Well, the day has FINALLY arrived.

My wife is going to become a stay at home mom!! Woo hooo!!!

She is breaking the links of her golden handcuffs and bringing our babies home!

She has worked at the daycare that they go to for a number of years.

We are taking a leap of faith here. I felt relieved as soon as she told me she was ready to leave there.

I know we will experience growing pains, but I also know that this is for the best.

Good for you!

Congratulations! What could be better for kids than always available mom?!

Just make sure she will have a chance to escape time from time from the house to be in adult’s company.

I quit my job to be a stay at home mom when my daughter was 4. I wish I had did it earlier.

There will be some financial adjustments, as well as mental. For me, after a few months it all worked out. I started packing DH lunches, more home cooked meals etc. in the end we ended up better financially.

I kept my license current, and returned back to the work force when my daughter graduated high school.

I hear ya.

My LOF day came when I Hit Rock Bottom. (More ways than One)

No where to look but Up.

They say Anger is Not a Good Motivator.

Wow, a leap of faith! First Roy has us confess our sins, now NE makes an alter call. We're getting to be a downright religious group here. ;-)

Congrats, NE. All teasing aside, this is wonderful for you and your family. I'm very happy for all of you. I hope some day you can bring your tribe to the Convention so we can all enjoy some fellowship (and maybe a round or two of suds?).

Gotta share a personal story: in 2006, my pregnant wife called me at my J.O.B. to inform me that we were having....TWINS! None in the family on either side for 100+ years, so a major surprise. At that moment, I knew we weren't going to be able to keep her in the workforce. She's a great lady, but no college/not a business owner mentality, so we knew her earning potential would never get her anywhere beyond $10-12/hour. Nice for a DINK (dual income, no kids) family, but wouldn't come close to covering day care for two kiddos. So we brought her home. I had just recently moved from public school teaching into Info Tech. Good thing too! Babies are expensive! So glad we brought her home.

12 years later + one more kid (daughter) and we haven't regretted having her at home. Your family will be blessed by having Mama Bear at home with them. One side benefit, not as many diseases brought home from day care!

Add a couple more flips a year and you won’t miss her check at all.

As my Pookie would say (Home mama bear since 2012) I am unemployable. LOL

Miss NE will LOVE her new role. You will to. The kids will been fit the most. Ours have.

Congratulations NE of PA, Your kids will do very well with their Mom there 24/7 to help them in the years that make a major impact on their lives. OH yeah thats from birth to 18 years and beyond. And DAD NE will be there too. The beauty of being self-employed is IF you want to take off an hour or two and spend some time with the family you can do it. It's on your own terms and you and your wife do not have to answer to no one. When your children are school age, you and your wife can decide public, private or homeschool. Depending on the quality of the school system in your area.

And in a few year Dad NE can teach the kids part of the flipping biz. Painting, cleaning up, installing flooring and a flip or two toward their college fund. Then the kids go off to college and the flipping biz expands into another state

Nicole and Luba are correct- she might want to keep some part of outside employment or business, even on a small scale, if she can. It does wonders for the brain chemistry to be known as ''herself' and not NE's wife, and NE1and NE2's mom.

I went to subbing as a teacher's aide for many years. That was perfect for family life, as I could accept jobs or decline as my family needed. My neighbor went back to work in that same way when her old company had staffing issues. She would fill in for a few days a week every now and then (lab tech.) She said it was the best thing for her mind, after being home full-time for four or five years.

NE of PA mentioned his wife has worked at the daycare that their kids go to for a number of years.

Depending on the area NE lives in PA. Daycare could take on two different forms: Daycare for Kids or Daycare for Seniors!!!

in due time NE may find a house or building that may work for a daycare: Kids or Seniors. Again it depends on the area and what is available in the area. NE's wife could run the daycare, she has experience and if she needs to she can do college courses on line.

I think for now the kids will enjoy their mom being home with them.

Tom, we just purchased and remodeled the whole house just over a year ago. It was purchased and laid out with this step in mind.

Congratulations, Mr.and Mrs. NE!!

This is a great thing for the whole family!

Ive been fortunate to SAHM since 2001(with a short time going back to work in 2007) and I run our biz from home.

If I may offer a bit of unsolicited advice to take or leave for Mrs.NE?-

1. Volunteer a bit. Kids school, church, pick up groceries for an elderly neighbor, etc

2. Get out of the house for a bit every day ( Go for a walk, garden, talk to a neighbor, grocery shop, or my favorite- go for a drive)

3. Talk to an adult every day.

4. Date night EVERY.SINGLE.WEEK.--both of you need this!!!

5. Ladies/mom's night(or day out) about once a month.

6. Taking a few online classes here and there so we can relax knowing there are more options should I need to work.

These may seem like no-brainers but it's easy to keep giving up parts of yourself for various reasons(money, guilt, time, other responsibilities, etc) and it can burn you out REAL FAST.

OTOH, you will both have time to see every moment as your kids grow up and there is no greater feeling than knowing you and your spouse were able to witness it all first-hand. It is worth it!

Best of luck!! :)

Congrats!

I was a SAHM when ours were little. When they started school, I did as well. Preschool was good for the youngest and I started teaching when he started KG.

Awesome news......

Congratulations! I'm very happy for her. :)

I was able to start being a full-time SAHM about eight years ago.

The hardest part for me was no longer having a salary to point to as my contribution to the household. DH had spoken disparagingly of his SIL because she had outright said she'd "married his brother because she didn't want to work." When we were two-incomes and no-kids, it didn't matter that I made less... I was still contributing to the household finances. But when we switched to one-income and kids, I always felt a little awkward, because our house never looked like a magazine, our kids were never perfect angel robots, and my financial contributions were now $0.

I still substitute teach on occasion, just to keep myself looking good on paper, but I suspect my future is with wrangling the rentals more seriously than I do now.