not to understand people with very young children who say they have no choice but to work?

[nesomja]

Whenever there's anything that touches on being a SAHM / WOHM on here, several people pop up saying how lucky people are to have a choice, that they have no choice but to work and basically to stop whinging about it. I can't work it out because I am pretty sure that next year when I will have two under-3s, it will cost us money for every day I work as childcare is so expensive. So are all the people who say they have no choice those with older children or only one child? Or are they very high earners or do they have access to low cost childcare? For me it feels the other way round, that I will not be able to choose to work - but yet it often seems to be presented as if SAHM are living a luxury lifestyle, propped up by their wealthy husbands. Why is it okay not to be able to afford not to work, but not okay not to be able to afford to go to work?

Thanks. I was 23 when I had our daughter and looking back I think how the hell did it all get done. I dont think I would of tried doing what I did if I was doing something as complicated as medicine. I did Early Childhood Studies. We had 4 students who had children in the middle of the year and people brought them in with them to class if they needed to as they were all newborns so just slept really!

Dh brings home £1000 per month. Rent is £750. Utilities £85. Petrol to commute ( no public transport here) £200. Clearly I have to work if we are to eat and cover our naked bodies.

Oh and why the 'being a sahm is the hardest job in the world'? Surely it's equally hard, if not moreso holding down a necessary full time job whilst also bringing up ones children? Doing all a sahm does but in far less time? Done to death im sure but Sorry I just don't get it

Odelay, i admire your honesty..! It has been done to death

But I dont get it either.

Odelay - I'm feeling you - we have similar ingoings/outgoings.

In so many areas the average wage is disproportionate to the average house prices and therefore average rent/mortgage repayments. Obviously SOME people are entitiled to help from the government so their income is topped up - but all this serves to do is keep house prices up/landlords charging high rents and employers paying crap wages because they can get away with it! And those of us who aren't entitled to government help (usually due to unfair loopholes) are really then up the creek!

Also it's fine if you have two wages coming in. But when I was unemployed - I had been a student and was looking for work - as soon as I moved in with my partner my entitlement to benefits stopped as he was working full time. But his wages couldn't cover our outgoings! So we would have been much better off if we'd stayed lving apart which was ridiculous as I was exepecting his baby! The government view me as an adult perfectly capable to work (yet still wouldn't pay me JSA as I was being "supported" by my partner) so the answer should therefore be if we can't survive on his income, I need to find work. Do you realise how difficult it is to find a new job when you are visibly pregnant? No, they are not legally allowed to discriminate against you but of course they do! I have had 3 temporary jobs since I have been pregnant - the first two didn't know when I was first taken on, but of course eventually I had to tell them and miraculously the work/hours dried up and they didn't "need" me anymore (very easy to get away with that one when you are a temp worker in this economic climate). So at about 25 weeks I had been made redundant twice and was looking for work again. I went all out on a job finding mission and I was lucky to come across a lovely agency who found me a positon (minimum wage as I said) with the council and obvioulsy they are probably a more "equal opportunities" employer and are happy to keep me on as long as I like as I am perfectly capable of doing the job. I can't even count how many people just rejected me outright or didn't even bother responding though. It was so demoralsisng!

It annoys me no end as well when I speak to employers I know through my job (usually men) who say quite openly that they wouldn't employ a pregnant woman and would just find some "excuse" not to. The government need to realise that this happens and either take more action and make it GENUINELY and ENFORCABLY illegal to discriminate like this or they have to recognise this reality and support women more who find themselves unemployed through no fault of their own during pregnancy/motherhood.

Anyway, really sorry about the rant, I have jsut realised I have probably gone off on a complete tangent...

so if you are self employed "Every bean on your plate is there cause you put it there" whereas if you work ............... what? The bean fairies drop them round?

I don't get your argument at all moraldisorder - every bean on my plate is because I work for it, just like someone who is self employed.

Generally speaking a self-employed person is just as entitled to SMP as an employed person is.

A self-employed person is not entitled to SMP but may be entitled to maternity allowance. But you have had to have been working so many weeks out of x number of weeks before your baby is due (not sure of exact ins and outs but know I won't qualify), and then you get 90% of your average weekly wage or £124 a week whichever is LESS. So if you weren't working much/making much profit in that period you won't be getting much at all. So it that situation if you still had overheads/bills/outgoings to pay and what you got wasn't enough - you'd have no choice but to keep on working.

That's exactly my situation Roxie. I run my own business and so I'll only take a month or two off after having DC2. I'm not entitled to SMP as I pay myself a minimum salary for tax purposes and top up with dividends.

I may get maternity allowance if I'm lucky, but at a measly £400 per month that's less than a tenth of my normal income so I'm having to save what I can to afford a couple of months off. But if I issue any invoices to clients during this time, my maternity allowance is removed... so it's not really worth the hassle. I may pick up the odd consultancy call here or there or a report to write that will be an hour or so work and only for a small fee but this would completely negate my maternity allowance.

I also can't be out of the game too long otherwise clients get tetchy. No cushy 9-months-off-with-a-job-to-come-back-to for me!

OK but my point is SMP is virtually the same as 'maternity allowance' just called something different - either way it is a "measley £400 per month" (actually they are both now £124.88 pw before tax) and it takes some advance financial planning to be able to live through that time, whether you are employed or self-employed. Though on SMP you do get the 90% for the initial 6 weeks.
Very generous but doesn't work too well with Govt's own recommendation to exclusively BF for 6 months!

CCL chooses to take minimal time off & work though so as not to be financially deprived. I choose to budget scrimp & save now & supplement SMP with my savings. If we live on bones of butt now & for all of next year we can do it. For me it is worth the planning, scrimping & living meagerly, to have 6 months maternity leave with my new baby. It is a choice. But it's not easy.

Clearly there is a gap that people in Roxies situation fall through.

My situation is basically difficult because I was a student and have taken a year out to have the baby, so as I wasn't already employed or paying my stamp in that period leading up to my pregnancy I get zilch! Just unlucky I suppose! And if I was still officially a student at my uni I suppose thay might help in some way, or I would have just been getting the normal means tested student support. Either way not conducive to taking time off to be a SAHM! Hope everyone on here somehow manages to manage! x

Things are harder for the self-employed because even if they get the same amount of money as an employed person, they don't get the same protection.

Firstly, you have to find your own replacement for the business. Hands up who wants a job which has 70 hour weeks, high stress, and where you are both chief tea maker, sales executive and finance guru? See- it's very hard to replace the boss.

Secondly, even if you manage to find a way of muddling through in terms of workforce, you still need to make daily/weekly decisions about things like "Do we upgrade the server?" "Is Jimmy due a pay rise?" "Why has our stationery bill quadrupled?" and that's classed as work and one of your 10 keeping in touch days.

Thirdly, you don't come back to the business you left, so self-employed people come back to no marketing having been done, the accounts and cashflow in a mess, and potentially no business left.

Couldn't agree more with Xenia when she says that having improved maternity benefits have chained women to the kitchen sink and put them off becoming self-employed. It's idiotic - the leave should be assigned to each child and divided how the parents see fit.

If I took 6 months off I'd have to rebuild my client base from scratch. So it's the long term cost of taking time off which is such a killer for me as a self-employed person rather than the cost of funding the actual maternity leave (which I am doing by taking on ridiculous amounts of work now so I can save up the cash).

I know that's not the case for everyone who is self-employed or runs a business, it's different sector by sector, but in addressing that OP, that's why I can't afford not to work.

It's often a juggling act whatever your individual circumstances and no easy solution!

I don't understand why everyone gets so arsey about the WOHM/SAHM issue. You do what's right for you and your family.

I know some women who stay at home with their children when they'd be infinitely better off without their parents and in a nursery. I know some mums too who would be a lot happier if they didn't be a martyr and spend all day trying to do everything they are "supposed" to do and actually did something they enjoy.

I know some women who don't need to work but want to because otherwise they'd go stark raving bonkers.

I know more who love being a SAHM and can't imagine anything better.

I know some who hate their jobs and would love to be a SAHM, but their finances don't permit it.

Why the judgement about it?

Certainly what is said about the self employed above is true. On the other hand we eat what we kill and if we're good hunters it can be much better than being an employee. You are also in charge too which makes organising things easier. On the other hand as said above if you take a lot of time off after a business you destroy / lose your business. So most people just continue which actually isn't a bad thing as you feel better if you're working than being at home anyway. So although it might feel less protected that probably ultimately benefits women who are self employed.

One of the biggest benefits I can see of being self-employed is that I can take on small amounts of work and gradually build it up bit by bit as opposed to jumping straight back into a full time job. The decision lies with me what projects to take on and how to manage it around children.

There is a point when it gets tricky - needing to find childcare to allow the time to take on extra work, but not yet actually having the work to fund the childcare! We managed it last time though so will have to try to do the same again.

I am glad to be self-employed and have the opportunity to take on work little by little, but the downside is not being able to look forward to any period of time to switch off completely from work and focus solely on my new baby.

I think you're right northern girl. I think it will suit me best to go back to work/study tbh. It's just a shame when poeple's circumstances force them into doing something they'd rather not ie. go back to work when they'd rather SAH.