Member-only story
EXAM ROOMS
Was Becoming a Stay-at-Home Parent the Best Choice I Could Have Made?
A Closer Look At What I Thought Was a Foregone Conclusion
“Do the thing you’ll least regret,” the doctor told me. Our kids’ pediatrician was examining one of our three kids under age three when he heard me mention a future career in medicine.
Truth be told, what I needed was a break. (Well, that and affordable, high-quality childcare.) Our sons were 2.5 and 1.5, and our daughter was an infant — and my labors were overwhelming yet mostly invisible.
Was I heeding a new calling when I told Dr. Schroeder I was thinking about an advanced degree? Or simply hoping to be seen?
Sometimes thirst looks like hunger.
The rate of regret for parenthood is low. In developed countries, more than 80% of parents say they’d do it all over again.
But what about the rate of regret for staying at home with the kids, as opposed to working full-time away from home? In and after the pandemic, this dilemma went from a dichotomy to a nuanced blend of work-at-home and school-at-home. No longer is paid employment a binary, home/away thing. But, for professions that still require long hours away from a family — how does that decision retrospectively…
