My Story:
I have been a stay-at-home mum of two children since my first child was born seven years ago. To be honest, I never sat down and decided that’s what I wanted to do before I had kids. I was a teacher in a primary school and enjoyed my job, and suppose I always assumed I would go back to work once my daughter was old enough. However, as I was on a temporary contract at my school, I didn’t have to go back after maternity leave and we ended up trying for another baby when my daughter had just turned a year old.
It was around the time my son was born that my husband’s work as a lawyer started to bring in more money due to him being more experienced in his field, and that’s when we decided that my being at home was working well for our family and that it was better for us all if I didn’t go back.
I feel the need to stress here that my husband would never have stood in the way of me going back to work had I wanted to, but we both recognised how much happier I was and how much better our relationship was since I had stopped teaching. I loved being at home looking after the babies, and really hated the idea of paying for expensive childcare to enable me to go back to teaching when financially we could manage with me doing that.
As the children got older, it became very obvious that although they didn’t need me for the six hours a day they were in school, their physical and emotional needs the rest of the time were still, in all honesty, endless.
My husband has very little time during the week that he’s able to dedicate to looking after the kids ( although he very much takes on his share of the childcare at weekends and during his holiday time). While I could have gone back to teaching and juggled work with looking after the kids while he was snowed under regularly working sixty-plus hour weeks, I believe it would have been utterly miserable for me. I also think I would have resented him for not being more available to help.
Of course, we could have paid for wrap-around care such as breakfast clubs, after-school clubs and childminders, but I just didn’t want to. I certainly didn’t want to go back full-time, and teaching just doesn’t pay well enough part-time to have made it worth all the extra stress. I am well aware of the number of couples and single parents who are taking all of this on; doing everything for their kids on top of stressful, demanding jobs. I honestly take my hat off to them. Personally, I know it would have ended me.
As a teacher, I was unwell a lot of the time due to working with children in a school environment (if you hadn’t heard, young children aren’t the best with personal hygiene) and found the job very full on. The idea of trying to do that with two kids at home and a working husband who was (and still is) largely unavailable during the week and some of the weekend, was too much for me.
I get a very mixed reaction when I tell people I’m a stay-at-home mum. Some are visibly horrified, some are horrified but try not to show it, and others think it all sounds incredibly sensible and a lot less stressful than their own situations. While there has been an increase in the number of stay-at-home mothers over the past decade, it still doesn’t feel like it’s the ‘done thing’ these days.
Society expects women to have kids, and have a career. There certainly aren’t many of us ‘stay-at-homers’ in our local community anyway, although I’m sure there are vast online communities of stay-at-home mums and home-schooling mums who can offer each other a great deal of support (I hope so, anyway). I’ve made my peace with my role as a stay-at-home parent, but as an academic, ambitious, career-driven woman, it took me a long time to be fully accepting of it.
In this post, I am going to outline some of the biggest benefits I think there are to being a stay-at-home mum, and then I will outline some of the more negative sides (because let’s face it, most lifestyle choices have positives and negatives). Please bear in mind that this post also applies to stay-at-home dads, so I have used the word ‘parent’ rather than ‘mum’ in this list.
Here are my Top Reasons for Being a Stay-at-Home Mum
1. Spending Time with Your Young Children
The early years of a child’s life are invaluable. Stay-at-home parents have the privilege of being there for all the first steps, the first word, and the many other child milestones. This quality time spent with young children can make a big difference in their social skills, development, and overall happiness. I have an incredibly close relationship with both my children (now aged five and seven). They are both generally very well-behaved, happy and thriving at school and not struggling academically. Would I put this down to the fact I have spent all that time with them since they were babies? Absolutely.
2. Providing Healthy Meals
One of the best things about being a stay-at-home parent is the ability to look after the kids’ physical needs and well-being really well and ensure they eat healthy meals (at least most of the time). Recent studies have shown that children of stay-at-home parents tend to have better nutrition and improved school performance. Everyone comments not only on how well our kids eat (they really do eat almost anything that’s put in front of them) but also how interested in food they are. They really enjoy trying new food and working out their different tastes, especially my daughter who is already a self-confessed ‘foodie’ at the age of seven.
3. Less Stress and Better Mental Health for the Whole Family
For working parents, the juggling act of managing a work schedule and child care can be one of the biggest challenges they face. In our household, my husband works, and I look after the kids. Management of the home; cooking, cleaning, food shopping etc. is generally fairly evenly split. I do it most of the time during the week and cook for the kids, he shops and cooks for the family on weekends. He also does all the garden, home DIY stuff himself which is a huge amount of work and effort that I really don’t have to think about. For full disclosure, we are also very lucky in that we have a cleaner.
The most important thing here is that we both feel that it’s equal. He works really hard at his job, and I work really hard at mine which is looking after our children’s every waking need the vast majority of the time. Does he resent me for putting my feet up sometimes during the day when they’re at school? No, because he knows how exhausting looking after young kids is, and he wouldn’t want to swap roles. I wouldn’t want to swap roles with him either. Everyone is happy, no one is majorly stressed, the kids have a very stable home life/routine, and it’s undoubtedly the best option for us at this time in our lives. This setup of course wouldn’t work for everyone, and wouldn’t work for every mother, but it works for us.
4. Flexible Schedule
Stay-at-home moms have the advantage of a flexible schedule, allowing them to be involved parents and attend school events, extracurricular activities, and medical appointments. This involvement is hugely important in a child’s life. Honestly, for me this is one of the best things about being a stay-at-home parent.
My children’s school are particularly good at offering parents the opportunity to come into the classroom on a regular basis. Currently, I go in weekly for my son’s reading morning and half-termly for a ‘Brainbuilder’ morning in both my children’s classes where the kids all share the creative homework tasks they’ve done over the half term.
These are really lovely times to spend with my own children and their friends in class, and are also a great opportunity to get to know their teachers better and get more of a ‘feel’ for their classroom environment and their time spent in school. I am also usually one of the parents to accompany their classes on school trips, which is again such a unique opportunity to really feel involved with their classes and their learning.
I wouldn’t give up these opportunities I’ve had to spend time with them in school and on trips for anything, and I would say it absolutely helps to build the bridge between school and home for my children. I love being in charge of my own schedule, in the same way I imagine people who work for themselves rather than reporting to a boss do.
On the same subject of ‘flexible schedule,’ while I do have writing projects I’ve been working on over the last few years while the children are at school (this blog being one of them), I’m always able to fit spending time with friends and family into my schedule. More recently the blog has taken over more time during school hours, and yet I’m still able to enjoy ‘free time’ where I can meet a friend for coffee or a walk or take the time to chat to my parents on Zoom (they live really far away). Again, I recognise how invaluable this time is; that it’s the sort of time that most working parents can only dream of having every week.
6. Supporting the Parent who Works
For working parents, having a stay-at-home partner can help take some of the stress out of a long working week or focusing on their career advancement. Knowing that the family is in capable hands and that they don’t have to worry about the kids during the week can be a major source of relief when working a stressful job. My husband knows that simply couldn’t do his job without me at home taking care of the kids. Yes, our setup is probably considered ‘old-fashioned’ by many, but as I said before, it works for us.
7. Helping Older Children
Stay-at-home parents can also provide valuable support for high school-aged children. They can assist with schoolwork, have the time to provide a listening ear, and guide their teenagers through the challenges of adolescence. While I don’t intend to be a stay-at-home mum for the whole time my kids are living at home, I would only consider going back to work on a very part-time basis even once they’re in high school. Older kids can need just as much support at home as younger kids do, and sometimes even more as they navigate the choppy waters of their pre-teen and teenage years.
8. Saving Money on Child Care
For many families, growing childcare costs are a significant financial burden. This is particularly true in the UK (the Evening Standard recently reported that the only countries that have more expensive childcare than the UK are Switzerland and New Zealand). Being a stay-at-home mum can save a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on childcare services, often making it a more financially sensible option for those families who can manage on one income.
9. Sensible Decision for Single Parents (if they can afford it)
Single parents often find it much harder to balance work and parenting, so becoming a stay-at-home parent (if it’s financially viable) or at least a working-from-home parent is often an easier decision. Many single parents may opt for something between the two, choosing to work part-time either away from home or from home to ensure more of a work/parenting balance.
10. Providing a Strong Support System
Stay-at-home parents also contribute to their children’s social skills and emotional development. They can arrange and supervise playdates, monitor their child’s school performance, and create a safe and nurturing environment for their child to grow. Friends, family members and teachers have all commented on how settled our children seem both in school and outside of school.
Children with a stay-at-home parent (or a parent who works part-time) are sometimes more likely to benefit from a solid, settled home life compared to those children whose parents both work. While the stay-at-home parent often feels they have had to sacrifice their job or career, and perhaps one that they really enjoyed before they had children (myself included), many would agree that it’s worth it to provide this kind of stability and support for their children while they are young.
11. Being in Tune With the Rhythm of the Child
Understanding and going with the rhythm of the child is a concept I learned from my mum, who taught primary-age children for over forty years. When she first talked about this idea, I immediately understood what she meant. Staying at home with my children, and essentially being there pretty much for their every waking need all these years, definitely makes parenting easier because I feel more in tune with them.
This has arisen simply through spending so much time with them. I know my children inside out. I know how they tick. I know what frustrates them, what delights them, and often what the problem is when problems arise, just by looking at them. It reassures me to know I’m so in tune with my kids’ moods and rhythms, and I know this is something that would be much harder to achieve if I were stressed out trying to hold down a challenging job (such as teaching) whilst also being primary the caregiver in our household.
12. The Stay-At-Home-Parent’s Opportunity to Work on Creative Projects
If I hadn’t quit teaching to be a stay-at-home mum, there is no way I would now be close to completing my first novel or starting a blog at this point in my life. Since my youngest started school, the time I’ve had to explore my own creative interests has been invaluable. I have discovered a renewed passion for writing that has quite honestly been buried since I graduated from university in 2008, and I’ve learnt how to build and run a website for my hypnobirthing services and blogging enterprise.
There are so many parents across the globe who started what went on to be successful businesses while they were at home looking after kids. Often people who start off as stay-at-home parents will find themselves happily working for themselves at their own business they would never have had the time or energy to start had they continued working at their day job.
The Negatives
As I said at the beginning of this post, there are of course negatives to being a stay-at-home parent. It has taken me a long time to accept that our family are doing it differently to the norms of today’s world. The vast majority of my ‘mum’ friends work, and many of them struggle to see how I can be happy ‘just’ being at home looking after the kids. While they appreciate that I’ve been working on my own projects over the years, they say they wouldn’t like being on their own all day and wouldn’t be prepared to give up their careers.
I’m actually a very sociable person, and it’s true that sometimes I do miss the wonderful colleagues I worked with in the schools I taught in. But I am also surprisingly introverted at times, and I cope with spending so much time on my own better than a lot of people would, I think. I do sometimes feel as though I’m going a bit ‘mad,’ as I spend so much time either on my own or looking after the children a lot of the week. There’s no doubt that it can be frustrating, and anyone reading this who is considering becoming a stay-at-home parent should carefully consider whether they would be happy spending most of the time either in their own company or on their own looking after their children.
Financially, of course, the family takes a hit if a parent decides to stay at home. My husband and I are a lot more frugal now that I’m not working, and we’re certainly not jetting off abroad at the start of the school holidays like we used to when I was in a full-time teaching job, pre-kids. Of course, for many households, losing one parent’s income simply isn’t an option. There’s no doubt though, that if parents can closely assess their financial situation and decide they can afford to take the hit even just for a few years while their children are young, in my opinion, it’s absolutely worth it.
So career sacrifice, financial sacrifice and the fact it can be quite a lonely life at times without the presence of colleagues can all be negatives of being a stay-at-home parent.
The only other downside I would say is that I sometimes feel I’m too involved with my children sometimes. It’s much harder to send them into the world (when they start school, for example) and start cutting the apron strings when you’ve spent virtually every waking moment with them as a stay-at-home parent.
Being ‘over-involved’ with their children and even developing a ‘helicopter’ style of parenting can be a risk for parents of stay-at-home children, and getting the right balance of nurturing them versus letting them discover the big ‘ol messy world for themselves can be difficult. The temptation to over-protect and mollycoddle them is real!
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are plenty of benefits of being a stay-at-home mum. While taking on the bulk of the childcare is a lot of work for the stay-at-home parent (especially during the week), being there for young children during the crucial early years of their lives can make a big difference in their development and well-being.
I would also say the bond between a stay-at-home parent and their child/children is likely to be very strong. The recent studies and stories of countless stay-at-home parents show that they feel they are making the best decision of their lives for their families.
For me, while at times I have felt frustrated at putting my teaching career on hold, I know I will never look back on these years and regret my decision to stay at home with the children. Knowing that I’m always there to accommodate their increasingly busy social lives and school schedules, and look after them at home whenever they’re sick, is such a relief for the whole family.
My husband and I don’t have to worry about who is going to deal with the childcare side of things on a daily basis, because it’s usually me taking care of it (my husband looks after the kids when he’s able to). This takes a huge amount of the stress out of life with young children at home, and dare I say the fact I haven’t worked these last few years is probably one of the main reasons we’re still married.
Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or considering becoming one, it’s really important to recognise the hard work you do with your children in creating a home environment in which they can thrive. Although there are some negatives of being a stay-at-home parent, for me it was an easy decision.
All in all, stay-at-home parents have a great reason to celebrate their important work and the many benefits the lifestyle they’ve chosen brings to their family’s life.
Links and resources:
https://www.verywellfamily.com/research-stay-at-home-moms-4047911
https://ifstudies.org/blog/are-stay-at-home-mothers-really-miserable
https://www.mothersathomematter.com
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