I think there are a lot of different factors.
People sometimes act like having one parent stay home is the best, no matter what. This isn't necessarily always the case.
For example, some families are so strapped if one parent stays home that they can't realistically provide a decent start for a child. If having a SAHP (stay at home parent) means that your child is deprived of going to the dentist, orthodontics, summer camps, after school lessons, tutoring (if necessary), and the hope of going to college... then quite honestly you might be better off having both parents work so that the child has more opportunity.
We tend to idealize having a parent at home, but let's face it: there are lots of ghetto families where one parent is home, and those kids don't turn out too well. Other factors, including opportunity and economic stability, are important to how well a kid turns out.
I'm not going to criticize the choice you've made -- obviously you feel it is best for your family. But I know that in some cases where the parents "pass like ships in the night," it is very hard on the marriage, and there is a shortage of time where the whole family is enjoying time together. In cases with those dynamics, frankly it would be better for the kid to spend some time in quality child care rather than have the parents' marriage disintegrate.
I guess "one size doen't fit all" pretty much sums it up.
Absolutely, positively agree. My husband and I found that, when our children were small, that my working part time worked best. I found being home full-time with small children to be so tedious that I became short and impatient with them. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. The two-three days a week I worked gave me the stimulation and validation I needed to be able to give my best to my kids when I was with them. And the extra money I made gave us a little financial breathing space, so things were less stressful. And the kids had a couple of days playing with other kids, which was especially important to my daughter, who is super social. When she was home with me, she was always asking when she would be going back to pre-school.
Because of how much we love our children, its so important to each of us that we get this parenting job done right. But because there are no hard and fast rules on how to do that, this produces anxiety. Some parents deal with this anxiety by insisting that their way to parent and the choices they made are THE right ways to do things, and putting down anyone who chooses differently. The is wrong and counter-productive. Different things work for different families, and we should be giving each other's choices our support. Some choices are clearly wrong, but others really depend on circumstances. Furthermore, I think parents who leave themselves out of the equation when they make choices for their families are making a mistake. Strong, healthy parents with strong, healthy marriages make much better families, even if they have to put their children into day care at times to achieve this.