Quitting your job to stay home with your tweens and teens

Adolescent dependency
As a preteen, Paula Brook's daughter, Shira Saltzberg, now a 22-year-old university student, remembers envying her neighbourhood friends with stay-at-home moms. She recalls being delighted by the news that her mother was going to quit her job and stay home during the day: “Coming home from school, to have her there was a very nice change. It helped to have her there for the times of new adjustments. I think at this time we also established a closer relationship, because prior to her quitting and the move, we had a full-time nanny who I was extremely close with. Then my mom finally established the kind of role that, as a 10-year-old, selfishly, I had always wanted.”

Because they look so much like real adults, Neufeld says we badly underestimate the need of adolescents for dependency and attachment.

“We think they don't need us. But teenagers are the same as babies in many ways -- it's only when we fully commit to taking care of their emotional and physical dependency needs, that we most encourage healthy independence.”

Investing time
That said, Neufeld doesn't think it's necessary or practical for parents to return full time to the home front in order to nurture or rekindle a healthy bond with their teens. “Time is important, yes, but it's what you do with that time that's most important. If you've lost clout with your teenager -- if the relationship has soured-- it would take very little physical time to nurture the relationship back to a healthier place. You need to invent some structure, some rituals. You need to court them like you would a lover.”

Ritual is a big part of Henny Groenendijk's family life since she made the decision to do part-time public relations work from home so she can enjoy more time with her two boys, Tim, 9, and Ben, 14. Before making the change in 2003, she was on the GO Transit from suburban Oakville, Ont., to downtown Toronto by 7:45 a.m. and not home again until 6 p.m. Her boys went to a babysitter in the neighbourhood after school. “It was always so hectic,” she says. “I would be exhausted; they would be exhausted. There was no opportunity for a relaxed conversation.”

Today Henny makes time to pick her boys up right after school and spends one-on-one time with both of them each week. She looks forward to chatting “about life or whatever” while walking with Tim on his paper route or while cooking with Ben. They read together, watch TV together, shop together. “If I went back to work, I would miss the communication with the kids. They need me in a different way now than they did when they were little. There are more things they want to talk about now, but they want to talk on their schedule, not mine.”

Henny says her boys have now grown so used to having her time and attention that they are sometimes frustrated when her work commitments get in the way of her availability. “If they complain, I ask them if they would like to go to the babysitter like they used to, and they say ‘No! No!' and they let me get on with my work.”

Henny knows it is not an option for every working mother to stay home with grown children, and that makes her all the more appreciative of her circumstances. “I couldn't do this if I was the sole provider,” she says. “But I am grateful that it has worked out. We always enjoy one another's company. I think we will always be close.” She fondly recalls a recent Mother's Day when her older boy spontaneously took her arm as they were walking through a mall together. “He didn't even want anything!” she laughs. “I was so happy. I thought, This is the best Mother's Day present I could ever have.”

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