Cortney Daidone wanted exactly that when she became pregnant with her first child. She quit her job as a bank teller and has been home ever since, taking care of now 14-month-old Kylie Blejwas. Even if she had money to spare for day care, she wouldn't do it.
"I don't see myself leaving her. I just can't," says Daidone, a 21-year-old from Glen Burnie. "Even if we were millionaires."
Daidone said her fiance, Danny Blejwas, who once made good money fixing cars for Audi, has been bringing home less and less. The summer, typically his busy season, has been anything but.
To compensate for his income drop, they turned their weekly shopping trip for groceries into an every-other-week event. Now they're trying to stretch food to last three weeks.
Daidone used to run around all day on errands and take Kylie to play dates. Now, loath to fill up her fuel-hungry Dodge Durango, she rarely leaves the house. When play invitations come up, she sadly turns them down.
"Our daughter is our No. 1 priority," she says. "We can do without, but she can't. We're fine with that. But it's coming to the point where I have to do something so we can keep that up. She's going to need clothes for the fall. Right now we can't do that."
Daidone has been looking since April for a part-time job with evening hours, when Blejwas would be home to watch Kylie. She has applied to watch kids at a gym day care, to work at mall stores, to do telemarketing.
"The work market isn't that great because of the economy," she says, her voice rising in frustration. "How am I supposed to get a job when everyone else is having to leave work?"
Few jobs, lower pay
Paula Bruno, who founded a blog on women's financial issues called Chicks and Balances, says women who are being pushed back into the work force will probably struggle, like Daidone, to find a decent job.
"We are seeing broad-based cuts in many sectors, and this includes both men and women," she says. "The unemployment number does not reflect all the women that may be looking to get back to work."
Making matters worse, employers often offer women returning to work up to 40 percent less money because of their resume gap. It's known as the "mommy discount."
Vicky Couch worked for Marriott for 16 years. When she had her first daughter in 2004, she and her husband, who also works for the hotel company, decided to open the Contours Express gym in Silver Spring. That way, Couch could manage it and keep an eye on the baby at the same time.
