Could we have a talk about perceptions of SAHP?

Politics - I discovered MAHM a few months ago and found it very interesting. I find it virtually impossible to talk about IRL, or even on MN because while personally I do believe in attachment parenting for under 3s, I find it really difficult to say that that's my main reason for considering leaving work because people I worry that people will take my opinion as an attack on their choices, or (as more frequently happens) dismiss my opinion as 'wrong'. I find I can only talk about my choices in terms of 'oh I can't afford to go back to work'...people don't mind that.

What frustrates me is the complete disconnect between how people seem to think about SAHMs vs people who choose childcare as a paid job. No one would ever say to a professional nanny 'I couldn't bear not to use my brain'. No one would think they should work for free. Yet if I went back to work - even in a minimum wage job where my tax contribution minus the cost of free childcare I received was so low that I was a net cost to the state (I raise this because the argument in favour of this is always the wider economic benefit of getting women into work) - I'd get that free childcare. But if I provided that childcare myself, I'd have to do it for free.

And at the other end of the scale...people who could easily easily afford the fees, people on many multiples of our income are also eligible also benefit from free childcare. Yes, they're making an economic contribution to society but that just begs the question of why raising a child is not seen as a contribution. It's not like it can't easily be economically quantified - just look at the going rate for a nanny, or a nursery place. The people who are left utterly on their own are modestly off SAHMs. I wouldn't necessarily mind per se, but in comparison with the way other choices are 'rewarded', it's not right.

I read on MN so much that it's a 'luxury' to stay at home with kids. Why? How is a luxury to scrimp and save and go without and be entirely self reliant as a family unit financially rather than benefit from state-funded perks that people on many times your income get, and that your hard earned tax contributes to. Doesn't seem very luxurious to me, in comparison. People say 'It's a luxury to have the choice'...which completely ignores all the people who actually couldn't afford to go back to work, or (like me) would only just break even.

Likewise it frustrates me that my DH and I will receive no child benefit, but a two-income couple with a combined income 50% higher than his would. I'm all for supporting women to go back to work, but the exact same level support HAS to be there for the other choice as well. That, IMO is a feminist issue.

It's true that businesses take a risk if they don't have back up but sometimes it is not straightforward to recruit the right person, esp of all you can offer them is temporary employment. It's expensive to train and employ someone you don't need most of the time, as a 'just in case' option. It's also a factor that staff costs often come out of a departmental budget which impacts on profit and therefore bonuses.

Important to remember that the workers having to cover the additional workload are not always the owners of a business and the one's making the profit. What they might be is middle managers, with targets to meet, who need to keep a company afloat for their own job security.

UK productivity is a whole big debate!

It could be an explicit political objective for a similar proportion of fathers and mothers to be PT or SAH!

If someone is so vital that they can't take a year's maternity leave, then your business has a problem - tomorrow they could quit, or be hit by a bus.

You should be training up their reserve in tandem with them working - I realise lots of businesses don't, but that is a risk they are taking, and it's their fault if something happens and they lose that functionality - not the person performing it who has a baby/finds a better job/has an illness or accident.

Nooka has it on the nose - I too have very niche skills, and despite having a few years off (largely speaking - I did some little bits of freelancing during that time, and kept my hand in with conferences and stuff online), I'm now lucky enough to have snagged an even better role than when I first left the workforce to have my first baby.

Rhoda, from your post I'm not sure if you disapprove of the chap legging it for bathtime per se, or whether you disapprove of him leaving important work unfinished. Because if the latter, then sounds like the employer took the right course of action? If the former, then surely it's reinforcing sexism, because it makes out that any dad wanting to be hands on is a slacker. I have worked with many men who leave very promptly at the end of the working day to spend time with their families (kids or otherwise) - but they've logged back on later in the evening to catch up with work. Presumably in that scenario, unless employer needs weren't being met (meetings, hard deadlines etc), it's a win-win?

The debate over how much modern workplaces rely on huge amounts of unpaid overtime is one for another day, I think!

I'm a SAHM not through choice. We have a disabled child and I his carer. He is 6 and has DB aged 8 and DS 4.
DS Morning is 2am so I'm awake from then. All 3 kids have hypermobilty syndrome so we have lots of hospital appointments and therapies. DS has gene mutation so severely disabled and had only spent 1 full week in school this term.
I spend the weeks arranging therapies, fighting for assistance.
We do get £50 carers allowance weekly .... But that doesn't come close to my previous wage of £25,000.
Now it school holidays and I've got a poorly DS with chest infection And the other two are having to entertain themselves while I am being used as an armchair and comfort blanket for my 6 year old baby.
It's a full time job, I don't get holiday or Christmas party !!!! The pay is shit but the cuddles are AMAZING !!!

The bloke got a warning, actually. Not for going off for bathtime (!) but for just leaving and not saying he hadn't completed something urgent which caused considerable trouble for the company.

duck, without going into too many 'outing' details, there really wasn't a way to cover it. To adequately train someone new would have taken a long time and would have been expensive. The new person wouldn't have been capable of working at the original worker's level until long after the original worker had returned. You can't easily replace experience and relationships with clients which have built up over years.
A year long mat leave may not affect a business where lots of replacement staff are easily available but it does have a huge impact on smaller ones, where each worker has been trained for that specific role.
Now of course a woman has her legal right to take a year out but I honestly think this is holding back women because we are seen as risky. From the employers pov they have hired someone to do a job - they had no say in that individual choosing to have a baby but have to suck up all the difficulties of them being away fro a year. Is it so unreasonable to want your employees to be available to do the job you hired them for?

I know someone who had 2 babies in close succession, took a year out for each and then complained that she didn't get a pay rise. Why would she - she hadn't been at work for nearly 2 years. That's not going to be far from her employer's mind when he is interviewing other young women, so we will continue to be up against silent discrimination we have no way of fighting.

Obviously having dc is essential for humanity and I don't think women should be penalised just because we are the ones who physically have children. So I think we need to force fathers to share the time off and the state should pay both parents their proper wage so they can do so.

Rhoda, that's exactly the point. Did your bathtime-conscious colleague ever get pulled up on his work (or lack thereof) by his manager?

I've never really been a SAHM, I had two short maternity leaves and a period when I couldn't work due to visa restrictions but otherwise I've always worked since we had children. My dh on the other hand has had two quite long periods of being a SAHD. Those times were quite interesting. The first coincided with us separating when we had a pretty strict 50:50 set up. It was also the time I had the greatest career progression. I suspect being single for half the time helped, although the other half I was a single mother so that was challenging. I was lucky to have an employer who was happy for me to flex my time across my days, but that was partly because I was in a very specialist role.

In fact in general I'd recommend women find specialist roles where they really are depended on and hard to recruit. It can be a lot less flexible when you are looking for work (fewer opportunities) but once you are established you can make much greater demands, confident knowing that you really aren't easily replaced.

Second time dh was a SAHD was after we emigrated and after he had had a really difficult work experience. So it was a nice combination for us, he didn't want to work and our children needed more support. It did give me an interesting taste of being a traditional father. Yes it was lovely to have everything done for me at home. Coming home to a relaxed dh, clean house, food on the table was great. Being able to go on work trips without worry was great too (emigrating got rid of our long commute so that wasn't a factor). However the stress of being the sole earner was shit. After a while I really resented dh his easy relaxed life and I was desperate for him to go back to work. Plus it's not great to know that if things go wrong between you your spouse will likely get to have the children live with them most of the time because he has been the primary carer when that really wasn't your choice.

So yes sharing childcare responsibilities can be great, and yes we should be encouraging men to take time off too, but we should also acknowledge that there are some potential costs to that.

I think people complain about any colleague who does not pull their weight if they are earning the same as everyone else. The company could be the best resourced ever, but if someone has cleared their desk and heads off at 5 on the dot when there is a deadline, it's galling. Ime men are just as likely to clock watch as women. If you really need a job with strict hours, then apply for a public sector position, don't take a job which requires flexibility and then spring it on the boss that you can never work one second beyond 5 (bitter experience of bloke who insisted on making his ds's bathtime every evening and kept leaving urgent work undone without saying anything).

Yes duck, that grinds my gears too. Whenever there's any debate about working parents (for which read working mothers, even if it's not explicit) there will inevitably be complaints about parents working less hard than non-parents, always being first out of the door leaving colleagues to pick up the slack etc. To which I always reply: so the employing entity is very badly managed and/or inadequately resourced, probably the former.

letgo your resentment about women on maternity leave was misplaced: his employers COULD have found other ways to cover than your H working harder/longer hours, it was easier and cheaper for them for him to cover it and he was willing to do so. If they really couldn't afford compliance with an employment right in their countrynof operation then their business possibly wasn't all that sound.

That said it's good that parental leave is now coming in so that employers are less likely to discriminate.

I have had this argument with a friend whose husband works for a huge multinational. She was angry that the only woman in the team had gone part time when the men worked full time +++ because in her and her H's view they "had to work harder" as a direct result. I argued that if the team's work was worthwhile (it was a team generating a lot of money) then the company could well afford to resource the team properly.

That's mean newlife: "with respect" is never a good opener. It means the direct opposite. What has a poster's marital status got to do with anything?

why do you regard staying married or "having someone" as a key indicator of success and the value of someone's opinions?

Nowt wrong with being single.

Sleepybean I was lucky to go back part time. I love my job and my team and could not contemplate not going back... I think it is important to remember that children are babies for a short time. But it is also important to remember that life gets a bit complicated when they go to school. And then it is also important to remember that at some point they can be trusted with the house key ...

Gracia

With respect though you haven't made it work.
Most people realise that everybody can't have it all and for some people, yourself included it hasn't worked out.
You are divorced and manage children when you aren't working and your job.
I still think most women want a partner and/or husband to share their life with. When you work full time and rush home for the dc, there isn't much time left for a dh let alone yourself.
It's the same for men who work full time, very little time for wife or themselves if they too rush home for children and to share the domestic chores.

I've been reading this with interest as I've been agonising about what to do at the end of my maternity leave (7 months of at the moment).

At the beginning of the pregnancy I was baulking at the idea of putting the baby in nursery for attachment reasons. Now I'm in my last few weeks of work I'm utterly freaked out by the idea of not going back.

All other things aside, I would MUCH rather me and/or Dh looked after our child at home for 2-3 years. My salary would only have 100 quid a month of so left after nursery fees, which is another factor.

However, DH earns twice what I do and there is vanishingly little likelihood of him being able to reduce his hours. Yes, we could share, but giving up that income would make the life we want for DCs impossible.

If I give up work even for a few years, I'm a) resentful that I lose a job that enjoy in a team a love in a company I like that I've put 8 years into and am likely to get promoted in a year or two and b) terrified that getting a similar job on the right pay and right hours after a career breakneck be difficult. Short term we can manage without my income, but medium term it would not be what we want.

Two things have occurred to me over the last few months:

1. we need a carer's allowance, equivalent to the cost of the free childcare currently provided. The state will pay for someone else to look after your children, but if you do it yourself you're on your own. Strikes me as ridiculous.
2. you can play an interesting mental trick on yourself...everyone always calculates whether the woman's wage would cover the childcare cost. Financial accurate yes, but v easy to end up in a situation where the net income gain is zero or minus. I suddenly realised that while obv the total sums are the same, it looks quite different if you work it based on both parties paying a proportion towards childcare. Suddenly you're both still bringing home a decent amount of money and it doesn't seem such a no brainer for the woman to quit....

I wonder if welsh would have married a man who was 10 years younger rather than 10 years older?

Firstly, I'm not married. Secondly, it is only recently he has become a much higher earner than me, although it happened before we had our dd. We were originally on very close salaries - me 30kk, him 35k. And yes, I would have chosen a life partner who earnt less/was younger than me, had I met someone who fitted the mark. Though as I was 22 when I settled down with my dp, I would not have been looking for a 12 year old.

Oh yes, indeed, letgo. TBH I was ready to go back to work after 6 months (with DC1 I had to, as I was self-employed and the money wouldn't stretch). The 10 months with DC2 felt very long in comparison and I definitely suffered on the career front from being out so long (passed over for promotion etc).

When I had ds1 I went back to work when he was 8 weeks old - I was newly qualified and needed both the experience and the money. But I was lucky - my mum looked after my baby, so I was spared all the worry about childcare that other parents have. I couldn't have done it without her.

A year off for mat leave, isn't helping women imo. It is making employers see us as a risky option and all things being equal they will opt for a male employee (more so in small businesses where employees are soecialists and hard to replace for a year). My dh has ended up doing his job and that of female employees, simply because it is too expensive to invest in training someone new and by the time they can do the job the original employeee has returned from mat leave. I feel wrong and guilty in saying it but I resented them getting that time with their babies while my dh got less with his, as a consequence!

I think we have to make men share the mat leave - 6 months each, so employers stop viewing having children as a female 'problem' but as something which affects all employeess. Otherwise we will continue to be quietly discriminated against at interviews.

I agree duck, to a certain extent - though I read grazia's post as saying that she'd had to work like a bugger in the early days to achieve the balance now. Maybe I misinterpreted!

I see what you mean, slippery, but it's nice to have an advocate for a different approach, when IMO the dominant messages to women with DC is NOT to return to paid work, or to reduce hours.

dowager, I like the idea of "back up" help with DC and / or at home, in your case from au pairs (am of people with spare rooms!) in others' case from nannies or even extended family perhaps. When we had a great childminder it did feel like we had more back up than we now do.

Thing is grazia, might the "I only had a fortnight off to have my babies and I'm a successful career woman with x children" message just serve to discourage women who (for whatever reason) couldn't manage that? (Can only go by my own experience: after I had DC1 I still wasn't able to sit down a fortnight later, we had no family help whatsoever, and I ended up with severe PND. Going to work would have been impossible, and hearing how others were superwoman would have been awful.)

HH, yes well put.
It is perhaps, and I'm being provocative, mother as God v mother with humility. So I could think my chidlren's father might well be better than I am with them and their nanny or nursery even better and even if they aren't having 3 influences on a probability calculation probably means one of the 3 mights be great and ameliorate the influence of the one or two of the 3 of us who aren't very good. Others might be in the mother knows best camp.

Now that doesn't mean those men and women who work including most of the fathers of children whose mothers are on this thread don't value their own contributions to the children. I've spent 30 years bringing up children and every day I am doing loads even though I've always worked full time. I would say those nights of cuddles, breastfeeding (almost all night it felt at times) and the cosy bed times were lovely times working fathers and working mothers have as do parents at home. it's just parents at home have more with the under 3 s than parents who don't work.

You can draw a graph - children whose parents are very badly off and perhaps have problems do much much better when put in childcare which is why the state is going to offer 30 hours to all and wants to get those childreni n homes where not many words are spoken, times are tough etc into day care - that works. Then there are many other parents who are very good with their children and they may well do better at home with their parent or nanny. I liked children in my house with their siblings with not too much noise around - so a daily nanny looking after my 3 under 5s or later the twins was best for us and cheaper than 3 nursery places and financially better. At one point my children's father nearly gave up teaching in the 1980s as his salary was the same as the nanny's (as was mine in year 1). Then suddenly teachers got a 20% pay rise and the maths was different so he carried on.

I was giving a course on Friday to younger lawyers. As ever babies and childcare came up in a break and I said I took 2 weeks off only and it was annual leave to have the babies. There just isn't that ethose any more. Mst professional women expect 6 - 12 months maternity leave because they must hvae a lot of savings packed away, have babies later, have rich husbands or in a few rare cases generous work maternity leave packages. In a peverse way my life happiness, my income, my chidlren's well being was secure by that lack of maternity rights 30 years ago - it meant I meant I kept up the full time career on the same terms as any male working father.

What I won't do is impose any views on any of the 5 children when they have children. They will make their own choices although they are all feminists thankfully including the 3 sons with whom I live.