I think staying home full time with a younger baby is much easier than working. But staying home with an 15 month old day in and day out? Lord help me! I am jealous of my husband, since he gets a "break" from the insanity by going to work. But children don't linearly get easier or harder. They go through stages.
But ultimately I think it is impossible to generalize about these things. You've got a complex interplay of a child's personality, a parent's personality, the type of job, the number of children, the personality of the spouse, the amount of external support you have, etc. etc. etc. The answer as to which is "harder" will always depend on these variables and be different for each and every person.
Totally. I always thought that overall, having a stay at home parent was more relaxing and less stressful - FOR THE FAMILY - because of the ability to "do stuff" during the day. Like, if a kid is sick, the parent is already home. Meeting the plumber? Parent at home. Doing the laundry, picking stuff up, paying bills, cooking dinner, running the dishwasher, taking out the trash? Parent at home.
Taking the kid to the doctor, dentist? Parent at home. Going to the school award ceremony at 9 am? Parent at home. After school baseball? Parent at home.
However, BEING AT HOME is a lot harder, to me, than being at work.
At work, I can eat, pee, and read my email on my own damn schedule.
At home, with babies/ toddlers/ preschoolers, you are sunk. You start making your coffee and have to help someone pee/poop/wipe their butt. You finish making the coffee and put in your toast. But then you have to make the kids' breakfast. And then you eventually eat your own breakfast and then do the dishes.
But then in the middle of trying to wash lettuce for your lunch salad, the kids are hungry, so you detour. Then they eat and they want to PLAY, but you haven't eaten yet.
The difficulty here varies on the kid's personality, age, activity level, etc. But I found being home with babies during maternity leave to be HARD and then toddlers are so much damn work. (My younger son is 3).
The hard thing about working is getting home after 10 hours of being away, and needing to make dinner - but having a toddler who wants to snack/ play/ bug you, so that even 15 minutes to cut vegetables takes 30 or 40, and by the time dinner is ready he's not hungry anymore, because he already had strawberries/ cucumbers/ leftover chicken.
And of course the weekends, which are chores chores chores.