If you currently stay at home, when do you plan on going back to work?
I'm assuming I'll go back when LO2 is in Kindergarten, but so many things could change between now and then...so we will see!
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I'm not sure that I ever will.
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My littles are almost four and fourteen months and I just went back to work two weeks ago. I wasn't planning on going back but an opportunity in my field came up that was only 2.5 days a week and paid well enough to make it worth the hassle! I figure I'll work for six months, we'll start to try for #3 and then I'll take parental leave for a year. I absolutely love being home with my kids but this is an opportunity for us to make some financial gains and get ahead again.
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At this point, probably never. We will likely home school unless my kids get lucky and are drawn in the lottery for the local STEM school.
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Part of me doesn't want to go back to work but realistically I will probably wind up finding some type of part time work once my kids are in school full time. I didn't have a clear career path before daughter so it's overwhelming to figure out what comes next.
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I think once they are in school. I don't think sooner but maybe if something awesome came up that was part time.
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I think I will want to be a SAHM full time even when they are in school full time. I want to be the one that is home when they get home and be there in case they get sick at school or have extracurricular after school. I know the days might be long and quiet - but I don't know if work is what I want to fill those days.
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Not sure yet. The general idea/ hope is that I can find something that is very part time and I can set my own hours, freelancing or something, so I can try and work during school hours and not much over the summer.
But we will see where we are financially and mentally when we get to that point.
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No idea...I feel like it is likely that I would needto go back to school before I go back to work, in order to be able to work in the field I want to. And we want to have another baby. So maybe actually find work once the 3rd is in preschool, assuming I've completed coursework prior to that.
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I'm not sure. I can't really see a reason to stay home once he's in school full time. But...I also sorta feel like that's the reward for staying home with him all the years before that
I'm constantly debating what to do. I'm a terrible decision maker. I was approached about a job last week and it sounds kinda perfect...and I don't like the idea of giving up all of the progress I made in my career before my son...but I don't feel ready yet! But will I ever?
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Right now the plan is for me to continue working one day a week until our youngest is in school full time. My husband has a 4-day work week so he stays home on the day that I work.
At that point I will likely try to get a job in a school system (high school or secondary) so that my schedule can at least resemble the kids.My masters degree (social work) is a pretty versatile one. Right now I work minimal hours in a clinical private practice which allows me to keep my foot in the door, maintain contacts, stay up to date with my lisences, etc. but my priority is staying home. I'm optimistic that when I'm ready to go back on a more full time basis I won't have much trouble getting jobs because I'm not leaving the field completely.
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I work part time, but it's a job of convenience rather than something I'm interested in (we need the money, and my mom can provide child care while I work.) I'm really, really looking forward to going back to my old career. I'm aiming to get back into it once my boys are both in school. If I ever convince DH to have #3, it might be before #3 is in school, but my mom will be able to be full-time child care.
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My plan wasn't an option. I plan to go back part time when Lo2 is in 3 or 4th grade.
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Not sure. The plan is when LO2 starts school full time, but DH isn't opposed to my staying home after that. He enjoys the flexibility of having me at home and in some ways I know there will be that much more on my plate if I become a WOHM. Not sure what the right thing will be for us.
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Not sure when but I definitely want to work again!
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I will be job searching soon so hopefully I will be back at work by the fall. I wish I could take off until DD2 turns 2 years old but DH's company recently got sold to an outside investor so it's too risky to rely on just 1 income right now. There's been lots of changes so we need to be prepared for the worst basically if the new management wants to restructure the staff.
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@Boogs: yeah - I'm not a SAHM but the logistics of school plus aftercare, all the days school closes, vacations, half days, early dismissals etc. to me it's harder to juggle the grade school days!
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I wasn't planning on going back either, but I got an opportunity that I couldn't pass up and I kind of scrambled around for 2 months to organize myself so I could go back. My son was 2.
I have to say, he's entering kindergarten in the fall and the logistics, oh my. I am so stressed about it, and we have my parents to fall back on.
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I probably won't unless our situation changes and we need my income.
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@looch: Ypur situation sounds like what I'm faced with right now. My son will be 2 in September and I didn't plan on going back yet but an old colleague reached out with an opportunity that sounds good...logistically. Start out part time (totally my decision on what days/hours) and lots of flexibility (unlimited PTO...seriously?!?), wah when I want, and convert to full time if/when ready. Very good pay (more than I've made before).
BUT, and I forgot to mention this in my previous response - I did this once before. When my son was about to turn 1 I got a similar opportunity. I took it. And I was miserable. Partly because he was still a lot younger and I felt bad. Partly because I HATED my boss. Partly because they were dishonest about the part-time hours. The job was more demanding than I wanted (week 2 they asked me to go to London...and then Toronto...and then London again...all in 5 weeks time). Partly because the part time contract was only 2 months and I wasn't ready for full time after that. So, I ended my contract before going full time.
Now the prospect of all of that happening again is really daunting.
And yeah, childcare. We had my part time nanny go full time figuring I would end up going full time as well. And then I quit and it was a mess because she had been so excited to go full time, she had to leave another family. So when I told her she cried and cried for a week. As if I didn't feel shitty enough. She then had to find another part time job, we paid her full time for an extra 2 months (I was miserable having someone there full time while I was there), etc. And as great as she is with my son, I don't even like her that much, lol. So I really don't want to ask her to go full time again with the possibility of having to end it again. Not even sure she'd want to after last time.So now I owe this guy a decision next week and I'm totally torn. It could be perfect...but my last experience is haunting me. Making money again would be awesome. It's something I feel so guilty about. I hate spending money and not earning money. Plus if we decide to start up ivf again this summer, not even sure it makes sense to go back.
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@SweetiePie: I have to tell you, when the opportunity came up, basically it went down like this:
I got an email with the opportunity right before we were making a move back to the US. It was the end of November. I said I'll be back for good in a few weeks, let's schedule a day where I can swing by the office to talk it over. The day came, I was a wreck. I didn't have anything to wear, I was stressed about going to my old workplace that i had left 4 years before, etc. I kind of decided on the commute there that I would say thanks for the opportunity, but no thanks, not coming back.
I met with 5 people, 4 of them that I had known before, it was like chatting with old friends and I never left. I could come right back in, as a contractor, to work on a system rewrite. It was a great opportunity, but man, the commute. So I went home and basically decided to approach it with a salary requirement. I said I wouldn't come for less than xx amount and was basically counting on them to come back and say not possible, it was too high.
Well, they agreed to it. I thought about it for a day, and on a Friday at 3 pm, I made the call to turn it down. The HR guy called me back in 15 minutes with a counteroffer that was a tiny reduction on salary but offered me a flex schedule...I asked for the weekend to consider it.
The next 2 days were horrible with my flip flopping, to the point where my mother intervened and basically told me that this was an opportunity that wasn't going to be there in a year when I finally decided I was ready to go back to work and that if I wanted it, my parents would do whatever was needed to make it work. My dad was already retired, my mom was still working at that point, so I started calling around for day care options. Nothing. My mom was able to convince the principal of the school where she worked to either offer my son a spot in the daycare onsite, or she would have to quit. He got a spot, lol.
I called every friend I had, the stay at home ones, the working ones, they were sick of me and my story, but they all had great perspectives. Finally, I decided to go for it and this is now year 4.
The thing for us, though, that kind of made the decision a no brainer is that I had been home for 2 years and hit a really low point where my husband basically realized I needed to go back to work. Not from only a financial standpoint, but just because I had done it for so long and it was a big part of me. Then we also had my parents, who function as before and aftercare for my son. Without their help, this wouldn't be sustainable.
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@looch: thanks for sharing your story. It's something I can relate to and its encouraging to see that it worked out for you.
I also constantly vacillate between being one-and-done and having another. Which makes the decision that much harder.
And it's interesting that your husband had that perspective. My husband is very much in the camp that I should go back to work, but he's not pushing me because it's not necessary. He felt more strongly about it when I was struggling in the first year home. But although he wants me to go back eventually, he does like me being home with babies 1-2 years and since he wants another...
I know he thinks I need something more though, and on some days I agree - but some days are awesome and I can't imagine being in an office again.
His mom SAH and he has a lot of unrelated issues with her - he blames a lot of it on her never going to work (she didn't work before kids either). I think that the issues are unrelated to that, I think they are totally personality-based and maybe cultural, but he is looking for reasons and that one is the easiest to identify.Anyway, didn't mean to thread jack, it's just a constant battle in my mind. And with the offer that came up this week...my mind is going 100 miles a minute. Did I mention I'm terrible at making decisions?!?
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@regberadaisy: It is! And with DH's being inconsistent and often times unprediticble, it's definitely easier to just SAH. I used to work in education so I wouldn't mind doing something part time at the kids school so we would have the same schedule. Sweet positions like that are hard to come by, though.
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I was kind of planning to return to school and change my career but I am afraid I would have to work full-time and not have much flexibility. The more I think about it, if I stay in the same field I could probably find something part-time and seasonal which would be ideal. In that case I'd probably try to return when the youngest starts preschool in about 3.5 years. But I'm not sure if I'll be able to find something at that point after not working for so long. I guess we will see.
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@SweetiePie: if it makes you feel any better I spent a solid week crying and just generally being a blithering mess once I received my job offer but I've been back at work for two weeks now and so far, so good!
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