I’ve done both and it’s much harder to work outside the home.
I disagree. Working outside the home is hard since you’re not the one raising your kids no matter how much people try to claim differently. That would gave been hard for me. I was able to go back to work after 14 years to a job that mirrored my school age kids schedule and it was still hard to not be there for the during the school day activities. My “career” was negatively affected but it’s a choice we made. Being a SAHM was much harder actual work. IMO nothing is harder physically, emotionally, mentally than staying home from infancy to school age and beyond and living on one income. And then going back after years and starting over with a job and still the same house and child activities and those responsibilities.
Parents who send their kids to daycare like to claim it’s hard, and for those who don’t want to but are financially forced to, yeah it’s probably hard. Many choose to then complain it’s hard, lol, while claiming they wouldn’t or couldn’t be fulfilled staying home.
Life is all about choices and it has never been fair. I wish I could have stayed home forever but after staying home for 14 years, and helping my mom care for my dad,then having to quit a job couple years later to be the primary care giver for my mother and then going back after she died, rather than send her to a nursing home where she wouldn’t get the care she got at home, it was all a choice. But as I would never put my kids in daycare, I wouldn’t put my parents in a nursing home. It really is about choices and what works for a family and the consequences from those choices.
In a two parent family, with one income for many years, financially it’s much more difficult to make the choice to stay home, raise the children and care for aging parents and sacrifice extras. But it’s all a choice families make for what they can live with or tell themselves they can live with.Same as it’s a choice to have children outside of marriage, divorce (in most cases), two parents working full time, sending elderly parents to nursing homes, etc. People do what they can live with mostly and some want validation for their choices.