Are stay at home parents sacrificing?

My wife is a stay-at-home Mom, and has been for 6 years. This was by her choice, and we are both very happy and seem to have raised a very well-adjusted kid. The arrangement has been beneficial for my work situation, because my wife takes care of the house and kids, which leaves me with more flexibility on the job— which ultimately has translated to better jobs, better salaries, and ultimately a better life for all of us. No sacrifice at all.

I’ve been staying home since my eldest was 6 months old. It has its ups and downs, but we are committed to it unless my husband takes early retirement, in which case I will go back to work while he stays home. (The kids would be in high school at that point.)

I think it strengthened our marriage, because we had to join forces more, trust him with the money, trust me to manage the home.

I was a lawyer, and very cerebral. It still drives me nuts not to have sufficient intellectual outlets, but I do have some, and I am willing to say “not now”. And on a lovely day when I’m doing something outside with the kids instead of being in an office, I am the most grateful mom in town.

I sort of assumed that if I stayed home, my kids would be above average. They are really not prodigies of any sort. And one of them has ADD. Some of the working moms I know seem to have well-mannered, smart, talented kids. They must be doing something right. On the other hand, because I stayed home and made raising my children my vocation, I know my children very well, and I have time to learn about child development, parenting, etc. My ADD kid does not take prescription meds for it because we are managing or ameliorating it in other ways. I would not be up to speed on this if I were practicing law full-time.

As to foregoing private school, well I believe parents are the primary educators of children. Our public school is very strong academically, and follows the Josephson Character Counts system of teaching values, but where they miss something, we fill in the gaps. And where the kids get a biased presentation of history, we are there to present the real story. Our views do really matter to our kids, thus far. The private schools near us can be expected to present much the same biases, even the Catholic schools, and they are not free of gossips, snobs and bullies, either. So we are in a California public school, and staying there until further notice.

“In every act of selflessness, of loving sacrifice, of compassion,...we seem to be giving something away, to be robbing ourselves. The truth is that such acts enrich us and make us grow; this is the only way that leads forward and upward......Love alone gives life meaning. That is the more capable we are of loving and surrendering ourselves, the more meaningful our life becomes.” from Reflections by Herman Hesse

There's something drastically wrong with that quote. I don't see supporting my kids as being selfless, nor being sacrifice (though certainly a tradeoff). Nor would I ever have dreamt of surrendering to my kids.

Nor do I accept the 'Love alone gives meaning' idea. Love who or what you want, it's what you do that gives meaning. Love the grizzly bear from distance is ok, but meaningless. Do something stupid like try to be a grizzly and your meaning becomes a joke.

I know how you feel. We put the oldest through a fairly cheap (as far as private schools go) school for two years and had our second child in private kindergarten at a different school. Neither was expensive, but it took a big chunk out of our savings to do it.

We so need vouchers in this country, but that won't happen in our lifetimes with these communist bastards running the show. The only thing you could do is home school and the restrictions in California are probably not friendly in that respect. The next suggestion would be to move and I know that's easier said than done too.

Good luck--I know it's not easy for parents like us that don't want to go along with the flow and indoctrination.

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