Terry Spraitz Ciszek, a homemaker in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was around that age when she decided to stay home with her first child in the 1980’s and not re-enter the workforce. For The Atlantic’s series of interviews with American workers, I spoke with Ciszek about the work she did as a stay-at-home parent, how perceptions of mothers who don’t work have shifted over time, and how she sees her now-adult children navigating work and parenthood. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Adrienne Green: How did you arrive at the decision to be become a homemaker and stay-at-home mom?

Terry Spraitz Ciszek: Largely, I grew up at a time when it was more common in America for women to stay at home and raise their families. It was more economically possible in those years as well. It was before Title IX, and we weren't exposed to a lot of opportunities that girls are today. It wasn't as common to choose a career, and the professions you were encouraged to go into were teaching and nursing. I enjoyed helping my mother cook, sewing, and I babysat a lot. It seemed like a natural thing, and I always wanted to have children so I guess I had a maternal instinct. I have two girls and a boy, and they were spread out. I had the first at 28, and then I was 32 with the next, and I was 39 with the last one.

Green: You have an associate’s degree and became a nurse before having children. Did you ever worry about trying to balance a career and children?

Ciszek: While I was working, at the beginning of my marriage, I saw the difficulties that people who had children and still worked encountered. I couldn't imagine the emotional pain of having to leave your baby with someone else, and then all of the things you would have to juggle when you got home. So I hoped I didn't have to have a life like that. I hoped to be able to stay home with my children, but I also loved my job.

When I did stop working after I had my first child, I longed to go back, but I also didn't know how I'd manage it if I did. My husband is a physician, and he takes care of premature babies, so his hours were really terrible in the early years. He was on call every third day for 36 hours for about seven years straight. I don't know how I could have done it without a live-in nanny, and we certainly couldn't afford that. But we could afford for me to stay home.

Green: If you could've afforded a nanny, do you think you would've went back to work or made the same decision to stay at home?

Ciszek: I would've made the same decision to stay at home. I just couldn't imagine someone else raising my children all day long. I enjoyed being able to spend an hour watching a praying mantis climb up a fence, and talking to them about insects. I enjoyed going out for a bicycle ride with them on the back of the bicycle. [If I was working], I wouldn't have had time. I enjoyed teaching them myself. I don't think I would've been good at being a parent myself, with my personality and my abilities, if I just had to rush through everything in the evening when I got home. Some people can do that. I'm not a good organizer of time, probably.