12 Top Benefits of Being a Stay-At-Home Mom

The choice to be a stay-at-home mom is a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It has a significant impact on not just the children, but on every aspect of family life. And although its a lot of work, the benefits it provides to the children and to the whole family are astronomical. 

Every situation is different, and while some moms can’t imagine staying home from work to be with the kids all day, many other moms say that’s its the best decision of their lives. Still others long to stay home but aren’t sure if it can work financially. 

Personally, I wouldn’t trade the opportunity to be a stay at home mom for anything in the world! There’s nothing I can imagine being more fulfilling than providing a safe, loving, Christian environment for our children each day and keeping our home. 

If you’re considering whether or not to stay home, here are 12 benefits of stay-at-home moms to families.

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12 Top Benefits of Being a Stay-at-Home Mom

1. You get to be the primary influencer of your children
2. You don’t have to miss a moment of their early years
3. No childcare costs
4. No other work-related costs 
5. Sibling relationships
6. Reduced stress
7. Time to prepare nourishing foods for your family
8. Better health
9. Time to create an orderly and beautiful home for your husband and children
10. You get to create your own schedule
11. Time for meaningful relationships and other interests
12. You’re indispensable at your job

1. You get to be the primary influencer of your children

There are tons of benefits to being a stay-at-home mom, but getting to have the primary influence on your children is one of the top reasons many moms choose to stay home. There’s nothing more important to a parent than their children, and we want to raise these little people to be respectful, kind, loving adults, who, most importantly, know who they are, who made them, and what their purpose is. 

As Christian parents, our absolute highest goal and hope for our children is that they know Christ – hopefully from a young age. By having children, we’re committing to caring for them and teaching them what we believe are the most important things they should know. 

As parents, it is the highest honor to be the primary influencer of our kids. The early years of a child’s life are so formative, and we want them to be flooded with truth and a strong foundation rather than sending them off to daycare to be influenced by adults and other children we don’t really know. By staying home with mom, kids also have the get to avoid a lot of peer pressure that can greatly influence their early years.

2. You don’t have to miss a moment of their early years

Babies are only babies once, and kids are only kids for a little while. From hearing their first words and seeing their first steps to watching them discover new things every day, stay-at-home mothers get the amazing blessing of seeing their children experience everything for the first time.

When we’re 50 years old, we won’t remember the details of days at the office or other full time work outside of the home. But we will remember the quality time experienced in day-to-day family life, and watching each child’s milestones happen one at a time. Seeing important moments like our kids learning to read, watching older siblings love on younger siblings, snuggling the new babies for hours, seeing the joy on their faces as they find worms in the mud, and sitting unhurriedly around the dinner table will not quickly be forgotten.

Being there for these important moments is one of the most rewarding things about being a stay-at-home mom.

3. No childcare costs

For a working mom, one of the biggest challenges is watching a huge portion of her income going toward the cost of childcare. Unless you make six figures, for many American women, it actually COSTS to go to work – by the time you factor in the cost of daycare, commuting, convenience foods, and taxes.

According to Illumine, the average cost of childcare annually in the U.S. is $14,760. Some of the most expensive places in the country, like Washington D.C., can cost up to $24,000 per year. 

If you’re multiplying these numbers by multiple children, many families find that it’s an easy decision to have a parent stay home as the primary caregiver. 

And these numbers only take into account the actual numeric cost of child care – not the stress of finding an option that has openings and is trustworthy and at least somewhat convenient to your location. 

In our state, it would cost our family over $30,000 per year to send our kids away for the day to be raised by strangers. Paying this much for our children to be watched while I leave the house all day only to come home to no dinner on the stove and all the laundry and cleaning to do is just no comparison to staying home!

4. No other work-related costs 

As if the cost of childcare isn’t high enough, being part of the work force demands other costs, too. Business clothing, dry cleaning, gas and wear and tear on your vehicle, parking, and eating out all factor into the cost you might incur by going to work. An article from The Hill actually found that the average person spends $51 dollars per day when they work in an office full time, and $71 per day for pet owners.

With this assumption, the average woman with two children would spend over $42,000 per year on childcare costs and the daily expenses of going to work in order to pursue her career goals. This majorly cuts into the household income!

5. Sibling relationships

One of the biggest benefits for children of stay-at-home moms is that siblings can spend the day together rather than going to separate daycares or schooling options. And for families who decide to homeschool, too, this equals out to a LOT of hours of sibling bonding!

Siblings are the only friends that children will assuredly have for life. Investing in these relationships from a young age gives children security in their family, teaches them to interact with children of different ages, and allows them to learn from each other. Older children get the benefit of learning to care for and help the younger ones, and younger children get to look up too their older siblings as some of their primary role models. 

6. Reduced stress for both you and your family

No matter how much you love your job, there’s a lot of stress involved in being away from the home all day. Especially when young children are added into the equation, a full-time job leaves very little time for necessary tasks such as cleaning, laundry, cooking, and grocery shopping – not to mention spending quality time with your kids. Caring for a family and home while being away for the entire work day is more than enough to negatively impact anyone’s mental health. 

Staying home gives you the time spend with your children AND take care of the necessary tasks of the home and family. Even besides the time you’re actually AT work, you also don’t have to worry about all the time you might spend on your daily commute, making sure you have the right clothes ready, packing or buying lunches, and rushing out the door each morning.  

The benefits of having mom home are many – which means less stress for you and for the whole family. Having a mom who is available to cook, clean, run errands, and love her children and husband without having to worry about the demands of a work schedule brings peace to the home for everyone and can be of the very best things for a family.

Being a full-time homemaker and mom is still hard work, but YOU get to be the one to dictate what’s important. 

7. Time to prepare nourishing foods for your family

On top of the stress of working full time and managing a household, eating convenience foods and frozen dinners for the majority of the week wears on everyone. Stay-at-home moms have more time to meal plan, go to the grocery store, and cook nourishing, healthy meals.

When you have the time available to invest in yourself and your family with healthy, home-cooked meals, this can quickly become a fun and creative outlet that significantly benefits the whole family and reduces stress.

8. Better health

Have you ever known a couple who struggled with infertility – until they stopped trying? We’ve known numerous couples who have longed to have children and couldn’t. Then, “magically”, when the stress level is reduced (or the pressure is taken off), they find themselves pregnant! Some couples (I can think of more than one) turn to adoption (a wonderful option!), then, once the wife begins staying home and spending time raising a child, she finds herself pregnant.

Conincidence?

Maybe. (But probably not.)

There are many factors that go into our current infertility crisis, but I’m drawn to believe that stress has at least something to do with it!

While of course staying home doesn’t necessarily lead to improved health for everyone in every area, there’s something to be said about a woman experiencing health benefits once she settles into life caring for a home and family.

Having time to care for the household – rather than fitting it in after a 40-hour work week – is an obvious way that families often reduce stress. In addition, stay-at-home moms benefit both themselves and their families when they have more time to prepare healthier foods and enjoy one another.

9. Time to create an orderly and beautiful home for your husband and children

This is not to say that working moms CAN’T create a beautiful home – they certainly can, and many do! But the absence of a full-time job obviously provides moms with the opportunity to really curate the home to make it a place of comfort and peace for both family and guests. Spending time to make the home a place of solace and peace in a chaotic world is time that is not wasted.

Having a beautiful, clean, well-managed home is a tremendous blessing for a working husband, the children who are raised in it, and the friends who enter it. 

10. You get to create your own schedule

Every family is different and has different priorities. As a stay-at-home mom, you get to create your own schedule and prioritize what’s most important to you and your family. It might mean spending a lot of time making home-cooked meals, homeschooling your children, organizing your home, or even taking vacations at odd times of the year. 

And when you take on care of the kids full time, you also get to prioritize what their days look like. Kids with stay-at-home moms have more time to play, go outside, read books, and enjoy the flow of the household. They benefit from routine and the presence of a loving and stable caregiver. Studies also show that kids with stay-at-home moms tend to have lower stress levels and increased academic performance.

The flexible schedule of a stay-at-home mom means that you and your husband can decide how you use your time – rather than a corporate boss who’s thinking about the needs of the business, not the needs of your family.

11. Time for meaningful relationships and other interests

We all KNOW that friendships and relationships are important, but the busyness of life so often gets in the way of pursing relationships and other interests. As a stay-at-home mom, you have time to pursue relationships and interests that benefit yourself and others. Time to learn new skills, invest in younger moms, and accomplish projects that you wouldn’t be able to do as a working mom.

Many stay-at-home moms also enjoy pursuing entrepreneurships or working on a small business to help bring in a little extra income during nap time or in the cracks of the day.

12. You’re indispensable at your job

C.S. Lewis said, “A housewife’s work…is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world…your job is the one for which all others exist.”

No matter how valuable you are at your job outside the home, you are replaceable. As a mother, no one can replace you. The time spent with your kids is time that you will never get back. And your influence on your children cannot be replaced by that of a daycare worker or preschool teacher. 

One of my favorite quotes about motherhood comes from G.K. Chesterton, in “What’s Wrong With the World”. He writes,

“…But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. 

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? 

How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”

Tips for Financially Making it Work as a Stay-at-Home Parent

I know that for many families, the option of being a stay-at-home mom seems out of reach. The cost of living continues to rise, and it may seem like you NEED two incomes in order to make it. The good news is that it CAN be done if you really want it – it just might take some reorganizing of your priorities. Here are some ways that many families make it work to have a parent stay home.

1. Choose your priorities. Having only one full-time income means giving up other things that are “typical” for many American families. Buying used cars, eating almost all our meals at home, buying secondhand clothes and furniture, keeping vacations simple, packing lunches, fixing things on the cars and house ourselves, living in a modest house, cutting our hair at home, etc. are just a few ways we’re able to keep costs low.
2. Save money as a homemaker. Being a stay-at-home mom and homemaker gives you the time and opportunity to find ways to save money through mediums like grocery shopping, home cooking, thrifting, and finding sales.
3. Have an emergency fund. An emergency fund gives you family security that if the car breaks, you have unexpected medical bills, or you find yourself in another unforeseen circumstances, you have the funds to take care of it without having to take away from the monthly budget.
4. Generate additional income. Many stay-at-home moms pursue part time, work-at-home jobs to generate a little extra income for the family. Music lessons, graphic design, photography, blogging, online tutoring, working as a virtual assistant, thrifting and reselling, and babysitting all offer flexible opportunities to make money from home.

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