They stared, disbelieving, at the electricity bill, as if their scrutiny could somehow force the ridiculous number into a more reasonable form.
"Why is it so high?" her husband asked.
"Because I'm home all day," answered Jennifer Hart-Walters, who had quit teaching school to be with their two kids, who wanted to sing them the ABC song all day long, who now, faced with that electricity bill and so many other increasing costs, realized that her days as a stay-at-home mother were over.
In February she reluctantly left the kids in day care and took a part-time job.
"We were noticing much less spending money in our checking account - no money actually in our checking account," said Hart-Walters, 35, who lives in Baltimore's Hunting Ridge neighborhood. "It just felt, you know, critical that I return to work."
The soured economy - with its ever-increasing gas, food and utility prices, its sinking home values and its corporate downsizing - is forcing mothers who have traded careers for families to think about trading back.
Though it's impossible to say how many women are affected nationally, Maryland mothers who have immersed themselves in the world of juice boxes and playgrounds are putting resumes together, filling out job applications at malls, looking into day care licenses and watching other people's children for money during the day.
Their families need cash, and they're shelving their commitment to full-time parenting in order to get it.
These days, even families boasting two professional salaries often find it hard to get by - to afford a home in a safe suburb, to pay for preschool and health care and to save anything extra for college or retirement, says Brad Harrington, executive director of Boston College's Center for Work & Family. With one salary, covering those fundamentals is often all but impossible.
"With six months of rising prices of gas, heating oil and groceries," Harrington says, "I think you are in a situation where there are just so many people who look around and say we literally cannot afford the basics of life unless both of us are working."
Traditional roles
Still, many mothers, including those in the work force, believe they belong at home.
According to the Families and Work Institute's most recent National Study of the Changing Workforce, 48 percent of women in dual-earner households with kids say that men should earn the money and women should take care of the home and children.
