Parenting: Choosing to Stay at Home

When you find out that a baby is coming along, there are a lot of choices to be made. The most important for me was the choice to stay at home with her, and not subject her to daycare. Every parent has different circumstances to consider, and it's an important decision that can change the way your family lives.

During the summer between high school and college, I worked in a daycare. This was one of the big experiences that helped me to decide to never put my child in one. Most of the daycare workers liked their job, most of them were really good with kids, I loved working with the children. The ones who didn't like their job or weren't good with kids were usually just indifferent. I've heard horror stories about daycare workers who were abusive to the children, but during the short time I worked there, I never came across one. What stood out to me was the way the children adapted. They were miserable, they were bored, they acted out, or became very attached to their daycare workers. There were babies who said there first words or took their first steps in front of someone who wouldn't know them in three years, huge milestones that their parents would never have (though many daycare workers are kind enough not to tell the parents, so they can think they have the "first"). There was one little boy who was only four years old who was so attached to me that he would cry when his mother tried to take him, and who could blame him? He spent twelve hours a day with me, and maybe four with his mom.