I don't understand how people can give up their career and be a stay at home parent ?

[lolstevelol]

You risk losing career progression, especially as jobs change so rapidly due to technology. The role you were doing a few years ago might look completely different today. Securing a stable office job is much harder now than it used to be.

You also miss out on pension contributions, which is a significant factor. Losing 5–10 years of contributions and compounding can be the difference between retiring at 58 and having to work until or beyond the state pension age.

Generally speaking, supporting a family on a single income while working can be more stressful than being a stay-at-home parent. Even when the job itself is manageable, workplace environments can be toxic, which can create tension and resentment between the working parent and the stay-at-home parent.

I don’t think they do. It’s a minimum of £250,000 in unearned income over a 10 year period plus pension contributions people are not stupid. My investments accumulated more than that and I didn’t have to pay for childcare.
I planned accordingly, but I also returned at the same level. Obviously missed out on progression.
But I’m still happy with my choices

If I took time out, even just going part time now whilst they are little then my earning potential would take a significant hit and would never fully recover.

Most people don’t have investments to rely on 🙄
I work in the career development sector and research women’s career development.
I see how this plays out in reality. Especially when it comes to retirement when the income gap and career breaks really have an impact.

Also ageism is so much earlier for women than men. If you are 35 when you have your first and return to work at 40 when they go to school then you will be hitting ageism as well as sexism when you try to return. Men are still in peak earning at that point.

But I do always hate these threads come back to money as if we all had rich husbands no woman would work. I like work! I love my DC too and manage to balance it. It's tough doing it but I wouldn't give up work unless I was really forced into it by illness or disability.

That was not my experience at all. I had my first taste of ageism from the NHS aged 60 when an unpleasant F2 pronounced "you are over 60, so I'll assume you are retired".

Good job we have Mum’snet and the wider Internet now to educate the next generation isn’t it 🙄

Yeah, which is why the birth rate is declining.
More women than ever are choosing not to have children.

I couldn’t do it . Hats off to anyone who is able for that . I enjoy work and having my own independence and I just could not be dependent on a partner for money . I also enjoy the social aspect and speaking with other adults and then I find I enjoy minding my children more when I get home from work . I’m on mat leave at the moment and while it’s nice to have the time off to spend with my baby, I am really looking forward to getting back to work for a bit of variety. Being at home all the time just is not for me . I do think being a sahp is really hard work, not an easy option in my opinion.

That's overt ageism. Trust me, I see the ageism from men and women at work about the women I work with. Suddenly you're not passionate about work or decisive but "difficult" if you speak out in meetings. Suddenly you're not seen as having the "same type of energy". No one is going to say "we won't give you this job because you're 40+ with 2 DC" but they're thinking it.

I dunno I mean both my parents worked when I was a child and I went to a childminders and this was in the 80s. Didn’t bother me at all, didn’t mind being at the childminders loved playing with the other kids but also loved being at home .have a very close relationship with both my parents as an adult . Always was proud of my mum for having a career and working . So I don’t really buy that motherhood is all about being at home all the time personally.

It’s absolutely rife and the moment the economy turns women bear the brunt of it

Because they were more than happy to stay at home!
like I said when I had mine it was very rare for mums to go back to work because they were happy to bring up their own children and not leave it to someone else to care for them

But were they happy? Or did they just not have a choice? My mother didn't have to go back to work evenings when we were very small - she wanted to, and my dad supported her. And that was in the late 1960s.

So you don’t have any evidence. Just a handful of anecdotes and your own opinion.

When did you have your children?

Do you really think it was rare for women to work after having children because they all really, really wanted to stay at home or could there have been societal and structural factors at play?

And for what’s its worth, huge numbers of mothers have always worked. Particularly working class women.

Also, I’ll repeat the point that being a working mother means you are still raising your children. You don’t stop being a parent when you go to work.

I only have a job not a career. I had a career break of 5 years and due to pay freeze. My pay was exactly the same.
But I only go to work for the money and only work part time still(my children are adults)
Because I hate my job and wish I was wealthy enough to leave!

I was born in the early 1960s in a small, working class town in the west of Scotland and I would say it was aspirational, a status symbol, for wives not to work.

My grandmother had worked and my mum hardly saw her - that was for lots of reasons tbf - and my mum went down the route of not working til my brother was at secondary school.

We didn't know families where mums worked when the children were little. It just wasn't the done thing.

Absolutely not my experience. I returned to work aged 43 after a 7 year break. I started all over again in a different field. I was positively encouraged to progress. I worked my way through five grades in 9 years, part-time to full-time when a job was created fkr me so I could take professional qualifications, then promoted as far as I could go in that organisation. Switched jobs at 52 and was promoted to Head of Service at 58, Director at 60, Executive Board at 62. Winding down now at 65 and the only reluctance is from the organisation - I had to threaten to resign if they didn't reduce my hours and allow me to take steps towards a succession plan.

Very sadly I think women often forget that being a parent doesn't mean they can reduce their full contractual obligations without a reduction in hours and pay. The contract underpins employment regardless of age and sex

How do you know that they were all happy?

it was very rare for mums to go back to work because they were happy..

were they all happy though, or was it rather the expectation that they stay home because that's the done thing, whether they really want it or not?

"it was very rare for mums to go back to work because they were happy."

I wouldn't have gone back to work had I been unhappy about it. Most of my colleagues who were women with children, were very happy at work, enjoyed their jobs.

I do get that some may really need to earn money and would prefer to be at home but, even then, they wouldn't do a job if they were miserable with it.

sorry I only posted half the quote. The poster said women didn't go back to work because they were happy to stay home and raise their own kids.

I just wonder how much it was a genuine happiness to do that, and how many stayed home because that was what everyone did.

Out of interest, what made you want to be a mum?

Can you only want to be a mum if you think you'll enjoy the small DC stage enough to want to be a SAHM?

My grandmother sort of stayed at home but ran a farm singlehandedly throughout the war and carried on thereafter, also taking on a family business when one of her brothers did not return and the other came home too ill to do much. My mother worked from the age of 17 until 67. Born 2012 and 1936. They were upper middle class women with choices.

However, many women of my age, 65, had little choice but to work 30 or 40 years ago - often ends did not meet if they didn't. The women in their 30s/40s who work for me in the here and now, have no choice whatsoever. Families need two incomes to survive and pay the bills. It isn't for extras nowadays. It certainly isn't a choice. These are professional women, often with professional partners.

Some women were bored at home; others weren't. I had the privilege to have seven years at home with children and they were absolutely brilliant. Some of the mother/domestic jobs could be boring but the children never were. I got bored when the youngest started school. There are only so many times you can polish the stainless steel oven and it doesn't talk to you.

Out of interest, did you ever ask a father why he decided to become a dad if he decided to continue to work ft?