Its a personal decision for each new parent. Some people just arent the type who can cope with being at home, some cant do it for the money reasons and so on. The projects article will be useless in its reporting like always, it will go round in circles and end with 'its up to every parent in the end, blah blah blah.'

I stopped working when I was pregnant with DD1 at 35 weeks. And doing the census stuff this year was the first bit of work I have done since 2007. For us, we never made a decision as to when I will return to work. Although I started to think about going back to casual when I found out about DD2, and again this year was the same, found out about sprout. My immunity status means I cant work whilst Im pregnant due to added risks. On top of that Dh gets tues and weds off every week, he works huge hours and we rarely get any family time together. We had initially thought about me working on his days off so that he could care for the girls, but then we would miss out on any family time we could get. After doing the census stuff this year, I know for sure I am not ready to go back to work and miss out on family time. That time right now is more important to our relationship, to our family, than any dollar amount at the moment.