struggling - part 2

Heath thinks I should seriously consider getting a job. He thinks I would be happier, because I wouldn't be driven nuts by the kids all day, and instead (theoretically), I would miss them and be refreshed to see them in the evening. (I think he forgets here how he is often not overwhelmed with delight to see them when he come home from work exhausted.) He also points out that it wouldn't necessarily shift the full load of housework to the evenings and weekends, since a lot of our current load of housework is created during the day by the kids' play and simply from the process of living and being in the house all day long.

As for me, I think it would probably make our lives crazier.
There are a ton of things I do during the day that would be really hard to fit into our evenings or weekends -- I'm afraid we would have to really change our routines for those times. Also, I'm concerned that I would still be irritable and short with the kids because I would replace stress of a long day with them at home with stress of a long day at work. I think people are probably worn out at the end of the day, in general, and probably everyone does worse with kids in the evening hours because of that. Furthermore, if I was at work all day, there wouldn't be the current positive interaction that occurs during the day to balance out any negative interaction that occurs during the day or evening hours. I don't know if I would be able to generate enough positive interaction in the evenings alone to balance out negative interaction that might still occur because of being exhausted and stressed from other things. Even if the level of positive interaction was enough to balance out any negative interaction, I'm concerned it might not be enough overall to sustain our relationships on the level I have always hoped and envisioned. (Not to say it works that way for any other working mothers; I am just speaking to what I would be able to sustain.) Finally, I'm concerned about Samuel being put in full-time day care this young, since none of the other boys had to be with anyone but me full-time so soon. Although I really believe he'd be fine, it seems somehow unfair to him in light of me staying home with his older brothers during those years.

Heath thinks the extra money from me working would balance out some or much of the stress that would occur from me starting a job. I concede that money management is a significant stressor for us. (I think perhaps many of us are not completely honest with anyone outside our marriage about how stressed out money management makes us! I really hate the whole system at times - Heath says I am part communist.) Having extra money, paying off debt, and feeling like we were handling it instead of it handling us would feel really good. It might even allow us to hire out some of the housework to balance it being shifted to the evenings and weekends.

However, what I really want in all this is to be able to be happy at home, to not be driven nuts by my kids -- and to naturally manage our money well with just Heath's salary, on top of that. But if I am still frequently upset and at the end of my rope with the kids, and haven't been able to get past it for this long, then obviously something else needs to be done. I have thought of getting counseling for this, just as I have for my personal struggles with depression. It's not such a stretch since they seem related in my mind. (One source of my depression is my struggle with feeling that life is simply really difficult no matter what, because of how difficult parenting has been for me.) I wonder if Heath is suggesting this option because he doesn't see other things we can do to make the situation better, either. It's not like we are part of the rich elite, where people hire nannies or tutors around the clock even though they are at home full-time as well!* I'm really hoping things will be hugely better once school starts, and the older boys are away from each other and from me for a significant portion of each day, and even Samuel is gone to preschool for a few hours a week. In the meantime, I am doing some research on jobs/careers I might be interested in when the time comes -- whether in a couple of months, when it is apparent that the kids starting school did not help the situation, or perhaps 5 or 10 years from now instead.

*See random Wife Swap episode I happened to catch years ago.