This is something that my wife and I have struggled with, but came to the conclusion that both of us working is the better scenario for us.
Reasons:
1. my wife has always been the higher wage earner, and I didn't want to stay home.
2. She has always had guilt about 'missing time' with them, but said she feels that she needs her career to feel balanced.
3. We figured that we could easily live off of my salary, and her stay home for the young years, but with her earning a nice salary, we could save up more for later in life.
We ultimately decided that by both working, we would be in a much better financial situation to help our kids out in the future.
A good possible example: We may have enough money to retire early and be the free daycare for our grandkids, that would save the $1,600 a month that we pay. I'm sure our kids will appreciate that at the time as much as they'd appreciate a zoo trip now.
BTW, we still take them on a family vacation every year, and do many weekend trips to zoo's, parks, etc. My wife is home by 3:30 in the afternoon, and they get home from school at 2:50. I don't think that extra 40 minutes a day is worth giving up $100k per year.
Basically, I agree fully with what VTE said above.
Disclaimer: as a conservative, I many times wish that things were the way they were in the 50's and 60's, when a single income household was the norm, but those days are gone. Although, I still hold out hope it can somehow get close to that again. For the simplistic reasons of it, not because I think a woman's place is in the home or anything.
