Sometimes working at home doesn’t always go as you plan. Something happens and the money your family needs just isn’t coming in fast enough. How do you decide when it’s time to look at an outside the home job?

This is a painful decision for any at home parent. You generally want to be at home. Working outside it probably doesn’t appeal to you the way the work you do at home does. But when your family needs the money it’s an option you need to consider.

Perhaps one of the biggest causes for this can be the layoff of your spouse. There’s some of that going around right now. I should know; my husband was laid off earlier this year, and the financial hit was huge to our family, even with unemployment. After all, there’s the COBRA coverage for our health insurance to consider.

It can be a challenge making this kind of decision, but there are some ways to do it. One is to look at finding a job in the evening, so that you can always be sure that one parent is at home with the kids still. It makes quite the mess of your time together, but when money is tight you do have to look at the sacrifices necessary to keep your family going.

The other option, if your children are in school, is to work outside the home during school hours. This gives you a bit more time with your spouse, which is a nice benefit.

The trouble with these options that is that you will probably have to sacrifice a big piece of your at home work time. As a rule I do not recommend giving up entirely on working from home. Taking on an outside the home job may slow your progress at home, but giving up stops it.

Never give up if you think you can do it. Find a way to make it work.

There are options to working outside the home, of course. You can expand what you do to earn money from home. Take on more clients. Start freelancing if you aren’t already. Look at a new work at home job. Figure out ways to expand your current business.

None of that is easy, of course. There’s a lot you have to do in order to succeed. Work at home jobs take time to find. Clients may be hard to find. You may not have the time in your schedule to expand your efforts.

But if it comes down to it, work outside the home. That your family has a place to live and enough to eat should always be your first priority, not your pride in being able to be there for your family by working at home. You can come back to it when things get better.

Do not forget to take the expenses of working outside the home into consideration. How’s your work wardrobe? How far do you want to drive? Will you need daycare?

The early days can set your finances back a little, but so long as working outside the home is a sufficient net benefit you can do it.

“Mom Wars.” You have no idea how much I hate that term. It sounds like we moms have nothing better to do than to fight about who’s doing it right, stay at home or work outside the home moms.

I’ve never felt one was inherently superior to the other. There are advantages to each, and what’s right for your family may not be right for mine. But a lot of people forget that.

I’d like to discuss my own reasons for being a stay at home mom first.

1. I get to be with my kids.

For just about any stay at home mom, this one comes first. It’s fun to be there for everything, even if it gets exhausting at times. I have a son who loves to cling to me and a daughter who is quite independent. Both can drive me nuts and drain me some days, but I get to see it all.

2. I’m able to work from home.

This is an advantage that today’s stay at home moms have over their predecessors. It’s much, much easier to bring in an income from home than it used to be. You aren’t all but limited to daycare or direct sales anymore. Some work regular jobs, but telecommute. Others run online businesses. Others choose more traditional routes to earn money.

The balance is tough, but doable for me. Doesn’t work for everyone, though, and I know it.

So why would a mom choose to work outside the home?

1. The family needs the money.

We can argue all we want about what “needs the money” really means, and never do anything more than judge one another. I’m not going to go there because “needs” is something that can be very personally defined.

2. Mom loves her career.

Why would you leave a career you love? If you aren’t the kind of mom who would enjoy being with her kids all the time, a career provides a sense of balance in your life. Women today generally aren’t raised to expect to be at home all the time. We are raised with the expectation that we can do what we want with our lives and fulfill our own dreams.

Despite the many guilt trips others lay upon us.

And that’s the catch. No matter which road we choose, someone wants to judge us. Stay at home moms are called lazy. If they work from home it’s hard to be taken seriously (although things in that area are slowly improving for many!).

Moms who work outside the home are scolded for allowing someone else to raise their kids. They may be disadvantaged in their careers by the demands of motherhood.

It’s much better to admit that most of us are just trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got. Each decision means a sacrifice of something else, whether it be a change or delay in your career, a decrease in the family’s income or something else.

Sure, it’s sometimes hard to talk to a mom who made a different choice. Your lives can be very different. But odds are you both made the decisions you felt were the right ones. Argue about who’s the better mom and you’re just making life harder for each other.