MANSFIELD — There was a time when Tiffany Montgomery never dreamed she’d be a stay-at-home mom.
It’s what her mother and grandmother had done, but it wasn’t what she envisioned for herself.
“I never really saw the value of what my mom was doing until years and years later,” Montgomery said. “I kind of looked down on stay-at-home moms for a while. I was like, ‘I want a career. I want to travel.'”
When Tiffany got pregnant with their oldest child, she was working as a freelance writer and the executive director of a local non-profit. Six months into her pregnancy, she resigned due to health complications.
Her daughter, Isabella, was born a few weeks later, weighing less than two pounds. She spent the first three-and-a-half months of her life in the NICU.
Returning to work simply wasn’t feasible.
“I had those two part-time jobs and wasn’t making as much as (my husband) Dustin was making with his one job,” she said. “It made the most sense that I would stay home.”
Today, Isabella is a happy, healthy first grader. Two younger sisters, Aurora and Lilah, have joined the Montgomery home.
Tiffany has remained a stay-at-home mom. It’s harder and more rewarding than she ever could have expected.
“I like to approach being a stay-at-home mom with excellence and focus. Every day I try to do it well,” she said.
“The decision (my husband and I) are making is building something that’s bigger than ourselves,” she added. “I’m really passionate about stressing that. I know I won’t regret the time I’ve spent with my kids.”
About one in five parents stay home with their children
A 2023 report by Pew Research Center estimated that around one in five parents in the United States are stay-at-home caregivers, including 26 percent of mothers and 7 percent of fathers.
Heather Bond said it was always her goal to stay home with her children one day.
“When we had kids, it definitely became a priority, just to be involved day to day with the kids and their growth,” said the Mansfield mother of three. “I’m really thankful for my husband’s sacrifice that I am able to be home with our children.”
Bond and her husband have three kids. Her 5-year-old daughter is in kindergarten and on the brink of learning to read. Her youngest, 8-month-old Jack, just started crawling.
“I love just seeing them learn,” she said. “When you can just really see things click and then catch on to something new. It’s just amazing.”
American Mothers on Pause, a 2023 study on stay-at-home-moms, found mothers choose to leave the workforce due to a number of factors. The most common were to spend more time with their children and to be present for their learning and developmental milestones.
Child care hurdles are also common motivators. Sixty two percent of respondents said they left their job because child care was too expensive.
“I wanted to watch my kids grow and develop in the beginning stages,” said Anna James, a former phlebotomist and stay-at-home mom.
“It got to a point where I was ready to start working again, because financially, things got really difficult,” she said. “But unfortunately, daycare was not an option.”
Just over half of stay-at-home moms surveyed said they chose to leave work because said it’s too difficult to find someone they’d trust with their child’s wellbeing.
I know I won’t regret the time I’ve spent with my kids.
Tiffany montgomery, stay-at-home mom of three
When Doug Haidet became a father, he and his wife decided one of them should stay home with their son, Murphy.
“Having control over those first few years was a big deal for us,” he said.
Murphy was born in July 2021. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was also a consideration.
“We didn’t want him to get it because at the time, we didn’t know what the impact would be on an infant,” Haidet said.
Haidet’s wife had a better paying job with more flexibility. So he became a stay-at-home dad. He and Murphy spend their days attending library programs, visiting parks and going to the local YMCA.
“They always say it takes a village to raise a child, but a village also helps the parents get through it,” he said. “We have people at the library that I know by name now that I never would have met otherwise.”
‘A lot of us don’t want to trust a total stranger’
Anamaria Tejada-Dull was living in the Cleveland area when she met her husband, Keith, an art professor at Ashland University.
The two were married about nine months later.
“We both were pretty serious from the beginning, and because we were a bit older, we knew that we wanted a family,” she said. “We knew we wanted children and I didn’t want to wait because of my age.”
Tejada-Dull became pregnant with her first child while she was finishing up a stint as a research assistant for a grant-funded project at Kent State University. She kept her Cleveland-area apartment and the couple bounced back and forth between two cities.
It feels unfair that we have to give up our career, professional development and interaction with other adults… but a lot of us don’t want a total stranger to be with our kids the whole day.”
Anamaria Tejada-Dull, former stay-at-home mom
After the project was completed, she moved to Ashland. It didn’t make sense to start looking for a new job right before giving birth, so she decided to wait and take some time to adjust to new motherhood. She ended up having a daughter, Soliana, a few years later.
At the time, Tejada-Dull thought she’d re-enter the workforce at some point while her kids were little. But the idea felt more and more daunting as time went on, especially without family nearby.
“I was kind of naive. I thought it was gonna be easier, and it was never as easy as I was hoping,” she said.
There were other reasons she ultimately chose to stay home during her children’s early years. She doubted the financial benefits of returning to work would outweigh the cost of child care. She wanted to teach her children Spanish, her first language. She was hesitant to entrust their care to someone she didn’t know.
“It feels unfair that we have to give up our career, professional development, and interaction with other adults because of the kids,” she said. “But at the same time, a lot of us don’t want a total stranger to be with our kids the whole day.”
Mental health, loneliness can be a struggle for stay-at-home parents
When her children were babies, Tejada-Dull said the days began to blur together.
“I was overwhelmed, I was tired, I was frustrated,” she said. “It’s never ending and it’s the same every day when they’re very little.”
It’s a familiar feeling for Anna James, a stay-at-home mom to two preschoolers. After leaving her job four years ago, she’s struggled with her mental health and sense of identity.
“There’s people out there that are okay with being stay-at-home moms and they deal with it well, and then there’s others who don’t,” she said.
“I feel like I don’t have a social life. I don’t get to talk and hang out with friends,” she added. “My husband’s always at work because he’s making up for the fact that I can’t work.”
“I love it. But there’s days it takes a toll on me,” she said. “For years, I’ve just been a mom. That’s it. I don’t have an identity. I don’t know who I am.”
For years, I’ve just been a mom. That’s it. I don’t have an identity. I don’t know who I am.
anna James, stay-at-home mom of two preschoolers
More than one third of stay-at-home mothers said they worry about losing their sense of self, according to the 2023 study American Mothers on Pause.
The same study found 44 percent of respondent said being a stay-at-home mom makes it hard to make friends. More than 1 in 10 stay-at-home mothers said they don’t have any “mom friends.”
For Haidet, the most difficult part of being a stay-at-home dad is the pressure he puts on himself to get it right.
“I think the biggest challenge for me is probably mental,” he said. “There’s a lot of analyzing. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? How can you do it better?”
Remote, flexible work means some stay-at-home parents still earn a paycheck
For some parents who primarily stay at home and care for their children, flexible schedules and remote work offer opportunities to supplement their income and pursue passions outside of the home.
Shortly after her youngest daughter was born, Montgomery was offered a part-time job at her church as children’s ministry coordinator. She accepted, relying on her mother and mother-in-law for child care when she goes in one day a week.
Haidet didn’t work during the first year of his son’s life. Since then, he’s done some “odds and ends” jobs, including work as high school sports correspondent for Ashland Source.
When her daughter entered preschool, Dull got a job working part-time for a non-profit organization that provides family support services in Ashland.
“I’m still just working part-time, because honestly, between my kids activities and my work, I don’t have a lot of energy,” said Dull, whose children are now in 7th and 9th grade.
Dull said she thinks more part-time jobs and flexibility in the workplace would help parents who want to work outside the home.
“Every time that (my kids) would get sick, I was grateful that I didn’t have to worry about the full-time job where I didn’t have enough sick hours,” she said.
“I think work life is organized around a more male standard — a childless guy or a guy that has somebody at home that can take care of the kids,” she added. “I think we need to think about a system that is really more (organized) around a mother or a person that is raising a child and that needs to balance those things.”
James said she wishes child care was an option for her — but it’s not something her family can afford.
“I would love for child care to be more affordable, and I know that’s hard because you also have to pay the workers,” she said.
Amy Goyal, member of the Richland County Women’s Fund and advocate for public investment in child care, called the decision to work or stay home with children a “deeply personal family decision.”
She argued a robust, affordable child care system provides all families a true choice in the matter.
“Everybody is different. Every family is different. There is no judgement one way or the other on that decision,” she said. “But in order for that true autonomy to be there to make that decision that’s best for them, we need to have this public investment and this public infrastructure in place.”
Dull said she used to second-guess her decision to not to return to work full-time Occasionally, she still does.
But also she looks back on old photos her and her children — their trips to the park, to the zoo, to the ice cream parlor — and she’s glad she had the opportunity to do those things.
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “But I was tired.”
It’s rewarding in a way that nothing else is rewarding, because the impact that you’re having is just massive.”
DOug Haidet, Stay-at-home dad
Montgomery said she occasionally thinks about the money she could be making working outside the home or feels bad for not using her degree. But then she reminds herself of all the reasons she chose stay-at-home motherhood.
She wants to increase her hours of paid work when her children get older. But for now, she’s content with the choice she made.
“It’s worth it,” she said. “If you can do it, do it — if that’s something you want to do. It’s not for everyone.”
Haidet agreed.
“Years down the line, what you did at this stage is going to be impacting not only (your child), but other people,” he said. “It’s rewarding in a way that nothing else is rewarding, because the impact that you’re having is just massive.”
