To not go back to full time work

Your never going to get the answer that works for you some are more career driven and prefer all the childcare, some want to cut back or stop for a while and spend time on there kids so do what is right for you. Marriage is not the protection people are claiming these days unless you've been married quite a lot of time, these days the majority of cases that come thru our office rarely mean anything for each party other than a huge court bill because they can't agree on the small amounts they have or who should have the house and who shouldn't etc and half the time it's a huge tit for tat bill with hardly any assets money wise to divide as it takes many many years to get a decent pension and in the modern day not many have them as much. Do what makes you happy and enjoy your family

@MyQuirkyFinchI also find the lack of ambition difficult to comprehend. However OP must be very good at managing her money if her kids will want for nothing on their joint income

Honestly, no. I think you’re mad not to get a career going and give up on yourself at 28.

Between you and your partner you have very little in the way of wealth at all - v minimal pensions, limited savings, debts. Yet you don’t seem to have any drive to do anything about that and just keep saying the same thing about retail not being compatible with being a parent and it being more important for you to be around for your kids.

Find something more flexible and train for that. Your 40 year old self will thank you for it.

Honestly I wouldn't advise anyone to totally give up their career, whether married or not. Even if married, spousal maintenance on divorce is vanishingly rare and time limited. Hopefully you'll find a balance that works, personally I'd work a bit more so I had pension contributions.

YABU to give up work when you're not married, and in answer to your q it makes MORE difference if you're only in a minimum wage job. It may all be fine and dandy now but Mumsnet is full of threads by women in your position who gave up work or went very part time and didn't get married and then when the relationship breaks down are completely scuppered because they aren't entitled to anything and have given up their career and earning potential to support their partner who walks away with a great wage and sometimes the house (as often they are not on the mortgage because they weren't earning) and their previously loving partner is playing dirty. You use the term 'we' when talking about assets. If you're not married then there is no 'we' it's your assets or his assets and if he is the main earner then they're his. Don't give up work until you are married. It's not just a piece of paper and an engagement means nothing (particularly if it goes on for more than year). If you don't want a wedding that's the. Just get the bits of paper (i.e legally binding contract) signed. That's the important bit.

Ive gone back to workimg 3 days per week after having kids. They are now 5 and 3. I might go up to 4 days once the youngest is settled at school in Sept 2027. I could really use the time to sort family admin and house etc on my day off so we can all spend the weekend together.
I am married though.

I have a friend who is currently going through a nasty split, two kids, house, shes had 2 years mat leave and part time working amd he is not willing giving her a penny over the % she put into the house

Is the main reason you don't want to work more hours because your partner does nothing at home due to his demanding job? I can see that it would be very hard to work more in that case. Staying at home until kids are 13 is quite extreme. That's a long time. I hope he's paying into a pension for you.

I would choose time with my children every time (as long as the bills can be paid, obviously). But appreciate that doesn't suit everyone and not everyone enjoys being at home with young children.

I loved it and went back part time when the youngest started at infants school.

If you become a SAHM, what are your plans once your DC’s are in full time school?

@Karma1387as long as you feel you can provide for your children, including sending them to uni, and will not have to resort to state benefits, then go ahead and work part time in a minimum wage job.

You think all working parents want to miss their children nativity etc?

If you honestly feel you can afford to give your kids the life you want for them with you working 2 days a week in what you call a basic job and your husband working the job he does - then why do other people’s opinion matter?

Why not outside marriage?

It’s about even right now - OP says there’s 20k equity and 1-2k in her pension. He has around 25k in his pension. That gap will only increase though.

The assets seem to be OPs at this stage in the relationship, so can’t see the huge rush to marriage or that OP has anything to gain in the short term.

Her DP has more to gain if they marry and split as he has no property and very little pension anyway.

My friend does this with 2 young DC and it works well for her.

By secondary age it should be easy enough to increase to full time hours and work on building up your pension.

Absolutely, pt is best of both worlds. We became parents much later in life than anticipated so it was consensual I would go back 3 days a week for the first couple of years. Xx

Get a grip. I didn't say life's a Disney movie and nothing can go wrong. What I did say was focus on you and your family and what works for you all, meaning don't be swayed by people's opinions as everyone is different. My comment comes from a place of support for OPs decision whatever that is.

I didn’t go back to work after my first…meant to be a year, ended up being 6 and I changed fields by the time I went back. We weren’t married when I stopped working, got married during Covid mostly as I was worried about the NOK situation if one of us got really ill. Once the wee one was 3 and in nursery I started getting bored so did another degree, which was helpful in plugging the career gap. When I went back to work I went part-time (25h) working flexibly and from home (I work in data analysis). We then had our 2nd, I took a year off (mix of full pay, SMP and no pay) and went back on 20h. We’re not rich, need to budget, go on very short holiday once a year, have a small house but we’re there for the kids and they don’t need to be in childcare (and still have a lot of experiences). Pensions are in fine place as we’re both public sector (and once kids are older and don’t need us as much we’ll rejig again cause we’ll both get bored). All this to say - you can make it work if that’s what works for all of you as a family and there are jobs out there that are flexible on entry.

Haven't read the full thread but I did a very similar thing. I went from a head office admin role back to the shop floor after my kids were born. I've gradually increased my hours and have actually got a position doing 9am to 2pm in one of the small supermarkets. I've also taken on some supervisor responsilities. I know all the pros and cons and don't regret it at all. To be honest, I think retail management would be fairly easy to get back into later.

Absolutely this. Those years will go and you can't get them back. And even if you didn't miss your kids, its no joke working full time hours then dealing with tired kids in the evening. If you think you can make it work, go for it x

It’s quite normal I think to find that going from one child to two children is the point at which childcare costs start to exceed one parent’s earnings. But there are non-financial benefits to staying in the workforce in some capacity. I have worked in recruitment in the past so I understood just how hard it was to get back into the workforce once you’ve left, and that was why I would never have given up work totally. I did manage to reduce my days of work a bit when DC was young.

I haven’t meant to cause any offence. Just really trying to get you to think about the future, rather than just income/ costs right now.

You need a good careers advisor to go through your skillset, what you want and enjoy in a job, identify something you’d enjoy that has prospects for progression onto better pay AND flexibility on hours and then work out the pathway to that: what training/ qualifications are needed, what work experience/ voluntary work would open up opportunities for work once your children are school age, and then use this time when you’re working minimal hours to do that study/ work experience in the evenings when they are asleep/ days when your husband is off so he can take over childcare to focus on this so that you can build a future for yourself once they are both in school.