Until recently, I viewed the choice of being a stay at home parent solely as a loss of income in a couple’s life. If both adults are working and one chooses not to pursue professional employment, then the incime at that house is going to go down.

Over time, though, I began to realize that being a stay at home parent has a lot of significant value on its own. Not only does it produce inherent savings through the lifestyle change, but a committed stay at home parent can significantly alter the household budget in a profound number of ways - some obvious, some not.

If you’re considering making the stay at home parenting move but are afraid of a financial apocalypse from making that move, consider the following.

You’ll save on child care costs. If you’re considering the stay at home parent route, this is usually the first financial benefit you think of. In our case, one of us becoming a stay at home parent would save almost $300 a week.

You’ll save on taxes. When one of you leaves the workforce, your tax bill will go way down, perhaps even more than you think, because that lost salary was effectively paying taxes in your highest bracket. Let’s say you were making $30,000 a year and that $30,000 pushed you into the 28% bracket by about $20,000. That means your total tax bill from just that one salary was $8,100, or $156 a week.

You’ll save on food expenses. At work, I often go out to eat with my office mates. Let’s say, hypothetically, that I do this three times a week and it costs $10 a pop. With that expense gone, $25 a week would be saved just by eliminating the cost of eating out for lunch.

You’ll save on automobile expenses. My commute eats roughly a gallon and a half of gasoline each day and triggers an oil change every three months. That adds up to a cost of about $4.80 each day just for these items - toss on another $0.20 a day for other auto maintenance items like tires, belts, filters, etc. and you’ve got a $25 a week savings just due to the automobile - and I’m not even including breakdowns, major repairs, tolls, or other emergencies.

You’ll save on extra work expenses. My job has a lot of small, hidden expenses. We all are expected to contribute to a coffee fund. We all are expected to participate in gift exchanges. We all are expected to contribute to donation drives. We all are (basically) expected to buy tchotchkes from the children of most immediate coworkers. These expenses are real and they build up over time, averaging as much as $15 a week over the year.

You’ll save on routine work habits. My wife routinely stops for coffee in the morning and also gets a scone most mornings. This averages out to $25 a week more than just making a pot at home and having a simple breakfast there.

You’ll save on stress relief. I personally find ways to cope with stress by meditation, but I am the only person in my office who doesn’t either get expensive massages or engage in a very expensive stress-reducing activity. One could argue that playing with my Wii is a stress reducing activity. I will be conservative and value this at just $10 a week, though it could be much higher.

You’ll save by discovering new avenues of frugality. If one of us became a stay at home parent, lots of other avenues of frugality would open up. For example, my wife has often talked about wanting to take our kids to story time at the library, getting her in the door there on a routine basis and thus encouraging her to check out books - that’s something I’d probably do, too, as a stay at home parent. I could easily believe that $10 a week would be trimmed from our budget just from frugal discoveries.

The truth is that quite often, we use the excuse of things being “too expensive” without really thinking too much about it to argue against stay at home parenting, but when you really start adding up the factors, there’s much more value there than you think. In the above example, the stay at home parent is effectively saving the household $560 a week. That’s the equivalent of a $29,000 a year job, not much less than my wife’s current salary, and I feel the numbers used in the calculation are conservative.

Is this a financial argument for one of us to become a stay at home parent? When I first started writing this, I did it merely as a mental exercise, but when I showed this argument to my wife, she was actually stunned. Her response was to try to poke holes in it, but she actually wound up convincing herself that my numbers were low.

If stay at home parenting is something you’re considering, but you’re worried about the financial impact, give this article a careful reading alongside your spouse. You just might come to a different conclusion than you expected.

Yesterday, I wrote about the idea of an “it” toy for Christmas, including tips for how to find a hard-to-get toy and how to talk to your child about it if you don’t get them their most desired item. This brought up a bevy of comments criticizing the post. I thought Elizabeth summed it up well:

Hi Trent. I love your blog and respect your opinions but I have to say that the very idea and existance of “it” toys offends me deeply. On principle alone I wouldn’t walk across the street to get an “it” toy for free.

I defend the right of marketers and manufacturer’s to try to build the aura of “it” for their products but I equally defend my right, as a mother, to keep my children from being exposed to the media that encourages “it” toys. And, if exposed, I stand firm on my efforts to help my children see that their lives will not be ruined forever if they never receive an “it” toy.

This is an interesting perspective well worth looking at, mostly because it wasn’t the angle I was even approaching the original article from. From my perspective, unless you homeschool your child in a media-less environment, they are going to be aware of the toys that other children desire and that will be a part of forming their own desires. If you educate your child on consumer issues well (for starters, read Born to Buy), your child should be able to recognize obvious marketing, but that doesn’t mean that any child will disdain an enjoyable toy or will completely ignore the interests of their friends.

Some of the commenters on the original post (like Elizabeth above) seem to actively avoid any heavily marketed toys and would refuse to buy them for their children. On the other hand, parents who expose their children to rampant consumerism and marketing are likely to have children that desire whatever the heavily marketed toys of the year are.

I’ll confess that I don’t like either approach, and here’s why.

I am a strong believer in educating my children about consumer issues when they’re ready. With my two year old, my current approach is to basically eliminate his exposure to persuasive advertising, but to wander with him through the toy aisles at stores and also having a strong idea of what toys he enjoys most at home. His most beloved toy at the moment is his giant bucket of Lego Duplos, so I have no problem with him being very interested in the Legos. He also enjoys small toy cars as well, so we tend to look carefully at the cars. We often put him into simple buying situations, too.

He’s already learning that he enjoys some toys more than others and I make sure to remind him of this when we are looking at toys in the store. “Remember, you play with your cars a lot at home… wouldn’t you rather spend your dollar on a handful of used cars than on that plastic tricycle?” is something I actually asked him at a yard sale not long ago. “You have a tricycle at home to ride!” He chose the cars.

Of course, often he makes choices I view as bad, but I strongly believe in freedom of choice. He might get a toy, play with it once, and forget about it. If that happens, I pull it out a few times again just to reinforce that he doesn’t like it, then put it in storage with the eventual goal of moving it onto Goodwill. Over time, we’re both building a sense of what he really likes and doesn’t like.

What does this have to do with the “it” toy? Let’s say, hypothetically, he comes home one day requesting that “it” toy. Knowing my child, I’ll usually have a fairly good idea of whether he’d like it or not. If I don’t think that he will, I might point out similar toys that he didn’t like or suggest alternative choices that I think better match him.

If he persists, however, I will get him that “it” toy, even if I’m certain he won’t play with it. Why? It becomes another valuable lesson. I can point out to him that that toy wasn’t very fun after all and it becomes a very useful lesson in how marketing works.

As for a wish list, it’s useful for grandparents or other distant relatives who might not know the child as intimately as a parent will, but as a parent, such a list is pretty useless to me. A gift from the heart, a gift that really expresses an understanding of the recipient, is always the best way to go.

So, yes, I’m completely in favor of seeking out the “it” toy provided it’s in the context of some strong consumer education. Where I don’t like it is when a parent buys it blindly for their child without any context or anything else.

If you check your calendar, you’ll note that Christmas is just five weeks away, which for many of us means that planning has already begun. This year happens to be the first year that my son is old enough to really begin to understand and participate in Christmas-related activities. He can open his own gifts and can help with a lot of the normal tasks, like decorating the tree and making Christmas cookies, and he’s actually made at least one gift suggestion to us (”more Legos,” which means that this is likely in his future).

Even though we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, my parents always made Christmas very memorable growing up, so I asked my parents for some advice on how they did it, and I also did some research on my own, collecting ideas from various places. Here are eight suggestions on how to create a wonderful Christmas that minimizes the materialism and unnecessary expenses but creates great memories for your child and maximizes their creativity.

Use end roll sheets from a newspaper, let the kids decorate it, and use it for wrapping paper. This idea came from a friend of mine who indirectly suggested it with some other parenting tips. Just go to your local newspaper’s office and ask if they have any end rolls for sale - most of them do for $1 or $2. This roll will provide more than enough paper to wrap all of your gifts. Then, go home and cut a sheet off of this roll big enough to cover your table, bust out the green and red and black and yellow crayons, and let the kids color up a storm on them. Suggest that they draw Christmas trees, wreathes, candy canes, etc. When they’ve really covered one side of the sheet well, you have a ton of unique wrapping paper for gifts.

Minimize the gifts you buy your child. Once you get past the third or fourth gift, no matter how great the gifts are, you hit a wall of diminishing returns with your child where some of the gifts won’t be met with much enthusiasm and will be tossed aside. Instead, focus on three or four quality gifts for them instead of a pile of junk. It was because of this tactic that my parents were able to get me some very memorable Christmas gifts even though they were quite poor - they just focused usually on one or two incredible presents.

Use LED Christmas lights. Now that LED technology is becoming prevalent, one common place for them to pop up is in Christmas light strands. LEDs largely look the same as normal lights, but they eat far, far less electricity - as little as 20% as much - and they have a much longer life than incandescent Christmas tree lights. The only drawback is a higher initial cost, but that cost difference can be recouped in two years and the strands can easily last ten years (whereas incandescent strands seem to die out much quicker).

Use natural Christmas tree decorations - and let the kids help. Almost everything on our tree aside from the lights (and a few sentimental ornaments) is natural and edible. We usually make a giant bowl of popcorn and make popcorn strands (interspersed with some dried cranberries) and use pinecones and small red ears of colored corn with ribbon to hang them with. It’s pretty inexpensive and then virtually everything can be eaten or naturally recycled/composted, and it makes for a gorgeous tree, plus it has extra meaning because it reflects our values.

Involve your children in any and all Christmas food preparation. Seriously, there are few things more fun than making frosted sugar cookies from scratch with your child on a lazy Saturday afternoon before Christmas - and even the frosting is every easy. You can do similar things with other foods you might prepare for the holidays; getting your children involved with the process teaches them how to cook things from scratch, which can be a valuable (and very frugal) life skill later on.

Make sure at least one of the gifts for your child is very open-ended. Open-ended toys - meaning ones that encourage creative play - are often ones that have huge amounts of replay value for the kids. Compare, say, Legos to a Tickle Me Elmo doll. The Tickle Me Elmo doll gets tickled a few times, it rolls around, and the kid laughs, but it grows old quickly. On the other hand, Legos can be used to build an infinite array of items (at least until you get into the “kits,” but even those can be modified by a creative child).

Videotape Christmas morning. My parents did this a few years and those are absolutely wonderful videos to watch - my sheer excitement the year I recieved my Nintendo Entertainment System makes me smile even now. Best tip: put the tripod across the room from the tree and have everyone open gifts near the tree with no one sitting behind the camera - that way, the whole event is captured without any interruptions, changes in perspective, or cuts. You can also do the same with decorating cookies or decorating the tree. I’ve heard from other parents that they often build up to Christmas morning by watching several of these tapes and enjoying memories.

Have your children write thank-you notes for the gifts they receive. Many parents eschew this, but I’ve found that time and time again it’s a very good way to teach your children the importance of being thankful for the gifts that they receive. A package of blank thank-you notes is very inexpensive and the process can easily be managed in the afternoon - and you can set an example by writing your own thank-you notes.

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to have a chat about parenting with an extremely bright friend of mine from my high school days. He and his wife have three children and, though they both work full time jobs, don’t have a significantly large income in their home. I asked them how they do it and the ideas came forth like water from a fire hose, and most of them made a lot of sense for my family, too. Here are the ones I managed to jot down later in my notebook.

Get old towels at yard sales and cut them up. These make perfect wipes. They just run them under the sink water to get them wet, then use them when changing diapers or cleaning up faces, then when they have a ton of them, they do a load of just those dirty cloth pieces with a lot of bleach. It’s a pretty good idea and, if you sit down and start doing the math, it becomes clear that over time, they become much, much cheaper than paper wipes.

Make simple meals with as basic ingredients as you can, then spice from there. Most of their meals consist of a protein-strong item (meat or beans), a vegetable, a fruit, some kind of bread, and water. That’s it. They do have a lot of spices in the cupboard to make them taste better, but most meals boil down to this, especially on week nights. It’s cheap, it’s simple, the ingredients are very healthy, and anyone can do it. He said, “if you want gourmet, don’t have kids.”

Focus on open-ended, imagination-based toys. The only toys in their home are very open-ended ones, such as Legos and dolls that don’t speak. They basically eschew any item that makes noise because (a) it costs more and (b) it causes their children to use their imaginations less.

Buy end-rolls of newspaper and be creative. He goes to the local newspaper publisher and buys end rolls of newspaper once a year or so for just a dollar or two, then has the children draw and make pictures as a very regular activity. The cost of this is minimal and it’s also a great way for them to make wrapping paper, which the family uses for gifts (the children draw on giant sheets of newspaper in Christmas or birthday colors, then this is used for wrapping the gifts).

Cut their hair at home. For young children, haircuts are extremely simple. Just get out the kitchen scissors and keep it trimmed up, maybe allowing a professional to neaten it up once every year or two. As they get older, they might get more picky, but it works well for young children.

Involve the children in every possible activity that you do. Even if it creates a mess or eats up time. If you take out the trash, have them help bag it and tie the knots. If you cook supper, show them what you’re doing. If you do the dishes, or go to the store, or anything else, involve them in the process. As they grow older, they’ll naturally become more and more involved and you can become less and less involved - in other words, you’re teaching them how to be frugal adults who can do things for themselves.

Find activities that free up one parent. Anything that you can come up with that frees up one parent to do something else for a while, even if it’s just something like cooking a meal, is good. For example, one parent might go into the farthest part of the house, close the door, and then read stories or build giant block castles while the other parent cleans up or cooks supper. This enables a lot of savings, actually, because it enables the household to have home-cooked healthy meals and a clean environment.

Find another couple with children and swap babysitting. They know another family with three children and they alternate as babysitters for free on Saturday nights. That means that one Saturday night, a couple would have their own three kids and three more at home, then the next one would allow them to be completely alone - providing opportunities for a romantic date, for example. This keeps them sane and provides them with free babysitting with people they trust.

I thought all of these were brilliant, and surprisingly, we weren’t doing too many of them yet. Rest assured, we’re going to be adopting at least a few of these ideas.

Recently, I reviewed the book Born to Buy and, almost simultaneously, Get Rich Slowly posted an article about the challenge of unbranded children. Both the book and the article focus on almost the same issue: the challenge of minimizing marketing to very young children.

Many times in the past, I’ve encouraged parents to consider turning off the television, for their wallet’s sake and child’s sake if nothing else, but let’s face it: it’s largely impossible to avoid childhood branding. Even things as innocuous as Sesame Street are heavily branded, causing children to strongly desire things like Tickle Me Elmo, and it gets worse from there, with Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder and on and on and on…

At some point, as a parent of a young child in America, your child is going to be exposed to these brands - repeatedly. A two year old is not psychologically mature enough to make rational consumer choices - in fact, the branding on items like diapers takes great advantage of natural childhood curiosity. We’re at the changing table several times a day, and if the diapers have Sesame Street characters on them, he points at them and asks what they are, effectively turning me into the marketer, as he learns from me about the bright and colorful characters on his diaper.

Why is this dangerous? First, it weights a child in favor of toys that display known characters on them, often at an inflated price. Non-branded dolls and toys consistently cost far less than branded ones. Second, strong attachment to specific characters (like Elmo and Dora, for example) can lead a child to strongly desire those branded toys. Thus, when I’m changing my son’s diaper or putting a Band-Aid on him that has one of these characters, I’m effectively creating a constant reminder for him of the character.

Doesn’t Elmo on a diaper or a Band-Aid bring the comfort of friendly familiarity? Possibly, but as a parent, I should be the one bringing comfort to my child, not a printed picture of Elmo or Dora on the back of a bandage or a diaper.

I’ve only found one real weapon in my repertoire that consistently minimizes the effect of branding: enthusiasm. My personal enthusiasm does a lot to steer the thinking of my son, so I’m often most enthusiastic about open-ended toys with minimal branding: balls of all sizes, unmarked blocks, a dump truck, a wagon, a tricycle, classic children’s literature in board book form, and so on.

Here are some specific tips for what you can do as a parent to decrease the importance of brands in your small child’s life.

Show your greatest enthusiasm for non-branded open-ended toys. Look for imaginative toys that aren’t laden with marketed characters. Blocks are great, as are unbranded dolls like teddy bears. Be quite enthusiastic about these toys and your young child will often follow along. This has the benefit of encouraging them to use their imagination as well as not getting them on the “train” of desiring toys and items branded with marketed characters.

Answer questions politely, but don’t show strong enthusiasm for heavily-branded items. Sometimes, your child will naturally ask questions about Elmo and Dora and Spider-Man and such. Answer them, but don’t get excited about them. Instead, save the enthusiastic responses for the non-branded and more open-ended items.

Don’t purchase branded gifts if at all avoidable. Likely, well-meaning friends and relatives will buy toys that are branded - a Tickle Me Elmo doll is something that is a very nice gift from a relative, for example, and it should be accepted quite happily. However, for the purchases that you control, look very hard for items that are non-branded, especially when they’re very young (before school, where they’ll be inundated with this stuff).

As they grow, explain how ads and marketing work. That’s one of the best things my parents did. When I was first old enough to start understanding it, my parents pointed out ads to me specifically and would show me directly how they used every trick in the book to get me to want to buy products. Largely, it worked - I basically don’t care at this point what the brand is as long as the item is quality, is durable, and does what I want it to do well.

Eventually, some branding will be a part of your child’s life - that’s part of consumer culture in America. However, you can do a lot as a parent - the one real hero in a young child’s life - to minimize the influence of brands, especially early on, and encourage your child to find their interests elsewhere.

So far, my two year old’s only real branded interest is Sesame Street, which we have been pretty low-key about. He has a very simple Elmo doll which is just one in what appears to become a hierarchy of stuffed animals. He has a few other branded items around, but the only one he expresses exceptional interest in (in terms of noticing the character and perhaps wanting more things like it) is the Elmo doll. Given the heavy marketing even towards one and two year olds, I really am quite happy with that.

This weekend, I’m visiting my parents, and I’ve seen a small army of nieces and nephews and cousins floating through the house. One of the most popular items sitting around is a toy catalog, where my parents have encouraged the various young folks to put their initials very clearly next to items they want. The children have been poring over this catalog with intense care, putting their initials all over the place, and talking excitedly about all of the items that they want for Christmas.

In fact, just earlier today, my nephew went through the catalog with me, showing me items that he wanted on practically every other page. An XBox 360… Guitar Hero III… a gumball machine… a Bears jersey… and those are just the few that I can recall off the top of my head. There were many more items he showed me while leafing through the catalog.

Most people think of this as a rite of Christmas, and I do, too. I used to do the same exact thing, reading through a catalog and marking a wide variety of stuff that I’d like to receive for Christmas. I’d usually expect to receive at least a few of the items I’d marked, and my parents usually would buy me a few of them and leave them wrapped and under the tree.

However, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the entire thing. It’s pretty clear, from watching my nephew, that the catalog does a very effective job at suggesting gifts to him. He’ll pore over individual pages, look at the images of toys that look like lots of fun to play, uses his imagination a bit, and then jumps on board. The pages are essentially an advertisement, trying to make the toys look as intriguing as possible.

In other words, on some level, Christmas catalogs encourage materialism in young children. It creates a desire within them for objects, particularly ones that they did not even conceive of wanting before the Christmas catalog came along. In fact, ideas from catalogs can often overshadow other ideas - nowhere in a catalog, for example, can one find books or highly open-ended creative toys.

I have no problem with my children wanting toys for Christmas. Toys are a wonderful thing and create countless opportunities for a child to have fun and play creatively. On the other hand, I’m not such a big fan of toys being essentially suggested to my children, either.

So what’s a healthy solution for children? I think the best idea I’ve ever heard came from an old college friend of mine. She said that one day in late October each year, her parents would get out a blank piece of paper and have them start a list of the toys and other items that they wanted for Christmas. As ideas came to them, they’d add them to the list, and then the lists would go away in early December. At no point during the Christmas season did they have a catalog to look at - the toys they listed were either from their own imagination or from other sources.

That sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

This week, The Simple Dollar attempts to address challenging questions in personal finance by looking at both sides of the story and figuring out some of the factors you need to look at to make a decision.

As my son approaches an age where he starts to really understand money (he already is understanding the idea that money can be exchanged for items), the issue of an allowance starts to rear its head. Growing up, I had an allowance sometimes - at other times, I had a system of earning money for tasks, and simply nothing at all at other points. My wife had an automatic allowance, but a very small one.

Naturally, in our desire to raise our children with some sense of financial self-discipline, the issue of an allowance has already come up for serious discussion. The answer, however, is not so clear. Let’s look at both sides of the issue.

Yes!

As soon as possible, children need to feel the risk and reward of completing tasks for earnings. In the real world, people don’t receive money for nothing - they have to work for that money. Children should realize that with effort comes reward, but a lack of effort brings a lack of reward.

Part of the job of parents is to prepare children for the real world, and giving them something for nothing gives them a strong false impression of how the world works. If you supplement this with very strong financial and personal lessons, they may be able to overcome this, but actions speak far louder than words, and they’re learning, by your actions, that they should expect compensation for things they’re going to have to do in everyday life.

A child that is well-rounded will eventually learn that there is a fair market value for some jobs and then they will come to expect some compensation for those tasks - mowing the lawn, for example. However, there is no fair market value for making one’s bed, and to expect to be compensated for it either assumes you’re rich enough to afford a maid (which makes most of this conversation moot) or you’re teaching them some very faulty lessons about life.

No!

In a household, there are certain expectations that everyone should fulfill to keep things moving forward. These responsibilities vary from family to family, but in most families this usually involves a child keeping his room clean, helping with dishes, and perhaps a few other tasks.

These are fundamental tasks that parents do without financial reward, and so should the child. Sometimes tasks need to be done and aren’t met with financial reward - adults don’t receive payment for doing the dishes or making their bed, so it creates false expectaions if a child begins to expect to get paid for such things.

When an allowance is given to a child in exchange for basic chores, it creates a very false reward system. They expect to be rewarded for doing basic household tasks, and that kind of expectation does nothing but persist and grow over time into some beliefs that funds should be expected for basic things that, in adulthood, they simply won’t receive compensation for.

There are some systems where it’s fine to pay a child - extra chores and other accomplishments above and beyond the average. But a basic allowance tied to basic chores teaches things that you really don’t want to teach.

My Take

I’m fine with a basic allowance completely not tied to basic chores. A small allowance of something like $5 to $10 a week seems appropriate to me - it enables the child to figure out some financial lessons for themselves. Meanwhile, they should be expected to complete some tasks, but it’s not tied to their allowance - that expectation should be taught via other carrots and sticks.

Similarly, I’m on board for “bonus” allowance for doing things above and beyond the usual. For example, I have no problem with paying a child to mow the lawn - I’d have to pay someone to do that, too. I’m not real strong on bonuses for great grades - I guess I can tolerate a small amount for an A, but that’s really not something I’m sure about.

I don’t feel that the giving of a basic allowance by itself can teach useful lessons. Tying it directly to tasks teaches things I don’t feel right teaching. However, I think that many valuable lessons can be taught after the allowance is given: budgeting, investing (in a savings account), and so on.

This week, The Simple Dollar attempts to address challenging questions in personal finance by looking at both sides of the story and figuring out some of the factors you need to look at to make a decision.

Yesterday, in response to a discussion about the financial costs of a two year old child, the following comment was left, which resulted in the beginnings of a debate about the value of daycare, the value of both parents being employed, and so on:

It’s unfortunate that you send your kids to daycare. These are the prime growing years for a child. How viable is it to have your wife work at home or not work at all?

When a person becomes a parent and they look at that child for the first time, they want that child to have every great opportunity in the world: a great education, a healthy upbringing with strong values, and so on. Unfortunately, for most families, difficult choices have to be made. Do you send your child to daycare and focus on earning money, or do you stay at home with the child to maximize their personal fulfillment? It’s not an easy question, so let’s look at both sides of it.

Daycare!

Many modern families find themselves in a financial situation where they both must work to provide a good home for their children. This isn’t the 1950s any more - house prices have grown at a rate much higher than inflation, just for starters. As a result, many people are in financial situations where both parents have to work.

Beyond that, a quality daycare center can be a very enriching experience for your child. A good center can provide many activities, social interactions, and experiences that simply can’t be done in a home environment because of expense of the materials and the startup time involved. For example, the daycare center that I take my children to has no televisions anywhere and a schedule of activities for the children each day that, quite honestly, I couldn’t match in a home environment. The primary employees are paid strong wages (they have “assistants” that are paid minimum wage who primarily just set up and take down activities and occasionally assist with wrangling larger groups of children) and they genuinely care for the children. The adult-to-child ratio never exceeds 1 to 4, either. It’s expensive, yes, but the experience is a good one for my children.

I’ll be the first one to say that a daycare where they plop children in front of a television all day is not a good one, but a quality daycare center can enrich your child and enable you to get things done.

Stay At Home!

The argument for a stay-at-home situation is obvious: no matter how good a daycare center is, it doesn’t match the love and nurturing care that a parent can provide for their child. Workers at daycare centers are employees - not parents - and they don’t bring genuine one-on-one attention and love to the child that a parent can bring.

Not only that, the actual financial loss due to having a stay-at-home parent usually aren’t as much as you think. You’re eliminating the cost of daycare, the cost of transportation to work, the cost of clothing for work, the cost of eating out with and entertaining coworkers, and some home costs as well, since a stay-at-home parent can cook meals.

Adding the two together makes a very compelling case for putting your career on pause for a while to give your child the very best.

My Take

I live in a home where both parents work, but we both wish we could be a stay-at-home parent at least part of the time. In fact, with the birth of our second child, we came very close to making that leap, but backed away from it after some analysis.

The real reason is that we feel our children benefit on the whole from their time at daycare, particularly our two year old son. We spend quite a bit of money on daycare for our children (it’s literally the best in our area), and the environment is one that we feel very happy with, as described above. Our son’s language skills are off the charts for children his age (he can largely speak in complete sentences - and always expresses complete ideas - at age two) and he often exhibits learning that we simply didn’t teach him. Plus, we largely devote our evenings and weekends to spending time with him and his sister, so they get a full helping of loving and nurturing care.

My feeling is that if you can afford a daycare that meets or exceeds the standards you would set at home, then daycare is a reasonable option. However, if you’re working a low-wage job where you can only afford a very low-cost daycare, it’s probably beneficial for both you and your child to look at being a stay-at-home parent, particularly if there is additional income at home.