Stay At Home Moms And The What If Factor?

So with all this talk about motherhood, my husband and I have been having pretty frank discussions about my reservations around having a child right now, one of them that I haven’t discussed being adequate and quality childcare. He then asked if I would consider being a stay at home mom devoted solely to raising our kids and my reaction was, uhmm no.

You see, I’m over the guilt imposed by other moms and the SAHM vs Working Mom debate.  Over it.  I’m completely OK with the fact that I am driven by my career and that I have total satisfaction in this area of my life.  So there’s that.  I just realize that I have to figure out how to get what I want while being the wife, mother and professional i aspire to be.

Where i am going with you ask?

Well, while I truly respect the choices of moms to stay at home (the ones who stay at home and truly do NOTHING BUT take care of home and kids, not the mom blogger type raking in the elusive blogger dollars or ones with part time jobs), I have to wonder about the what if factor?

What if your husband keels over heaven forbid tomorrow? What if he decides that you are no longer the love of his life?  Have you seen the scene from Diary Of A Mad Black Woman where he kicks her out and moves the mistress in?   What if you just decide one day that you want to have a career? How do you then get back into the game should one of the above mentioned hammers hit the nail?

I admit to being fiercely independent but only recently so due to finishing grad school and now working, so mama’s bring home the dollas LOL  I don’t have to, but I do because I get a sense of fulfillment in this area of my life and I know that should anything happen, I’m good to go financially.  Still, for the last 3 years I worked sporadically, while finishing grad school.

So my questions to SAHMs (Stay At Home Moms who do not work at all or are in school), what is your plan should the what if happen? Do you have a plan?  If so, what is it? I ask not to incite that tired old debate, but because I truly want to know, and frankly, I think you should know too.

After writing the Economoms post, I received so many emails thanking me for the information and asking about more resources.  So I know that there are some out there who didn’t see this recession coming, with their husbands having lost their jobs, now some SAHMs are forced to re-enter the work force, many 5-10 years out. What’s the plan?