are we bad parents? (Houston: health insurance, mortgage, credit card)

[jajaja123]

me and my wife make enough money to support our child even if only one of us work.. actually i pay all the bills and all my wife's salary goes to savings..

if only one of us work, we wont be able to save at all.. but we could get by..
barely with mortgage and all bills...

we have a 1.5 year old son.. currently my parents are taking care of him at our house while we work..
but only till this month..

are we bad parents if we put our son to day care so both of us could still work.. or should one of us stop working to take care of our son?

[Bueller427]

Hey,

I wouldn't say your a bad parent, I know alot of people that both work with young kids. I have 3 kids myself and it was my choice to have my wife stay home to take care of the children [ she would have worked ] for 11 years till they went to school full time. My reasoning was that with all the crazy/ scary stories going on with babysitter's / daycare beating/abusing kids I wouldn't be able to go to work and not worry about it [ I can't trust anyone I guess ]. In my opinion I would want my wife to take care of our child. She / you might regret not spending the time with your children when the early years are gone, I believe the first 5 years of a child's life is the most important, this is when the mold is made for their personality's. Like I said, this is only my opinion but I can also say My wife is SOOOO happy that she / we raised her children. if you can afford it with her/ you staying home I say go for it, you won't regret it.

P.S : Don't get me wrong, I am not saying ALL daycare are bad but just for my piece of mind, I'll go with their Mother

Bueller

[texas7]

That is a very personal decision and there is no right and not wrong; no good and no bad. Sure its optimal for kids to be able to have a stay at home Mom but sometimes life just doesn't work out that way. If the money situation is so tight that if the most minor situation - a health issue, a home emergency, a home repair, not being able to afford health insurance (at least for the kid), you are using credit cards for day to day living plus emergencies that come up - then that is a precarious situation to be in as well. I had the best of both worlds for a while, I stayed home for the first year and the child then stayed with grandma while I was at work until age three. Things happened and grandma could no longer provide care. The child went to daycare and was actually thrilled to do so. He was so excited to make friends and have a social outlet of other kids (just like some Moms need a social network of other adults at times - the kids sometimes need their own peer group as well). Yes he cried the first week when I left because 1) it was too early, 2) the food didn't taste like grandma's (hey I think I want to cry about missing grandma's food as well). After he got used to the new schedule - he had a laundry list of friends he gabbed about constantly and kept most of those friends as he moved into elementary school with them. He fortunately did not have a bad experience. The center was well run and individually owned.

If you do opt for daycare, watch your childs reactions - make sure he/she is happy and has no personality changes or extreme reactions. Listen to them. Check the place out - if they won't let you tour the facility unscheduled then choose another. Many have an internet site where you can log on (with a password) and see your kids throughout the day. I preferred a daycare with many employees versus an individual who kept a few kids in their home because with the center there were lots of people coming and going, lots of eyes and more difficult for wrongdoing whereas with an individual - there were no extra eyes and I knew nothing about the individual's family and friends who could be in and out of the home at any given time. That though was a personal preference on my part.

Either decision you make - as long as your child(ren) are healthy, happy and doing well then don't let anyone put a guilt trip on you for working and building a good life for your family if you need to.

[lhafer]

I'm a working mother. Sure it can be difficult sometimes. It's can be hard to get it all in. But I happen to enjoy working. I love my daughter's day care facility - and they have webcams where I can watch her during the day. She's been going to daycare since she was 12 weeks old, and she's 3 years old now. She has her little friends in her class, that even if were to quit working tomorrow, she would still go to daycare 2-3 day/wk to be with her friends and get that socialization.

Now when I have another baby, I am going to choose not to work. Not because I think it's wrong, or whatever - it's strictly a money thing. Why work full time and spend my whole paycheck putting 2 in day care. Doesn't make sense for my family. But right now it works really well.

It's a personal decision for your family. No one can tell what is right and wrong here. Everyone's situation is different. We don't have family here in Houston, so that was never an option for us.

I personally believe that once a child hits 18 months-2 years old, that they need socialization with other children, be it a mother's day out program, or day care or whatever. That's where kids learn to take turns, share, be in a group, listen, riase their hand to talk, etc. They just don't learn that kind of thing at home. Why should they when they are they only one's demanding their parent's attention? So I think programs outside the home are great for that kind of thing.

Somthing that you might want to think about is your wife working part time. That way, you still get a little money coming in, your son gets socialization skills at day care, but not all of his time is spent there.

[Topaz]

Like others have said, there is no right or wrong answer to this question, just making decisions that are right for your family. Personally, I would be seriously stressed out if my family was depending on only one income for financial security...I feel much better knowing that we have two sources of income. My children thrived in day care because we found good ones and when I visited the day care or watched via Web cam, I always concluded that it would be a whole bunch of work and expense to simulate that environment (with other children for playing and with a full curriculum for learning) for my children and do it all myself.

A big consideration is how your wife feels about working outside the home. I remember from grad school that the mothers who scored the worst on measures of well-being were the ones who quit their jobs to stay home and felt resentful about it. Their children had poorer outcomes, too, and the researchers concluded that the children were affected by the fact that their mothers were unhappy. Same thing with mothers who wish they were home but feel forced to work outside the home...the best situation is when a mom's preferences and situation are in sync.

[dweej]

My older kids wen to day-care/all day pre-school until my third child was born. It wasn't until they got into school that I started really wishing I could stay home. "There's a Mother's day Brunch at school on Friday. Can you come, mommy?" and the answer had to be "No, I have to work". "I'm getting an award for something I wrote. The assembly is on Tuesday morning. Are you going to be there?"...."No, mommy has to be at work." Volunteering in their classroom, participating in the PTA, having their friends over after school.....I couldn't do any of it because "I had to work". That's when it got really hard for all of us and I was thrilled when I was able to start staying home. Up until that time though, my kids always enjoyed their day-care providers (they went to an in-home daycare with a wonderful older couple we loved) and we knew it was something we had to do in order to make ends meet. As Topaz recommended, let your wife do what makes her happy. As soon as she has to start missing important events in your child's school life, I'm guessing she'll opt to start staying home. Good luck with your decision!

[Topaz]

Originally Posted by dweej

My older kids wen to day-care/all day pre-school until my third child was born. It wasn't until they got into school that I started really wishing I could stay home. "There's a Mother's day Brunch at school on Friday. Can you come, mommy?" and the answer had to be "No, I have to work". "I'm getting an award for something I wrote. The assembly is on Tuesday morning. Are you going to be there?"...."No, mommy has to be at work."

These moments are why employed moms and dads need bosses who are devoted parents, too. No one at my job would ever have to miss these events...they would just schedule vacation, personal leave, or flex time to be there.

[dweej]

Originally Posted by Topaz

These moments are why employed moms and dads need bosses who are devoted parents, too. No one at my job would ever have to miss these events...they would just schedule vacation, personal leave, or flex time to be there.

Yeah, depending on what type of job you have, it'll be easier or harder to have two working parents. My job was one where my physical presence was required the majority of the time. Basically if I tried to "work something out" more than once a month (and when you have two kids, each with different things going on, that's just not enough) things started to get sticky and bosses started to frown. That's probably a big part of why not working is so enjoyable to me now!

[Mom2Feebs]

It's a personal decision. For me, I just couldn't go back to work, and I had my husband's support in my decision. Plus--I have a special needs child, so being at home and establishing routines here takes precedent over anything else. We make it on one income just fine. It takes some getting used to, and believe me, some days I want to pull my hair out, but it's all worth it, IMHO.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by jajaja123

me and my wife make enough money to support our child even if only one of us work.. actually i pay all the bills and all my wife's salary goes to savings..

if only one of us work, we wont be able to save at all.. but we could get by..
barely with mortgage and all bills...

we have a 1.5 year old son.. currently my parents are taking care of him at our house while we work..
but only till this month..

are we bad parents if we put our son to day care so both of us could still work.. or should one of us stop working to take care of our son?

Well lets put it this way, I have 2 grown granddaughters, if child care hurt them someone forgot to tell them. They are well adjusted, love life, now are wives and one is a mommy. I think the person who suffered the most working full time was my daughter..The girls are fine. The older one has a little girl that is 27 months old, as happy as any kid i have even seen and very bright. Mommy is in school full time, daddy works and is in school part time. They have her in a private home child care which probably is a good answer. Instead of 40 or 50 kids there are only 10 I think. When she is about 3 she will to to a regular child care center.

The secret, make sure the time you spend with you child is quality time, It isn't the amount of time but the quality that is important.

Maybe another idea, can your wife work part time? That would be the best of both worlds I would think.

I believe in stay at home moms, I was one, but things are different now than 40 years ago.
the last poster, having a special needs child would create a different set of circumstances

Nita

ps: anyone notice, most of the postings on this thread are from stay at home moms, why because the working moms are busy cleaning house and shopping on Saturday..LOL