It is a while now that I want to write about the marginal costs and benefits of staying home for your child vs. staying with your child for the period and then being back as a contributing member of your society.
Let’s clear it with an example; I am an architect so I want to make a case for insulating a building.
Here is the scenario, for every unit of better insulation you use in a house you will have proportionate unit of energy savings and thus energy savings will pay back the dollars paid for the insulation. However, as you continue to increase your insulation there is a point –called the tipping point- that the extra insulation will not increase your home energy performance anymore. At this point the cost of extra insulation are wasted as they don’t meet the purpose of increasing performance. In this point you got the maximum insulation for you house and if you want even better performance, you need to spend your money on something else and not the insulation.
So what I want to get from is that, a mother spending time with her child will benefit the child directly, but there is a point –the fulltime motherhood tipping point- that the more time you spent with the child may not benefit the child as it used to be before. In this point, your child may need you less but the society and social environment that the child will be a part of, and be influenced from, will need you more.
I argue a child will be a part of the society and those units of time you contribute to your society (after that tipping point) would benefit your child more. In this case, your work is (indirectly) benefiting your child more in a longer run than you spending the direct time with the child.
I am not sure if I could make myself clear. Does it make sense?
And above all it is about the quality of time spent to nourish the child and not the quantity.
Shin, I have been lazy in writing here, but reading your post today, I realized I want to share this with you and tell you that are an amazing mother, wife, friend, architect and colleague. Don’t worry.