I've been on both sides of the fence. I've been the full time SAHM & I've worked 2 casual/part time jobs at once when DD1 was young.

I believe you need to work for your sanity. I did 4 years full time SAH after DS was born. I hated it. I couldn't handle full time 5-5.5 days a week, & I know that, but I can't not work part time. I get depressed, lonely & bored. My house turns to crap, because I have no real reason to keep it organised. I'm here all the time, I have time to search through the mess in my room for 2 clean socks.

When I don't work my house is usually a mess. My room you can barely walk into, my laundry is over flowing & my dishes don't get done til I'm about to cook dinner. i feel like crap about myself, so I treat myself like crap. If I'm not happy, I'm not happy & you can tell where I'm at with the state of my house. (ATM its spotless!! inside...)

I am on my own, so living on centrelink alone isn't fun (no child support either). If I can just earn an extra $100 a week on top of my payments, thats a camping trip to the beach on a long weekend. Thats an online order for winter PJ's for all the kids. Being able to afford friends birthdays & canteen once a week! Just being able to do those little things for my kids is all I need.

One day I will own a house, but its not going to be for a while. I'm not going to work my butt off to own a house now. I'll spend the next 10 years spending time doing things with my babies every chance i get, then worry about that. We never had this freedom before, so I'm running with it

There are plenty of days/weekends, even weeks during holidays that I do nothing with my kids. But there are times when we do amazing things, like weekend getaways to the beach, to make up for it.

There's no perfect way to do it, you just have to do what's best for you