by Michelle Stein posted in Mom Stories

The decision to be a stay-at-home parent isn't always an easy one, especially if a family takes a financial hit in doing so.
And if both partners are in the workforce, losing a paycheck from one until a child is in school can be even tougher -- not only in the immediate future, but years down the road.
In fact, each lost year of employment could cost a family more than three times a parent's annual salary, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress. This is because the SAH parent is not only missing out on a regular paycheck, but also opportunity costs such as lost wage growth and retirement assets.
"Given the importance of parents' careers in ensuring financial stability for their children, it?s a sign we?re not thinking through childcare as an economic problem when parents are deciding to take time off or not without good tools to see how it affects their incomes," said Michael Madowitz, co-author of the report. For example, a 26-year-old female worker with a salary of $44,000 would lose roughly $706,778 in lifetime income from taking five years off to care for a child.
Ouch.
Read this article from Bloomberg (and note the accompanying graph) to see just how fast the losses add up.

After welcoming our second child in 2014, I had a hard time returning to work knowing that most of my paycheck was going toward childcare. "I can't afford to work!" I would lament in frustration. (Add a 5...