If you're easily offended, I probably wouldn't read this post.  Because I'm talking about people who are easily offended.  And it will probably offend you.  ;)

I was reading this article and found out that I am already doing everything that they mention you can do to save money for your baby because I'm painfully cheap and my poor daughter is going to grow up learning the alphabet by drawing it in the sand because paper just went up fifteen cents a ream.  Though the authors gave a quick and compulsory slight nod to cloth diapers, they did mention breastfeeding, making your own baby food, buying used toys and clothes, and letting your child play with household items instead of buying toys.  (Right now Ari has a magnetic clip from the fridge and a metal box.  Aaaand she just started banging her baby monitor against the door.  Awesome.  ;)  They even encourage parents to wash clothes instead of throwing them away - who throws away dirty clothes instead of washing them?!!

But one of the things on the list really shocked me.  They mention that daycare averages $1000 a month and encourage parents to get savings accounts, trade off with friends, etc.  But with commuting and buying lunch every day at work, you're spending almost $16,000 just to have a job.  How much are you really making? They don't even MENTION the option of staying home and raising your own children.  Is it really worth $10 an hour to miss out on most of the waking hours of your child's most formative years?  I used to nanny for a family, and I spent WAY more time with their kids than the parents did - and they were as involved as you could possibly be!  Everything was always stressed and rushed, there was never peace in the house until the parents had gone and there wasn't peace again once they came home.

I realize it's a personal decision and that you might genuinely desperately need that money, though you probably don't need it as badly as you think you do, but Baby Center didn't even mention that option!  They didn't even say "reevaluate your situation to see if you could be staying home with your kids."  As if we are afraid to even suggest that parents should be raising their own children.  I'm not even talking about "should be" but "COULD be."  We don't even want to say that!  We don't want to suggest that it should be an option!  We get so offended in this country if anyone questions the way we're raising our children, especially when it comes to the topics of breastfeeding and daycare, that we get all up in a tizzy if anyone suggests we do things differently than we're doing them.  I remember one article that was talking about some celebrity couple or something and they had decided to use formula with their children.  The couple said, "We've just decided that this is the best choice for our babies."  WHAT?!  No!  Say "This is the best fit for our family," or "This is the best I can do," or whatever, but formula is never the best choice for the baby.  I think sometimes we feel we have a right to justify our selfishness instead of being able to admit that a situation isn't ideal but is the best we can do.  And that's okay!  That's absolutely okay, but there is a serious problem when we start calling "acceptable" the "best," because then everyone's standards get lowered.