SAHM numbers lowest for 15 years - we need your views for Sky interview tomorrow am

I have been a SAHM since having my dd 9 yrs ago. DH has had a number of different jobs and 3 redundancies in this period so our income has varied.

ds has severe ASD and there is NO child care provision available for him so both of us working is just not an option. I am doing casual work right now as dh can do the school run.

The changes in tax credit are now not taken by phone so it could take months to get our new claim sorted. Our monthly tax credits went down April because last year dh income had increased. Fingers crossed dh will find work - its not from lack of trying, until he does it is very difficult for us financially.

I second (third?) the opinion that the focus on wraparound care is really quite negative and scary .

twiglett - what a good idea about the tax allowance!! I'll second that idea.

I feel the same re wraparound childcare.

Oh, I think I would like to read Steve Biddolph.....

I've been a SAHM since 2002 .. previously I was the higher earner of the two of us.

We are incredibly fortunate that we are able to afford this lifestyle with strong budgeting (no holidays for 5 years, careful shopping etc) and that we built up savings when we were both working that we can go into on a necessity basis .. which unfortunately has been more frequently than desired

I think one thing the govt. could do quite easily is allow us to give our tax allowance to our partners / husbands so that there is a tax benefit in being a full-time carer

I find the focus on childcare, wraparound childcare scary and un-family focused

I live in a 1950's enclave in London it seems, I have met a few full-time parents who were previously professionals, the educated, intelligent, succesful type ... I think we're lucky and I'm grateful that we're lucky

Only read Op but actually I think one half of a couple should be encouraged to be SAHP's until the child is five by perhaps allowing the partner the SAHP's tax allowance.
I am a SAHM and we can only manage this because DH is in the forces and so our rent is not at a commercial market rate.
I resent the expectation that I should be returning to work. Particularly when it comes from the gvt sending me fliers about tax credits and childcare credits with my child benefit statement.
I also feel I contribute to my community by not working as it means I have the time to be treasurer and help run the local toddler group and be a trustee on the Nursery committee (run by volunteers to fill the places promised by this gvt , volunteer at the school and help out at the Nursery.
It makes me sad when I think that if things continue like this my children will not have a choice. They will have to return to work and it will probably be me as a grandparent who will be covering the childcare. It is not right.

SORRY, my above point was: perhaps if the Giv spent more money on SAHParents then they would reap the benefits through the generations (and save money in other ares)

agree about the tax credits fiasco. DH just got a minute payrise which equates to £25 PER YEAR. As he is now £2 over the threshhold for Working tax credit we now lose every penny of our WTC - £133 A MONTH (four weekly totalling £1729 a year). So, effectively he gets a payrise and yet we are financially worse off by £1704 a year - how is that 'fair'.

Steve Biddulph is a massive champion of paying parents to stay at home with small children, and predicts a lot of families/society's problems would go away if more parents could be in the home, no kids in commercial childcare etc.

Haven't read the whole thread but wanted to add:

We are on a budget, we have a low income, but we choose for me to be able to stay at home, because we want our kids who aren't yet in school to be raised by a loving parent.

We have a small house, an old car, don't take expensive holidays etc etc because we choose to make sacrifices so that I can be at home.

When the kids are in school I will work during school hours, and we will be rich (maybe?!)

We all have the choice but it is do-able if you are willing to put in the effort.

That said, if the gov. want to pay SAHMothers then that's okay with me

Change the thresholds at which families are entitled to receive CTC.

I thought the birth rate was actually going up now, not down. And I imagine whoever compiled this report will have checked it's not merely fewer births.

Agree that it seems wrong that all government policy is directed at forcing mothers (or fathers) into work whether they like it or not - big drive on childcare but no support/recognition for parents who SAH or would like to. As if we are not good enough to look after our own children. I hated leaving ds in nursery when he was a baby.

I dunno, not comfortable with the idea of government giving money to well-off families who can already afford for one parent to stay at home. Would penalise the poor in favour of the rich. But means-testing costs money.

Maybe the transferable tax allowance is the way to go.

The whole child tax credits thing is a nightmare too. We know people who are entitiled but who don't bother applying because it's so complicated (and there is no easy equation to work out what you're owed). I'm sure that there are a lot of people like that, and the cynic in me says that that's why the system was set up that way.

I'd rather a return to the "married man's" or perhaps better worded "head of household" tax allowance. It's easy and everyone automatically gets it.

It's also really galling that when DH works his socks off to be given a raise, that regular income tax takes a third, and we lose another third in CTC that we then don't get. So he's effectively taxed at 66%! How does that help us when food and energy prices are rocketing up and up and the cost of housing is outrageous?

OK, rant over.

Certainly doesn't reflect my personal experience. Definately feeling the more than the pinch. I have no choice but to stay at home as this was a condition of GS being placed with us and us getting the residence order (along with other conditions like giving up a joint income of over £78,000 a year and our home before moving 350 miles away to get GS away from his dad).

DH now brings home around £12,000 (after tax, etc). Our rent alone takes £7500 of that before any other bills and attempts to feed a family of four. The only thing we get is £29 per month HB and do not qualify for anything else.

In my case (and for thousands of others in the same situation), paying kinship carers the same money that foster parents get would be brilliant after all, we are saving local authorities - AKA the government - thousands of pounds a year and often have major consequences on not only our finances, but lives in general.

As others have said I really cannot see the point of the government forcing people back to work after having children, pouring money into "free" (thats a misleading title if ever there were one) nursery places sure start etc etc when a lot of women would love to have the money they have to spend on childcare and stay with their own children rather than placing them in low quality childcare (which is what the vast majority nurseries I have seen are) with young girls on minimum wage who cant be arsed -as someone else said - pay the minimum wage to the SAHP or to whoever the parents choose to look after their children (e.g grand parents) who provide a far higher standard of care than strangers in most cases.

is it part of the decline just explained by the fall in the birth rate?
fewer pre-school children implies less SAHM

Thats the point I was trying to make LMDancing. They say that children benefit the most when they are brought up at home by their parents, and secondly by family members, but the government do nothing to assist us.

One of the things I think is hardest about the SAHM thing is that if you choose to be one, unless your partner is on a low income, then you seem to be completely invisible to the government.

You're not paying tax or NI, and they aren't interested in rewarding you or supporting you for raising children who will be useful members of the economy when they grow up - it's as if you don't exist. They barely even recognise that you might not have the opportunity to build up your NI contributions for your pension.

Some sort of SAHM Allowance would go a long way to recognising that what SAHMs do is valued and recognised.

'I think the government should do something about the rising costs of everything, including the 51% rise in tax over the last 10 years.'

Exaclty, mumof37. Especially as such a strategy will not alienate the voters among us who do not have or no longer have dependent children.

I had my little boy in July and although I planned to return to work, in the end I became a SAHM as it would have broken my heart to leave him in the care of anyone else. I really did not love my job enough to give up this time with my son even if we do struggle financially.

I'm now pregnant again so I would have gone back for 2 weeks then on maternity leave again!

I'm SAHM to 2 dds. We are lucky in that we do not struggle financially, however if I had gone back to work my wage would not have covered childcare. A better incentive for SAHM's would be to give them money to stay at home to look after their children. i have friends who were SAHM for the 1st child and then gradually went back to work, but now are SAHMs again and they say they were better off when they were working, not because of their wage but because they got more money off the government.

I am a SAHM to two boys 11 and 13. I am too disabled to work but have worked part time in the past. I think the government should do something about the rising costs of everything, including the 51% rise in tax over the last 10 years. They should give the working parent a larger tax allowance which would ease the financial burden of the family. If they made it easier for parents to stay at home there wouldn't be the need for so many nursery places and child care payments in tax credits.
I think as a long tern thing I am sure if more parents were able to SAH then maybe there wouldn't be so many feral teenagers. I know my boys need me a lot now, and I am much happier knowing where they are and who they are with etc.

I also agree with elements of other posts- council tax/ prescriptions/ tax allowances etc