Why do we stay at home? According to Senator Dodd, who argued against giving stay-at-home moms the same tax break as families who put their children in daycare, stay at home moms are self-pampered who just want to “play golf or go to the club and play cards.” I don’t know about you but that definitely doesn’t describe my life. In fact it describes very few stay at home moms. Research by Robert E. Rector, a senior research fellow of The Heritage Foundation that specializes in family and welfare research, found that in 1996 the median income of married couples with kids when both parents worked outside the home was $57,637. His findings also found that when the mother stayed home the median income dropped to $38,835. This leaves little money for going to the club.
So why do we do it? The other day my husband was talking about me at work with some female college students who work the swing shift at his job. He mentioned that I have a degree in Elementary Education but after our son was born decided to stay home and raise our children. They couldn’t understand why I would “waste my degree” by staying home with my kids. My reply to them is I am not “wasting my degree”. I realize that I can make a greater contribution to society by staying home and raising my three children to be productive citizens, than teaching other people’s children their ABC’s.
My mother also had an education degree and chose to stay at home. Although it wasn’t always easy financially, she says it was worth it. The reason is because she (my dad gives her most of the credit) has raised four children who were never involved in anything immoral or illegal as teenagers, who are all happily married, and three out of the four received college degrees. I credit it all to the fact that she was home. One mother when asked how she managed to raise nine children to be happy, moral, successful adults replied, “I was there at the crossroads of their lives.” She was home.
That’s the answer. We want to be the ones raising our children. Giving them the attention, love, direction, and values that we want them to possess. In a society where things are becoming more precarious all the time, schools are full of drugs and guns, and the morals our society used to value are quickly vanishing; it’s important that children have a safe and loving environment to come home too. As a stay at home mom it’s my goal to provide this type of environment. That is why we’re stay-at-home moms.
Feulner, Edwin. Ph.D. What Stay-at-home Moms Do. May 29, 1998. Heritage.org