Every once and awhile, hubby and I talk about my going back to work.  Like many moms who chose to stay at home, how do you get yourself back into the workforce?  The career I left, Public Relations, is one where you start young and either burn out by the time your my age, or you are a VP at some company.  Going back now, I would have to be lower management or even entry level.  When I was "in the game" we didn't twitter or facebook or even really use the internet.  I wrote great pitches about whatever product I was pushing and met with magazine and newspaper editors face to face.  It's not like that anymore. I don't know that I would be able to fit back into PR never mind actually get a job.  So what else is there?  That lets me go to work after my last one gets on the bus at 8:45 and be home before she is at 3:15? 

Many moms choose to work in the school - it doesn't pay much but it gets you out of the house.  Then you miss all the class parties and field trips with your kids.  If I work all day, I will want to come home and put my feet up, not start my second job as cook and chauffeur.  I could work on the weekends - but then I would miss my family who I barely see during the week with all their activities.  If I knew then what I know now, I don't know that I would have ever have stopped working.  Would my kids be any different if I missed the class parties or didn't make the costumes for dance or couldn't drive them everywhere?  Would they be more self sufficient if I wasn't here to make them breakfast every morning or send them off to school with a homemade lunch? I guess I'll never know.  What I do know is that I would feel a greater sense of financial independence and freedom if I had my "own" money and not have to rely on the back of someone else.