It's a choice every mother has to make. We talked to women about these experiences.

The best part of being a working mom is that you get to have different sorts of interaction, and you can complete projects and get paid for it! It's so hard as a stay-at-home mom to feel like something is completed, and that it is appreciated and useful to anyone else, never mind worthy of payment. I also found that if I had equal parts work and mommying, I was a much better mom overall. I got a little nutty being home all the time and had terrible postpartum depression. Working helped me snap out of it a little and recharge my batteries so that I could be the best mom I could be when I got home.
Mindy Roberts
San Jose, California

I’m trying to find balance between being a mom and continuing to work. I started a new job part time and this gives me time with my children. Also, the management at my new job are made up of parents who understand the demands of being a mom. When they hired me I told them I wouldn’t miss plays and my kids’ events.
Robin Schwartz Kreger
Germantown, Maryland

I was really scared to go back to work, but in the end I had to, not just for financial reasons, but for my own sanity. I love my son, and I wanted to spend time with him, but I felt so isolated. Times have changed since the ‘50s and ‘60s when stay-at-home moms all lived in neighborhoods with other moms. Now everyone is so mobile, community doesn't exist that often in white middle class America. My community has always been work-related, and when my son was a baby and I lost that I was really depressed.
Liz
Greenville, North Carolina

I was a stay-at-home mom when my kids were little and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I got to do things with my kids that I wouldn’t have gotten to do if I worked outside the home. I was there for all the firsts – their first steps, first words and first day of school. I loved seeing their little grins. I also liked that I was able to set my own pace to get things done, though not everyone appreciated how hard my job actually was. A lot of people looked down on me and said things like, “Is that all you do?” or “Why don’t you work?” They treated me like I didn’t have a life. But, really, I didn’t care. I loved my kids and I knew that they were going to come first no matter what.
Wilma Shannon
Muncie, Indiana

I thought it would be a great idea to work from home so I could look after my daughter and make money. I got a job editing scientific copy, which I could do at home, and I thought all our problems were solved. I was wrong. Working from home with a small child is almost impossible, and it drives you crazy because you can never fully commit to one thing. You always feel as if you are doing a bad job at something – the house was a mess, my daughter was bored, my work was always half done. Going to work may have been hard in that leaving my daughter would have been hard, and daycare is expensive, but I envied my husband his regular job where he could concentrate on work while he was there, then come home and concentrate on that. I felt pulled in so many directions, all the time. I guess the moral is that you need help no matter where or how you work. You can’t do two full-time jobs just because they are based in the same location.
Lauren
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The worst part of being a working mom who works at home is that people think that just because you are home that you are always available. I'm the mom that other mothers call whenever they need something done just because they know I'm around. For example, the other mothers on my son's baseball team always call me first when a function has to be changed at the last minute or re-organized. We were having a picnic for all the baseball parents last year and I got picked to head the committee. When I asked why they said because I had the time. I almost blew a fuse. It's a tough stereotype to overcome that just because you are home doesn't mean you're sitting on the couch all day watching Dr. Phil.
Cathy Hopkins
Covington, Kentucky

I was fortunate to be a stay-at-home mother and loved the privilege. I always held the thought that this was my one and only chance to raise my children and I wanted to do the best job I could. I am happy to say I am proud of each of my children for the adults they have become. And now I feel they have become my friends as well as my children. I enjoy talking to them and spending time with them as a peer.
Dawn Winblad
Indianapolis, Indiana