Money And Child Raising: Stay-at-Home Parent

When you become a parent, there are many issues that you need to handle. From what type of diapers to use to how to save for your child’s college education (or whether you should save for their college education at all), there’s a great many issues that you need to consider as you try to manage your money and take care of your children. To help you with some of these issues, I’ll be writing a series of articles sharing some of them and some thoughts on

Money and Child Raising: Stay-at-Home Parent

One of the first things you and your child-raising partner need to decide is who is caring for the child. (Assuming, of course, that you have a partner; unless you are currently quite rich, you’ll need to have at least one person in the relationship who is working and drawing in an income.) Before your child is even born, adopted or otherwise acquired, you need to know who is going to be in charge of him or her and have a plan for who will care for the child at each point during the day.

One of the most common possibilities is having one parent stay home and take care of the child. This parent (usually the mother, which is why you normally see references to ‘stay-at-home moms’), will leave work and spend all their time with the child for at least the first few years, providing care for the child (but cutting down the family’s income substantially). There’s several things to consider when deciding whether one of you should be staying at home. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons:

Pros of Staying at Home

-You (or your partner) gains the opportunity to spend time with your child. Not only do you ensure that your child is raised properly, but you’ll ensure that you have plenty of wonderful memories about your child to cherish and share. It’s the chance to enjoy everything that child-raising has to offer (include things like diaper changing and dealing with vomit, but I digress), and make a wonderful impression on your child.

-You can save a great deal of money. While it’s easy to look at work as a source of cash, there’s also quite a bit of money that goes into helping you to work. From the cost of outfits or uniforms (including the suits that you need to wear in most white-collar jobs) to the cost of getting you to and from work every day, there are quite a few expenses that are required in order to keep working. Let’s not even count the added expenses of babysitting (hundreds of dollars each week, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a year), which can in many cases cost most of the money, if not more than all the money, one of you makes working, anyway.

-You have the opportunity to work at home. Just in case you can’t give up working completely, or would like some extra money, it’s worth remembering that modern technology allows you to work without ever leaving home. Besides being easier than ever thanks to home computers (and laptops, and tablets, and other types of technology), it’s increasingly possible to make some money while still paying attention to a lovely child while doing so.

Cons of Staying at Home

-You will give up quite a lot of money. In order to stay at home, you can’t work (at least outside of the home). That means one salary can’t keep coming in. If both partners are making a sizable sum, that can mean giving up tens of thousands of dollars each year, dramatically cutting down the money you have available. Whether it will be more or less expensive for one parent to work will depend greatly on your current income situation; it’s worth sitting down and comparing the cost of daycare to the cost of working to see which offers more money, at least.

-You might be lonely with just your child. While it’s nice to spend your time with your children, if that’s your only human contact for much of the day, it can get rather lonely. Depending on your personal need for adult interaction, you might need to find others who are also raising children in your area in order to form a clique. (That becomes even harder if you are a stay-at-home dad; they tend to be rare, to say the least.)

-It’s only possible with a baby-raising partner. Regardless of whatever good or bad there otherwise is to raising your own child, it is a decision that depends largely on being able to do so. If you are a single parent, there’s little choice you have besides working and getting someone else to care for your child. At least until your child is old enough to care for him- or herself, you’ll have to ensure that some other adult is in charge when you are not.

My Thoughts on Stay-at-Home Parenting

Personally, I think that having a stay-at-home parent is a great thing for a child. Besides being able to ensure that your child gets love and attention that he or she benefits from as youngster, you can also help to educate and pass along your values to your child in a manner that you prefer. Particularly for the first few years of their life, being able to stay home (or again, have your partner stay home) is a great way to help encourage and support your child. If it’s at all possible, if you don’t need to work in order to provide enough money for your family, I’d personally recommend it strongly.

What are your thoughts on stay-at-home parenting? Do you think most parents should aim to have one person stay at home? Did any of you have a stay-at-home parent (my mother had to work for most of my life) and do you feel it helped or hurt you?