To feel sad some women are forced to go back to work

Any thoughts on the replies so far OP?

Maybe these heartbroken women could plan their finances before having a baby so they don't have to work if they don't want to 🤷‍♀️

Totally a them problem imo.

My mum was a SAHM through the 80s and 90s. We were most definitely not upper class!

By ‘women’ do you mean ‘men and women’?

Which olden days OP? My 93yr old grandmothers both worked as did their mothers. The only SAHMs in our family have been in my generation.

I think that there should be more tax relief to allow stay at home parents for the early years, if that’s what families want to do.

The childcare subsidies are becoming very generous in terms of absolute financial value, and while the purpose of that is getting people back in work - some degree of that could instead be put towards parents staying at home in the early years.

A huge part of the low birth rate is IMO that working and having children is just incredibly hard and so people aren’t willing to do it / have lots of kids.

I say this is a (happily) working mother who went back very early for the sole purpose of maintaining and furthering her career.

This.

You sound very judgemental, OP. Few people have it all in life.

Or maybe is women know they want to stay at home with their kids they make the decisions to be financially secure before they get pregnant so many women don't look at the finances of having kids before having them, then seem surprised that it's expensive

I think the main differences to back then and now are that in the 80’s and 90’s many women worked but few sent their weeks/ months old babies to nursery. I went back to work in those times but DH and I managed the child care between us ( I worked nights and weekends). Lots of my friends either worked in a similar way or stayed at home with their children until school age. I can honestly say I never heard of a small baby going to a nursery though imagine it may have happened. Child minders were used sometimes. We had a mortgage and usual house expenses but went without holidays, new furniture etc until we both worked full time when children reached school age. A family member has just sent her three month old baby to full time nursery as, in her words, without her income they couldn’t afford the extension they want

Women have always worked. Only the upper class could afford to have the woman stay at home all day with nothing to do but focus on the baby. They would leave the kids with family members and work a domestic job, or go work on the farm.

Had it ever been thus for most people. I had my DS in the 1990’s. Max of 6 months maternity leave and back to work. It wasn’t unusual. Lots of parents tag teamed as childcare options were very limited, and no government funding towards to cost. One working a day job the other a night shift for example. I knew a couple of nurses who did permanent nights and other mums who stacked supermarket shelves at night. I grew up in the 1960/1970s and most mums in our street worked. Pay for women was mostly dire, called pin money as no equal pay back then. It was the difference between being dirt poor and having things like new shoes when needed. Yes there were a few women who didn’t have to work if their husband had a highly paid job. Just like now.

Men don’t appreciate being the breadwinner and being responsible for a whole house, they say they’re on board with having a wife who covers everything while they go out to work, but I’d say the amount who don’t get bitter that they’re out working while the wife stays at home doing everything else (in their eyes not much) and who don’t think ‘it’s my money’ is negligible. Sorry and it’s not just men, the person out working will only accept the situation for so long and will never see the advantages really (from a previous sahm). I’d also like to direct you to olden times when it was deemed ok to beat and rape wives, or throw them into an asylum saying they were crazy (as a possible perimenopausal woman the thought of this sends chills)

I was born in 1956 and my Mum returned to work when I was 6 months old. She worked full-time until she was 59.

There was no way they could have paid the rent, then mortgage, on my Dad's wage.

Exactly this - not all women (or men) want a career. Some people families would prefer to have a parent at home raising their child(ren) than use a nursery.

The sad fact is, costs have increased beyond wages and it’s almost impossible to afford for one person to not work these days. This is sad, and it’s a crying shame it’s no longer an option.

And, yes, I get that it is an option if people lived within their means, but reality is even single people are struggling to keep themselves afloat on one wage, let alone a family managing this.

What is good these days is that both parents have the option to flex their working hours and at least have some time at home with younger children. That’s a reasonable compromise I guess.

• edited for spelling/grammar

If women want to stay at home with their children that can be their choice as long as they can finance it within their own family. Just don't expect people who go out to work to finance it.

IME a lot of men depend on their wives’ second income and don’t want them home either.

Idk for me, part-time work is ideal but those positions are really hard to find, don’t pay well and you still need childcare anyway.

Just a series of choices and trade offs, really, which means nobody is particularly satisfied.

As a single woman with no kids I long for the days when a single income could sustain an entire family too…

How weird that supporting yourself and your children is seen as ‘optional’ by some.

Yanbu

Women should be able to stay home with their babies if its what they want

Some women don't get a choice (either way)

How sad that staying at home with your children is seen as a luxury.

It should be possible for women to choose if they want to work or stay at home. It shouldn't be looked down on or seen as a luxury to want to be at home with your children if you want to, just as it shouldn't be looked down on or seen as a bad thing to want to have a career and children.

At the moment it is not possible for most women to choose to stay at home if they want to due to mortgages and rents based on 2 salaries. Many of my friends would like to stay with their children for longer as babies but they don't get that choice.

I went kind of mad and just refused to go back. I couldn’t leave the baby. Had to pay back my maternity pay of course. Crazy times.

I really wish more families could choose to have one parent at home if they want to. I feel like we’ve been scammed into thinking working outside the home is best.

well, not everyone wants a career. not sure what is so hard.

I would have like to have a career but couldn't as both DC have complex needs . no school holiday childcare, no wrap around childcare, months out out school. It's difficult in these sort of circumstances to have a career if you are forced by the state to be at home with the DC. I am sure there are many other scenarios where which are not compatible with having a strong focus on work and being to put in the hours.

Lots of people, male and female, children or none, would prefer not to work if it wasn't a necessity - or at least, to be able to work doing something they loved but which wouldn't pay them a living wage, e.g. as an artist.

I don't see why the necessity of working is worse for post-maternity leave women - at least they have had an extended period, with pay, of doing something that's a change from their usual job.

And, certainly not everyone wants to give up their 'day job' and the population of motivated, ambitious people does not exclude women who've been on mat leave.

Even in posh families like mine women got shat on because the men were supposed to provide for them, but often didn’t. Independence is such an incredible gift. Be bloody careful what you wish for.

My granny cleaned toilets in the evening for money after she was widowed. I wouldn’t give up my financial independence for anything.

It’s scary how easily some people overlook the advances we have made in women’s rights. Equality hasn’t just fallen into our laps, women have literally died and been imprisoned for our rights to vote, work, inherit, make our own reproductive choices. You are harking back nostalgically to a time you haven’t even lived in and I guarantee life was not better for most women in the fifties.