Should I stay or should I go?

Having a baby is exciting, exhausting, and expensive. At some point between midnight feedings and mountains of diaper changes, you will need to decide when or whether to return to work. This choice is often fraught with varying degrees of anxiety, doubt and fear, because it will affect your family’s future and perhaps your sense of identity as well.

A 2007 Statistics Canada study revealed that nearly 90 per cent of mothers and 55 per cent of fathers take a leave of absence from work. Nearly 25 per cent never return to work.Some mothers-to-be who are certain they’ll never want to return to the office after giving birth soon swing the other way, realizing they aren’t prepared to give up that hard-earned spot on the corporate ladder. Others plan on taking a minimal maternity leave, only to find themselves taking 18 months off, or quitting their jobs altogether.

But how do you decide whether you want to go back to work full-time, part-time, or not at all? Are you prepared to live on one parent’s salary, or work full-time just to pay skyrocketing child care costs? One family found a creative solution.

When Sharon Mason and Steve Bellamy* started their family six years ago, they both wanted to stay at home with their new baby daughter. So they came up with their own, rather unorthodox parental leave program.
“We had just moved to a new city, and neither of us were ‘on leave’ from a job we wanted to return to, ” recalls Mason, 41. “We felt no pressure to go back to anything in particular. It was a fresh start.”

While most of their friends and colleagues in Vancouver and Toronto juggled raising children and maintaining expensive, fast-paced lifestyles on two incomes, Mason and Bellamy chose a different path. Over the next four years, Mason stayed at home with Molly, now five, and Sam, now three. Bellamy, 36, spent the first six months of his daughter’s life at home, then took on a series of part-time sales jobs to maximize family time.

“I think when most people say they went back to work for the money, they also had big dreams for that money,” says Mason. “Our dream was to stay home with our kids.”

After saving enough money before becoming pregnant to ensure a good-sized cushion for the future, they bought a small bungalow in the suburbs, doing most repairs themselves. Mason breastfed and used cloth diapers, which she estimates saved “thousands of dollars”. The couple also graciously accepted hand-me-down gear, clothing and furniture from relatives and friends.

“I think people need to sit back and ask, ‘What do I really need? What’s really important to me?’” says Mason.

“If having one parent stay at home is something you really want, you have to adapt to it,” adds Bellamy, who has been at home full-time with his children for 18 months. Mason returned to work full-time last year, and Bellamy says he’s never been happier.

“I’ve just always wanted to be a stay-at-home dad.”

Mason admits that at first, she wondered how her long absence would affect her opportunities.

“People are so afraid that taking time off is going to reflect badly on them or ruin their chances for advancement,” she says. “I think a lot of people don’t do what they really want to do because of that fear. Now, when I tell colleagues I was home with my kids for four years, nobody bats an eyelash.”

*Names changed upon request

Wendy Helfenbaum is a writer, television producer and mother who also grappled with when and how to return to work. She gave up a full-time career in television to write from home.