The Working Dilemma

Last night, I went to a ladie's night gathering at my neighbors, and with the exclusion of one woman who is a first year Master's student, all the women were either dating, engaged to, or married to men in the graduate program. We spent most of the night talking about looking forward to the future (One day, when my husband has a job...), managing on tiny budgets and in small houses, and having our husbands be perpetually absent due to papers and exams. I briefly mentioned something about my Master's program, and one of them women said "You have a Master's and you're stuck in a part-time job??"

Tell me about it.

But what came out of my mouth was this: "Yeah..I mean, if I had kids I'd be staying home and it wouldn't matter..."

Wait. WHAT?

I always said I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom, even though my own mother was for the first 12 years of my life and I think it is very valuable. I couldn't see myself giving up my career and doing nothing but take care of children.

But, now that I have a number of friends who (at least primarily) are stay-at-home moms and I've seen that they're very happy (although of course there are stresses, just like any job) it's started to creep into my mind that maybe I could do that, too. I've discovered in the past year that I'm just not particularly attached to work--there's always a ton to do around the house and not enough time to do it in. Case in point: I really need to clean the grout in our kitchen...but who wants to spend a weekend afternoon cleaning grout?! Would I be sad not to have to go into an office every day? Maybe not.

Given that Brian has 5-8 years of school ahead if he follows his current life plan, I worry that this won't even be an option. Most of the doctoral programs he's applying to offer stipends, but not enough to support even a small family on, and of course not health insurance. I'll have to be working just to make ends meet and provide us with insurance (although, as I've mentioned plenty of times before, I'm not currently doing such a great job at that).

All this, of course, is not really an issue as we're not expecting children any time soon, if ever. In the true nature of a long-term worrier, though, it's already made an appearance in my mind.

To work or not to work, that is the question...for the future.