This is a question that my wife, Angela and I asked ourselves on a daily basis, and would be a topic of conversation as we are laying in bed at night. I worked 12 hours per day (and sometimes more) and many times would have to work out of state for months upon end, without seeing my wife and children. The hours were so demanding that I could not even fly home on weekends.
At this stage in our lives, my wife tossed around the decision of going back to work so I could take a pay cut. The idea was... If both of us were working 40 hours per week, I could get out of the industry that I was in and actually work in the state in which I lived so I could be part of the family once again. However, we had to think about whether placing our children in child care was the right thing to do for them, and for us. It was a decision that we were very reluctant to make. It just didn't seem right that someone else should spend more time with our children than we would. Now don't get me wrong, we were not opposed to placing them into the environment of daycare here and there, to give them interaction with other children and for them to learn structure early on in life. We just did not want them to be there full time.
We had to think about the environment in which our children would be in, the diverse attitudes that our children would be exposed to from others in the group, and the educational content they would receive. Another thing that scared us was the stories that you here about children who get severely injured in daycare because the lack of supervisory-to-children ratio at the daycare facility. Sad to say, but at the time we were looking into daycare for our children, we heard on the news about a child who died in a swimming pool because there were not enough attendants to keep an eye on the children.
The other thing Angela and I had to think about was the cost of daycare, and whether there would be a cost benefit. After looking at the numbers, my wife would essentially be working to cover the $300.00 cost/week of daycare, and the wages that I would have made would barely cover the house payment, not to mention other cost of running and maintaining a home.
After coming up with several option, we concluded that I should give the home business industry another try. I had dabbled in the industry for several years before this point and never had any real levels of success. However, we knew that people were actually making it, and thought we would make another attempt. After days of searching, we finally found a website of a guy who was living the life we desired, and many people had quit there jobs after replacing their full time income with the simplicity of the system that had been in operation since 2001.
This was a blessing that showed up in our life because it made all of our problems go away. I was able to quit my job, my wife did not have to go back to work, and our children were never placed in daycare on a full time basis. In fact, the only time we placed them in daycare was to give them the interaction with other children for a couple days per week. This also gave Angela and I the opportunity to spend some quality time together as Husband and Wife.
So if you are contemplating placing your children in children in daycare, you may want to explore other option that may turn out to be more of a benefit to you, personally and financially.
Make It A Great Day!
You and your children deserve it.
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