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Home › Articles › Child Care › To Work or Not to Work

To Work or Not to Work

The Mother's Dilemma

By Tamar Krantman Weiss

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And keeping your job is important for your family's sake, too, Williams says. If, for instance, a couple were to divorce, a homemaker and her children "would stand a significant chance of poverty," she says. "Because of the treatment of mothers in divorce court, 40 percent of mothers end up poor ... displaced homemakers are much more likely than employed women to find themselves in that group."

Staying Home Anyway
Despite these figures, some women maintain that being a full-time homemaker is the best thing for their families and themselves. Rachel*, a trained recreational therapist, was disillusioned with her place in the labor force. She felt that she was not receiving enough pay to make her job worthwhile. Instead of continuing, she decided to quit her job and be a full-time, stay-at-home mom.

"I am very happy with the decision I made," she says. Rachel isn't nervous about being able to return to the work force later, either. "I haven't been working in years, and I still get calls all the time about returning to work."

The Telecommuting Compromise
For women who feel that a compromise between going out to work and being a full-time homemaker is in order, there is always the option of being part of the labor force while staying home. Thanks to the telecommuting age, opportunities for the mom who wants to work from home have increased tremendously.

Cheryl Demas is founder and editor of and author of


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