Stay-at-Home Moms: Yay or Nay?

Stay-at-home Moms: Yay or Nay?

If you’re my age or older, chances are your own mother stayed at home to raise you for a good deal of your youth.

In the year before I was born, 1967, almost 50 percent of all women in the United States were stay-at-home moms with a working husband. The 1970’s brought the onslaught of divorce and an ever-increasing cost of living. Thus, many stay-at-home moms were forced to take paying jobs outside the home.

Each year found more and more of these women leaving the home until 1999 when the tides began to slowly turn back the other way. Since then, there has been an increase of women choosing to stay at home for whatever reasons.

Opinions on stay-at-home moms are vast and run the gamut from, “they’re too lazy to work” to “these women are making the absolute best choice for themselves and their children.”

There are as many varying opinions as there are women making this choice.

Women are guilted by someone for making either choice and some people take this topic quite seriously. It can be as heated as arguments over voting for the president of the United States.

The pros of choosing to stay at home with your children include stronger bonds between mother and child, many children excel in school, increased socialization for children since many moms can chauffer them to/from events, most children of stay-at-home moms are simply better- adjusted and deal with life better.

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Cons include isolation for mom which often leads to depression and anxiety, increased stress level and more easily angered, children in day care often exhibit behavioral issues and do poorly in school, mental decline for mom.

These pros and cons mentioned are only some of the good and bad that comes with making this choice.
One of the biggest arguments for stay-at-home moms is the decline of respect and common courtesy among our youth. Then again, there are arguments claiming that this decline is due more to a lack of discipline and people being rewarded simply for participating.

Dollar-wise, what is a stay-at-home mom worth? Salary.com determined using its Salary Wizard that the median annual salary of a mother in 2018 was $162,581 – a nearly $5,000 increase from the 2017.

Not every woman is cut out to be a stay-at-home mom. It takes a strong will, good time management and a solid support system. Sadly, though, not all women making this choice have any or all of that.

Many women like myself are fortunate enough to work from home so we get pretty much the best of both worlds except maybe the socialization. I am quite fortunate in that a good deal of my work involves interaction with other people be it through in person readings/counseling or over the phone, chat or text.

I do sometimes struggle with time management, but it gradually got better as my youngest child got older. I have been very blessed to be able to do this for all but a few months of his 18 years and I feel it has greatly benefited us both.

Looking back, I would not change anything, but I have counseled many women who would. This is true for both sides.