<prompt> Human: I work in the IT industry and my wife works part time just weekends as a nurse for a local hospital. She stays home w our 2 yr old during the week and I take over on the weekends while she works. Lately weve been discussing whether it makes sense for her to quit for a few yrs to raise our daughter. Besides her hating her job shes been there 7yrs, shes looking for a change. More importantly, it is taking a toll on our family because we dont spend enough time as a family. I come home around 6 but were restricted on time during the weekday and weekends its just my daughter and I. We miss out on a lot of family function and I think were both starting to realize that theres more to life than working. We dont get to enjoy life because of our schedule.Anyways, with my income alone 6200 net each month, we live a comfortable life. Granted her income 2400 net each month goes straight to savings but we do splurge here and there because we have enough to cover our expenses. Obviously well have to buckle down but I know we can do it. For those that had a working spouse, do you regret it at all?  <response>: My spouse is now disabled but before that we were a two income family. While my situation has a different cause the result is similar - so I will say that living on just one income is very hard. Most optional expenses fall away since you do not have as much discretionary income and the expenses mostly stay. As an example, my spouse commuting expenses dropped but my utility bills went up and the mortgage amount stays the same.So consider that if your wife left work, you could end up in a situation where you have time for a vacation but no money to afford it. If thats a better quality of life for your family, it could be fine.I do think nurses are in demand and there are so many opportunities to be a nurse - a school nurse, a corporate nurse, other healthcare setting, etc. It might be that there are other nursing jobs your wife could take out of the hospital that would give you a better family life. Or she could stay in the hospital and switch to weekday days - your daughter would need preschool, but at 2 yrs old preschool can be a good thing for a kid. And the increased wages could more than make up for the daycare costs.Additionally, consider that with a spouse out of the workforce you have less contributions to retirement, healthcare savings, and no corporate benefits e.g. you may be in corporate plans at the hospital which youd lose. Make sure when you consider her compensation youre evaluating all of it.In the end it is a personal decision and many factors come in to play in deciding for a family that a non-working spouse is a better situation or not. In your case, it seems like you may need to change the evaluation from the two options you have does she continue working weekends at the hospital OR not? to a broader set of options such as: does she stay home, continue with the same shift, change to a different shift get preschool started, or change to a different job and get preschool started??FWIW - my two cents are that in her place, Id be beating down the doors of local schools for a school nurse job. The benefits of having a spouse with a work schedule that aligns with the kids school schedule would be great. 