I worked most of the time. Stayed home with the second child for 2 years. But after that we really needed the income from me working, my husband's job didn't provide any dependant benefits, and staying home broke and carless with 2 young children just about drove me to early *madness*. So back to work I went.

However I spent years working part time and doing weird hours shiftwork. For many years I worked a 5 to 10 PM shift that allowed me to get the lunches packed in the moring and get the kids to school and then spend an hour or so with them after school, and by god, they never came home alone to an empty house. I was firmly convinced that children who came home from school by themselves grew into troubled adolescents. I think I was right, and both my kids had a mom at home when school got out every day. Then between 5 and 6 PM my husband would come home just after I left for work so they were almost never home alone. We shift-parented.

It was hard on the marraige though. I'd get home from work around 11 PM and everybody was already in bed. Then my husband got up and left for work at 6 in the morning. We barely saw each other for years except between midnight and 6 AM and on weekends.

Unless one partner nets at least $40 to $60 thousand a year, it's almost impossible for a family to survive without both partners working. And both parents working is really hard on kids. I solved it by getting a well paid part time job >> and being mommy-tracked. But so be it. My kids turned out to be wonderful people, we did what we had to do to make it work. Alls's well that ends well.