some slack. I understand to some extent because I’m often bummed out that my husband doesn’t make more money. I can’t fault him because he works almost constantly and he does get some pretty nice benefits. (decent insurance, three weeks paid vacation, more than decent family leave-including two weeks paid whenever I have a baby, etc.) I should cut my husband some slack too.
 
Is there any way for you to work from home? Consulting? Maybe become a medical coder and work online remotely? Teach online, tutor online? Writing courses for online schools?
Start your own business. Mail order? Daycare business in your home?
 
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