A few days ago I read a letter to the editor in response to the brouhaha about Anne Romney being a stay at home mom.  It basically said that only rich people get to stay home with their kids.  Other people have no choice but to work.  This just made me sad… sad that someone feels that they don’t have choices.  They do!  Life is all about choices!

My husband and I made the choice to have me stay home with our kids and to homeschool them.  This choice means that we limit other choices.  We have decided not to go on many vacations.  We have decided to not get many new things.  We have decided to not go out to dinner very much. I happily give up these things so that I can stay home with my kids.  I also totally respect that other people need to make their own choices.

Our life choices won’t fit everyone. Making the choices that we have made for our family has meant that I have had to get creative.  I have learned to cook almost totally from scratch.  When I first started out I shopped almost exclusively in the frozen food aisle! I have also had to get creative financially. I teach classes to make a little money to supplement our income and pay for activities that my husband’s income doesn’t cover.  I get creative with decorating too.  I think the only new furniture we have in our house is our bookcases and bunk beds (and they are all over 7 years old)!  Almost everything else is either from garage sales, thrift stores or hand me downs.  I consider it to be the ultimate in recycling!

If staying home with your kids is something you really want to do, take a hard look at the choices you are making.  Opening up your thought to new ideas and new ways of doing things in order to get what you want is an amazing thing!  Oh – and I’m not the only person staying home with my kids.  I have tons of friends that do too.  And none of us are rich.  We just have made the choice and made it happen.