Mary Owlhaven has it right…and was gutsy enough to say so in today’s blog: Adopted babies and working moms. Mary used the term “working mom”, which may cause part of the stir, because yes a dad can be a primary caregiver.

The point, however, is that children need to attach to a primary caregiver (one) first. The health of that attachment to the primary caregiver determines the child’s overall emotional development and health and sets the tone for all relationships to follow. When you recognize the significance of that in each of our children’s lives, it gives that whole “going back to work” decision a whole new perspective.

I have struggled mightily with giving up my career and staying at home with LuLu. I just didn’t want to do it. And for many years I didn’t. I stayed home for 3 months after her arrival, and then put her in a nice in-home day care situation. In hindsight, it was not what she needed; and it took me a couple years to realize how wrong I was, and how chaotic this was for LuLu. So much of who I thought I was and what I wanted was tied up in my work. (Notice how many “I”s are in that sentence). But once you’re a parent, it’s no longer about you. It can’t be.

Like Mary, I know adoptive parents who successfully returned to work only a few short weeks after their child arrived home. I know families who plunked their school-aged children down into a public school classroom on arrival or sent their preschoolers off to a full-day of school. And all is seemingly fine.

Yet, I can’t rectify this with what I know about orphanage life or children who have been shuffled about in foster care. Child development specialists will tell you that infants need a primary caregiver through the first several months or first year of their life. And we all know many of our children did not have this.

There is much at stake. While many of our children will not develop reactive attachment disorder, the quality of their relationships and the health of their emotional development has been negatively impacted by their early beginnings. We’ve adopted them to give them our best parenting…and their best opportunity at growing up healthy and happy.

So, I’m with you Mary. Putting my own selfish “needs” for working aside, I would move heaven and earth to stay at home (or for Super Dad to stay at home and me to work, if that is the way it would have worked best for our family). We have given up a lot…vacations, retirement funds, new clothing, optional things for our house and children. Financially, being here full-time for LuLu has been incredibly hard. But it’s about a commitment made to a child whose needs include that intense parenting that only a focused, available primary caregiver can give.

Yes, the decision of if and when to return to work is one each family has to make. And there are tons of arguments as to why working is necessary…including providing for the other children in the family. But, if this topic makes you squirm and feel twinges of guilt, maybe it’s time to examine your options and the reasons you’ve made your choices more closely. I’ve had a lot of internal turmoil on this topic, finally realizing that regardless of how strongly I felt about my “right” to work or my “obligation” to contribute financially to our family, we had made a commitment to raise LuLu and give her everything she needed…and she needs me…at home. The benefit to the older children is clear as well. Now I see with a new clarity that staying home when they were younger would have been positive as well. I’ve made a huge paradigm shift on this topic. And part of this shift was recognizing that children adopted from less-than-ideal beginnings have a special need for one-on-one parenting…for a very long time.

More Thoughts on Staying Home to Parent:
Object Permanence
Staying Home to Attach: A Touchy Subject
I Miss Working…It Was So Much Less Work
Adopting, Working or Staying at Home…Still Feeling Guilty


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