Cost of staying home on the rise

Lynn Johnston of south Yuba City has been "tightening the reins" of her budget as a stay-at-home-mom with five children.

"The high price of gas has pretty much grounded us for the summer," she said of her family.

These days, the term "stay-at-home-mom" has taken on a new meaning. Economic stresses, particularly sky-high gas prices, have kept many of these mothers and their families closer to home base than they'd like, a development some find isolating and deeply frustrating.

"My mother-in-law helps out," Johnston said, explaining that she doesn't take her children to the grocery store or go out with them as much as she used to. "She gives me sanity breaks."

Johnston now tries to combine all her errands - the bank, the pharmacy and the grocery store - to payday on Thursdays instead of driving about 10 miles into town a few days a week.

When Johnston isn't running errands, cleaning, doing laundry and feeding every "Mom, Mom" mouth, she gardens and cans home-made salsa, jelly and tomato sauce.

She said she chose to be a stay-at-home-mom because she likes knowing what is influencing her children's lives and being able to manage two of her children's health problems.

"They may drive me nuts, but I love my kids," Johnston said. "I choose to stay at home."

Johnston used to be a supervisor at a department store but said her family of five children at home and two adult children in Southern California is fortunate enough to live off of her husband's paycheck. The youngest child is starting kindergarten this year, leaving Johnston happily with some free time.

Darcy Sauer of Marysville stays at home with her four girls and has another due in mid-September.

She said she and her husband are movie buffs and haven't been to the theater in about two months. Instead, at about 10 p.m. when their children are in bed they make popcorn and watch rentals delivered to their house by Netflix.

"We haven't even seen 'Batman,'" Sauer said. "That's so not like us."

However, some stay-at-home mothers — there are 5.6 million with kids under 15, according to 2007 census figures — would be eager to return to work, if they thought the right job was out there. But many don't.

Recent labor statistics indicate women in the labor force have been adversely affected by the poor economy, and that the growth in their work force participation, steady for several decades, has slowed in recent years.

That, in turn, has raised the emotionally charged question of whether women have really been "opting out" to care for their children, as some economists thought, or whether it's more that they've been affected by the hard times.

It can be hard to know which, says Suzanne Bianchi, a sociologist specializing in gender issues at the University of Maryland. "It's easier to decide to opt out," says Bianchi, "if your supposition is that the prospects aren't good anyway."

Jen Singer, creator of MommaSaid.net, a resource for stay-at-home mothers like herself, is annoyed by the assumption she feels some economists make that stay-at-home mothers want to work outside the home, but can't. "I know tons and tons of mothers who choose to stay home whatever the economic difficulties," she says, counting herself among them. "We are NOT staying home with our children by default."

Adding to the day-to-day stress, says Singer, is the fear that their husbands, the sole breadwinners, might lose their jobs.

"Stay-at-home moms are very good at being frugal," she says. "Often they're the ones in charge of household finances. But when you're worried that the one paycheck won't come, it's that much more frightening."

One change that Singer, who lives in Kinnelon, N.J., has made in her own life is shopping for things like back-to-school supplies online, rather than in stores. But online shopping is a solitary activity, in a life that for some women is getting increasingly more solitary.

"I'm having 'em, so I wanna raise 'em."

That's the philosophy that led Jenna Kagan to stop working when her daughter was born nine years ago. Two sons soon followed, and their mother remains firm in her belief that staying home with them is best.

"It used to be the term 'stay-at-home mother' was an oxymoron, because you had to get out of the house for your sanity!" says Singer. "To the mall, the playground, playdates, to Target, just to go somewhere."

Now, with gas topping $4 a gallon, everyone's thinking twice, she says. "If you're a stay-at-home mother, you'd better have a darned good reason to go somewhere. You wonder, where can I stop by on my way home from another errand?"

So, like many, Kagan, who lives in Maple Valley, Wash., has streamlined all her weekly errands into one marathon day. That includes occupational and speech therapy for one of her sons, doctor's appointments, and of course shopping.

Her children stay at home more, too. They're home-schooled, and short trips they used to take as part of that experience have been curtailed as well. "We just don't have as much money as we used to," Kagan explains. Weekends? The family now goes to parks more than museums, and instead of going to the movies, they rent.

Even cooking, an activity Kagan loves, has been affected.

"I was famous for running here and there to get ingredients," she says. "If I was missing something I'd run out and get it. I don't do that anymore. I sit down and plan meals two weeks ahead, then buy everything at once."

Kagan and her husband, Dan, try to make a game of their tightening budget, seeing just how much they can save, "so that it's not too depressing," she says.

Alexis Allman of Marysville can't even remember the last time she went out with her husband.

"Maybe it was my birthday in May last year — not this year," says the mother of three. "We did nothing this year."

Allman left her job as an account coordinator with Hewlett-Packard, which she enjoyed, just over two years ago because "it was too expensive to work," what with the hour's drive each way and the cost of daycare for two kids (she now has three). Now, it would make even less sense. "To find a job that pays something decent, I would still have to drive an hour each way at $4.30 a gallon," she says.

Allman, too, packs all her errands into one day.

"I go to five places in one day with three kids — it's horrible," she says.

The family also needs a bigger car to fit everyone, but that would take too much gas. Meals out are history, even at McDonald's, where a meal costs at least $20 for four.

"How can we justify eating out when we could go to a store and buy enough for a couple days' worth of meals?" Allman asks. An exception was her son's recent fourth birthday, celebrated at Applebees. Other than that, it's been two years.

"There's just no time to regroup, none left for ourselves," Allman notes. That means no date nights, either. But she's hopeful that may change.

"I'm trying to work out a baby-sitting swap arrangement with friends," she says. "If it works, we'll go and see the new 'Batman' movie. Maybe."

Contact Appeal-Democrat re-porter Katy Sweeny at 749-4708 or ksweeny@appealdemocrat.comAssociated Press contributed to this article.