Hi All,
I'm new here, seems like this thread has been cold for quite sometime now but I'm still interested to contribute my opinion.
I think most importantly you need to calculate all expenses required vs your household income, look at 3yrs down the road, 5yrs down, 10yrs down and ask if you could afford to be a full time housemaker for the rest of your journey. What if some mishaps happen to spouse? Do you have alternate plans at hand to ensure that income continues to flow in such situation? Will you be able to save enough for your kids' education in future based on a single set of income? Your own medical needs? Put inflation into consideration, put an average of 3.5% pa for living n medical expenses and 6% pa for tertiary tuition fee growth, After such calculations, you should have a very precise answer in your heart.
Find it difficult to split between own children and earning an income from regular work? How about some home based work? My wife has a friend who was a teacher once, she recently turned to home based bakery, selling her stuff online, things seems to kick off very well for her right now.
One have to remember that if you stay unemployed for too long a period, the next time you wish to go back to an employment that you are previously trained in, it will be quite challenging, thou not all, many HRs or bosses dare not to give a try, not that they didn't try, but rather they already had bad experiences which I would say it's mostly due to a difference in expectations on both ends.
If you have to rejoin the workforce under your groomed profession, try not to stay out of employment beyond a year or 2 max. I based my reply on information from the past casual chats with my friends in HR positions and Finance management positions in various corporates and several bosses of their own companies as well. Why I asked around was because we only found out that we're expecting a new family member last May, days right after my wife tendered her resignation from her previous work and in the midst of interviewing for another job at that time.
Unfortunately on the dark side of employment, no laws could safeguard any job enough, it's all about people relations, if they aren't supportive of your maternity leave or even return at later part, they could always transform the environment into a hostile one for you and force you to leave on your own accord. That's why when the news broadcasted that ppl suggested maternity leave to be extended to 6 mths to improve reproduction rate, I was really skeptical and wondered if that is really the voice of the mass majority. Aren't they aware of the existence of such maternity leave problem?