It is a sacrifice for me to work, and not stay home with my children. We got slammed mightily with medical bills (even after insurance paid what they considered "reasonable and customary") that we are STILL paying off, and we are looking at more medical bills in the next few months.
If I didn't work, we would have lost the house, there would be no new clothes for two (soon to be three) growing kids, no money for life insurance (if I died tomorrow, at least my family would be financially secure), no money for vaccinations or other basic NEEDS. Not wants, or desires, but NEEDS. We are working hard to do what is right and pay off our financial obligations to the medical providers who saved not just my daughter's life, but mine.
I walked away from a job where my take home pay was $1K a week to work part-time, making half that amount, because even though we had exhausted our funds for medical bills, I wanted to spend time with my children. I could have tossed my kids into daycare and eliminated our debt in half the time. My husband and I work opposite shifts, sacrificing plenty of time in our marriage (we see each other 1 day a week at most) so that WE and WE alone are their caregivers. Every single decision we have made starts with one question: what is best for the children?
I congratulate women who stay home and do without to raise their babies. God bless them. But to suggest that women who work care less for their kids is, quite simply, ridiculous.
Don't listen. There are some on this board that are utterly not in touch with reality.