At what household income would you become a SAHP?

[AlenaMacc]

Just curious really.
I am aware that many people don’t want to be SAHPs for reasons other than money, but in this case I am asking purely about the financial aspect.
What would the household income need to be for you personally so that either you or your spouse would become a SAHP in order to improve the family quality of life etc?

I love how people are answering ‘never’ when you’ve specifically asked them not to respond.

Depends on where you live and household costs, but an income where mortgage/rent and bills are easily paid and some left over for nice things like the odd holiday, days out. The sahp can afford to do nice things for him/herself.

I seriously hate these threads as I’ve done both and I hate how nasty women are to each other :(

around 100k worked for us

150k + for me personally. We’d be comfortable and I could set up a private pension.

I don't want to be treated differently in the work place simply because I'm a woman and/or a mother. I want to be treat like anyone else would, that's equality. As is offering men flexible and part time working options.

I work full time and have a wonderful bond with my baby, I don't need to work part time or completely sacrifice my career to have that.

But why do more women want to be at home with young children than men?

Because they view it as the norm? Because society views it as the norm? Because men see looking after children as women's work (certainly true in a large number of cases based on MN threads)?

while women keep saying things like "more women than men want to be with their children" we're making it ok for men to do less than 50% of the childcaring workload.

Because is better for the children.

I worked sixty plus hour weeks whilst my children were babies and my partner was a sahp.

I did us all a massive disservice.

We were both resentful and unhappy and our children suffered the consequences, which I am only now ameliorating.
And we were buffered by the relative privilege of a middle class lifestyle; and it was still absolutely shit.

Biggest regret of my life tbh.

It's actually really interesting that the title of this thread talks about "household income" but only parent becoming a "SAHP". Because, of course if one parent doesn't work, it's the other parent who's going to be responsible for earning the money.

Why not ask the question (which so very rarely is asked) what household income would be needed for both parents to work 50% part time and be 50% SAHP? Then bother parents are genuinely responsible for home stuff and earning money.

Most full time workers don't work 60 hours weeks.

And the fact that it didn't work for you, doesn't mean you can extrapolate your experience to mean that all women want to spend more time with children than all men.

(It actually sounds like you both working part time would have worked better for your family).

Why would it have been better if you were the SAHP? Maybe you'd both still have been resentful and unhappy and the issue was having a SAHP, not who did it.

We both work full time and neither of us are resentful and unhappy.

@redskylight

Why not ask the question (which so very rarely is asked) what household income would be needed for both parents to work 50% part time and be 50% SAHP? Then bother parents are genuinely responsible for home stuff and earning money.

That wouldn't be about income for me, that would be about societal change. I wouldn't agree to work part time until it was just as common for men to work part time which would mean no full time advantages for promotions etc.

About 70k, but DH and I agree that in those circumstances he’d be the one to stay home. He doesn’t really like working (although he works very hard) and I do, plus hes a much better cook than me. Personally if he was going to stay home, I wouldn’t just want to match our joint income though, I would want a bit extra- partially for extra savings, but partially because it would be a bit depressing for me to get a pay rise and us to not actually see any extra money because it was balanced out by DH stopping work.

At the moment though we both work about 30 hours a week and that works well and makes a nice balance.

In and career spanning 50 plus years taking 3/ 6 years our rally doesn't have much impact.

Depends on the sector.
Taking 3/6 years out in my sector would be career suicide

I'd have loved to be a sham

As it happens I'm a career girl. I hate it.

I work to provide for my family. I'm privileged to be able earn well because I was always academic and performed well within the professional sphere.

If my husband earned in excess of 120k I would never have worked. Ever.

Do I wish I had married 'better'?

No, we have a better marriage than anybody I know and there are always compromises to be made.

I'd rather be his wife working my arse off than somebody else's sitting on my arse...

Still wish he made 120k ...

But nobody's life is perfect and mine is better than most

Which is really sad.

Also, that’s ok it worked for you. If others want to take 3/4 years out of a 40 year career to look after a child they’d otherwise need to pay someone else to look after, then that’s also completely ok. You can have career breaks for all sorts of reasons. Wanting to look after your kid full time shouldn’t be sneered upon. How sad our society devalues that. We can all do things differently and respect each other.

Because the woman goes through pregnancy and breastfeeding and takes maternity leave and sometimes she actually wants to!

It’s surely caveated though? Is the question how much money you’ll need as a family, or how much money your partner earns? If it’s the latter, then no amount of money would sway me to be the full time homeworker. If the former and we received this ‘gift’ money, and we could both be off work, then I’d say around £8k a month would be more than comfortable.

The main issue for me is that we both provide for our children relatively equally. We don’t want either of us to be the ‘primary care giver’. We both grew up in a household where my mum didn’t work, dad earned the money. We didn’t want that for our children as we both felt dad wasn’t around enough and mum was taken for granted. They’re not the role models I want my children to have - although I love my parents and in-laws!

Which is really sad

Why?

Also, that’s ok it worked for you. If others want to take 3/4 years out of a 40 year career to look after a child they’d otherwise need to pay someone else to look after, then that’s also completely ok. You can have career breaks for all sorts of reasons. Wanting to look after your kid full time shouldn’t be sneered upon. How sad our society devalues that. We can all do things differently and respect each other.

It depends on the sector, like I said.
Do you want to be treated by a doctor or nurse who has been out of practice for 5 years?
Or a solicitor or barrister...

How about your children being taught at university by an academic whose knowledge of their subject and pedagogy is 5 years out of date 🤷🏼‍♀️

And btw I've never said that taking a career break or being a SAHP is a bad thing.
I'm just pointing out that in terms of a career, you can't expect to take a significant amount of time out and return at the same level.
It's just not practical in some sectors.

Work, especially paid employment, is far from the only means of financial independence.

In fact, ownership of assets is a far more robust form of independence than employment, where you rely on the stability of the employer AND your own continued ability to provide the work.

Paid employment is the only way most of us are going to manage any modicum of financial independence.

@Pteryl

The main issue for me is that we both provide for our children relatively equally. We don’t want either of us to be the ‘primary care giver’. We both grew up in a household where my mum didn’t work, dad earned the money. We didn’t want that for our children as we both felt dad wasn’t around enough and mum was taken for granted. They’re not the role models I want my children to have - although I love my parents and in-laws!

Exactly how I feel. Right down to growing up with a SAHM and not wanting the same because I don't feel like it set a good example.

We both provide financially and both do our fair share around the house and with our baby. That's our ideal.

I also totally agree having grown up with mum as a SAHM. She did all of the housework and childcare and was often either bored or frazzled.... sometimes both! I didn't want that for DDs, I wanted them to see their mum working and earning money and their dad also picking them up from school/doing the laundry/cleaning etc. By both of us working neither is the "default parent" and we have a good split of household and family tasks.

I didn't say that it wasn't what most people rely on.

But it's not financial independence. You are dependent on your employer, your fitness to work, and general economic conditions.

It's different to, but not better than sharing the economic burden with a partner. A "fuck off fund" is not just for leaving a bad partner - it's for leaving bad work and bad environments too.

@BSB30 MN is a forum that’s world wide however it’s tends to be South East and London centric. That is where some of the biggest earners live hence the rather skewed pull towards higher earnings. Average wage in the UK is 36k.

The amount you mentioned puts people in the top 5% of earners, it’s actually anything at around 80k and above. That was DH and earned but I retired early so we have slipped somewhat.

It really depends on what you consider an ok standard of living, most people will never have that choice. I know that I have been very lucky with having the luxury of choice. I grew up in poverty, DH didn’t at all but we have very similar attitudes to money so it works. The child poverty action group publish a list of what they consider a minimal standard of living for comfort and to also feel part of society. If we all wrote down exactly our list for what we want and has a chance of being actually achievable it would all be very different.