A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I have had a wonderful 9 month's off work with my beautiful baby and in 8 weeks my maternity leave ends and I have to go back to work. Before my daughter came along I enjoyed work but now I feel so depressed about it that every time I think about it I feel like crying, I don't have the option to be a stay at Home Mum our mortgage is too expensive and there wouldn't be enough money . Im not talented at art or anything that I could work on from home I've asked my husband about us becoming foster parents to an extra child but he doesn't want to because we want more children of our own and wouldn't have room once a second child was born. but I'm so desperate that I'm willing to do anything if it means being with my little one. I really had no idea how much pain this would give me can someone please offer me some helpful advice I feel so unhappy it's unbelievable.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (23 September 2013): Please don't foster because your reasons are selfish
When you foster it should be because you actually care about the foster child not because you're using him or her to get benefits. I am a bit appalled that you can be so cold and calculating to another child when you just had one of your own.
Just go back to work. Deal with it. You will be OK you once you do it. The vast majority of women throughout history have worked while having kids whether the work was on the farm or on the fields or factories or being housekeepers for the richer people. SAHM is a relatively new cultural phenomenon and not natural. Both parents need to raise the child and both parents need to bring in income to financially support the child.
And by the way being talented at art doesn't mean you will be successful bringing in income to pay your mortgage. It is very hard to actually make a decent living from being an artist especially if you don't want to leave the house to aggressively promote yourself. Most artists finance their art passion by working day jobs or (if they are women) by marrying high income earning men to support them so they can do their art.
You could do online trading to make money from home but you need to be a savvy investor which requires knowledge of financial markets and even then it is not stable it is more like gambling. You could make a ton of money today and lose it all tomorrow and then earn some of it back by next week to where you're back at zero.
Another myth of SAHM is that just having work that can be done from home is the answer to your financial problems and without having to leave your baby's side for even a few hours. Whether it is art or freelance writing or whatever. In reality, it is not so simple. if you need to actually earn a living to pay bills (rather than just doing a hobby that may make some pocket money here and there but if it doesn't no big deal the husband will still pay all the bills) then whatever work you do at home has to be actual work meaning requiring your full attention and commitment. You can't take care of a baby and work at the same time whether you are at home or in an employers office. As long as you are working you are not watching your baby and vice versa. You need to have someone watch your baby while you're at home working. You can't be on the phone with customers with a crying baby in the background. You can't hang up on said customers to take care of your crying baby (soon you won't have customers anymore). You would just be staying home with the baby and doing pocket money jobs rather than earning a real living wage.
If you need money your best bet is to go back to being an employee for a stable organization. You will be ok being away from your baby for just several hours each day. Tons of women do this everyday. Millenia's worth of women have always done this. Don't let yourself get too dramatic until you lose all perspective. You are not being asked to leave your child for months at a time. You arent sending them off to boarding school nor are you being deployed overseas having to leave your baby home. Its just a few hours every day that's all.
A
female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (21 September 2013):
 Wow, so in your country fostering brings in just as much money as the 12 hour shifts you said you had to take? Or how many kids would you need to foster to get enough money? How many "in and out" siblings will you give your daughter in HER best interest? Do see your doctor, this has nothing to do with anyones best interest but your own selfishness. A foster child needs extra attention around the clock for all the years it takes until they move out, and they are children too who needs a family to care for them. Not just view them as a money bag. Im sorry to have to tell you that this is pure selfishness. And it has nothing to do with your childs best interest. How can you be a good mother to your daughter while at the same time treat a child, who has no family, no safety net, like nothing more than a source of income. Take a hard look at yourself and seek out your doctor. If using other people, let alone a child, to get your way, and you find it logical... Then you need to take a good look at what is going on with you. Is this really who you are, or does this "logic" come from a possible depression creeping in? How does leaving for work make you feel? Can you go deeper into that and explain it?
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused  +, writes (21 September 2013):
 can you do day care for other parents?
around here that's what mom's who want to stay home do.. they run legal day cares from their homes.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 September 2013): Thankyou all for the advice, it's okay I know I need to bite the bullet and go back to work because it's in the best interests of my little family. I can honestly say I dont have post natal depression just because I dont want to leave my baby while I go off and work 12hr shifts at all hours of the day and night, I just want to spend all my time with her and I know I can't, its a case of not being able to get my own way and the unhappiness is from pure frustration at not being unable to come up with a solution. I may talk to my husband again about fostering because I genuinly believe that me spending time with my little one until she goes to school is in her best interests and I have enough love and common sense to be a foster parent as well.
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A
male
reader, CaringGuy +, writes (20 September 2013):
For the sums of money you're looking to make, it will be very difficult for you to suddenly come up with something. Personally, I think your best bet would be to look for part time work, and perhaps re-train in something like website design that you can do from home. It won't happen straight away, but sadly we live in a world where everything costs money, and ultimately it's better to be working and have the money than not.
You will always be there for your little one. It's probably worth you checking out flexible working hours via the internet etc, to make sure you know what you're entitled to if you're a working mother.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (20 September 2013): ". . . can someone please offer me some helpful advice I feel so unhappy it's unbelievable."Unfortunately he only helpful advice I can offer is not going to make you any less unhappy, which is that 99.99999% of supposed work-at-home opportunities are scams intended to line the pockets of those looking to exploit equally unhappy, equally desperate people in similar financial straits. The only people who make money from work-at-home scams are the hustlers who extract as much money as they possibly can from those gullible enough to bite in bogus upfront fees, training manuals and other fake charges. If you are working for someone, then they should be paying you not the other way around. If you have a job that you previously enjoyed and to which you can return from maternity leave then you are already much better off then many new mothers. I was lucky enough to be born at a time when men in the workforce could expect to earn a comfortable living while remaining steadily employed, allowing their wives the luxury of being stay-at-home moms. Sadly times have changed and dual incomes are necessities for most families. Best I can suggest is to try to look at the big picture by reading a random's days worth of Dear Cupid postings from mothers who are too young, too poor and too uneducated to be able to adequately provide for their kids yet are stuck railing them by themselves in the absence of their loser deadbeat baby daddies who have bailed on them. Think of returning to work as the first of many sacrifices you'll be making for your child, painful and difficult at the time yet you know it will be best for your child in the long run.
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