Should SAHP be paid for their role by the goverment?

[Cocoflower]

Should SAHP be paid for the role they do by the goverment? If not by the goverment then who?

According to which study you read SAHP work is valued at 30-70k a year. Infact you can now even get life insurance based on being a SAHM which demonstrates a worth surely?

Is it not time we started valuing and recognising one of the hardest jobs out there 24/7 hours of work and no holidays through offical payment as being regarded as a public worker? Is raising future generations and caring for human life worth any less than any other type of work?

Now people may argue; if you have kids you pay for them, why should the tax payer foot the bill?

However if both parents work then the tax payer is footing some of the bill through tax credits anyway to cover childcare. Why not pass this straight onto the parents?

Now, I know many people work for more than just money,and many would stay in employment anyway even if they could be paid to stay at home.

But there would be many people would choose to stay at home if they could afford it and feel valued by getting paid for this? Would this be good if means freeing up thousands of jobs for people who need the jobs in the state the country is in?

Would this system just encourage people to have children they dont really want? Or should we say unlikely as having children is such a big thing to take on and its likely you would get paid more in a job anyway?

I'm coming into this a bit late in the game so apologies...

but if we're going to start paying SAHPs then I want a payment for all the things I do (or a freaking big time tax break at least!) for all the things I do ON TOP of my day job. And in fact, I probably deserve a bonus for being more efficient at doing it (given I have fewer hours in which to do it all!).

Many SAHPs kid themselves by thinking that just because they are "at home" that equates to better parenting. But I'm sorry, if your kid is in the other room playing while you're doing the ironing, I don't see what benefit that has to society that merits payment. Being a SAHP in itself is not worth much, it's HOW the SAHP "performs" that matters, if we're really going to seriously start talking about this as as job worthy of a salary.

I'm not saying they're the same. But I do assert a disbelief that a SAHP spend the same amount of hours interracting with their child that a WOHP spends at work. Do these children, for example, not go to nursery or school?

I think it is immaterial whether you stay at home to look after your kids or use other care. What improves outcomes for children is their parents having access to a living wage. Work.

Without work, whole areas become blighted by drugs, alcoholism, crime. It is a downward spiral and parents have to watch their children being sucked into it. Work provides so much. Structure, independent income, self respect, community.

Have you seen The Scheme? MIL's family are from round there; working class, father working day/night shifts in a carpet factory, 5 kids not much money but they were a respectable family, all girls went into nursing and have higher degrees etc

The difference today is that there is no work in that area. It doesn't matter how much you pay SAHP, the middle classes will be happy to take it and pay for extra Kumon Maths, the working class will not access it because they are working, and the jobless... well changing entrenched patterns of behaviour is tough - what will extra money do to change the loss of confidence and attendant health and social issues of unemployment, without providing access to work?

They need work.

looking after own children isnt a job.no salry reqd
looking after someone else children is a job.

commercial paid childcare is regulated and has minimum expectations and checks and balanced externally imposed by state eg crb, knowledge of development and play, assessment of environment, provision of suitable diet. commercial childcare generates at least 2 maybe 3 wages.the wage of 1 childcare worker and 1/2 wage/s of the working parent. this returns tax and ni to the state which is redistributed to all

looking after your own children is individual act that unless you come to attention of statutory agencies govt and/or la dont intervene. so no crb,no regulation. a private individual arrangement, and as such not a job requiring salary. sahp benefits that individual family,and returns 1 wage and ni from working parent.the sahp isnt working nor contributing tax and ni.

It is economially more viable if a nursery nurse looks after 8 children for minimum wage as then those 8 parents work. If they paid those 8 paents to all say at home then who would do the 8 jobs that those parents were doing eg nurses, teachers, carers for elderly etc? All those 8 mums would be at home getting paid and loads of essential jobs not being done.

No, it's not!

This is exactly why parents can't and shouldn't be paid for parenting. It is not a product. You don't put together parenting on an assembly line. It's not about what you do or what you don't do. It's far more subtle than that. Who would decide what was "right"? To me, paying a parent for working is like turning human experience into some sort of Big Brother experience.

The only argument for pay for SAHPs relates to the fact that there is such low status attached to women's work that pay is seen as the only means of increasing that status.

Status is the issue, not pay.

Sorry, that was in response to this:

" Being a SAHP in itself is not worth much, it's HOW the SAHP "performs" that matters, if we're really going to seriously start talking about this as as job worthy of a salary."

Agreed ilovedora. A WOHM is not only paying tax, but also funding employment for reems of people that otherwise wouldn't be employed - nursery workers, cleaners, gardeners, etc etc. I really don't know what sort of cloud cuckoo land could afford to compensate all those people if I didn't work, plus also paying me not to work

and seeking payment would externalise and homogenise parenting
as payment would require adhere to certain standards,and external inspection

Which would rob us of all our humanity and probably destroy all culture. We don't need externalised or homogenised parenting.

Working9- they may not be the same, but that doesn't make one thing better than the other. All you can testify to is that they are different
And you said yourself in a previous post, that this isn't about making a value judgement. So, by your logic, either pay all parents or none.
Working parents may interact more intensively over a shorter period than non working ones. Maybe. They may serve dinner at 6 pm rather than 5 pm. Maybe. But as you have said yourself, neither of these scenarios is better or worse than the other. So where does the idea of treating working and non working parents arise?

Or indeed valuing or denigrating either ?

YABU, it's your choice to have dcs, and fwiw it's certainly not tougher than my actual career job. I have been a SAHM for 2x 1 year following both dcs being born. Tough yes, relentless yes, hard work hmm maybe but not a patch on my job I'm afraid.

the SAHM s I know conception of "busy" is being "busy" in a completely different time fram to the majority of working Mums I know....which is prob why they're in no hurry to rush back to work

I don't want anyone to be paid! I have said this in almost every single post .

My interest in how we ascribe status to choices and how the value of what parents do has become increasingly commodified e.g. turned into a product, something that has a monetary value. One minute mom etc.

I very much think there should NOT be pay for parenting for the reasons I mentioned earlier about not ascribing hierarchical value to parenting and assuming we can predict outcomes based solely on parental occupation (or lack thereof).

Kids will grow up, whatever you choose. Outcomes are notoriously tricky and parents do not really control them, they are multifactorial. So talk of outcomes in terms of sahm vs wohm is some much white noise.

I think what all of this does to women and their sense of what they can and can't choose is a bigger issue, frankly. Kids are resilient.

All those 8 mums would be at home getting paid and loads of essential jobs not being done.

But how about those SAHPS who contribute in a multiude of other ways yet receive no rewards.

Let me think of some RL SAHMS I know....

They volunteer in hospices, volunteer in schools, are governers, run children's gardening clubs, help elderly parents,fundraise for charity, volunteer for the church, teach Sunday school and so.

Is the one and only criteria for measuring someones worth how much tax they pay?

So... sm, you are asserting that because registered childcare is subject to regulation and external inspection, then, in my utopia, parenting should be by virtue of it being paid?

Parents are already trusted to bring up their children without inspection. I think they should be paid for it too. I do not see how earning a wage has to equate external inspection- after all, Ofsted registration for childcare providers is a relatively recent phenomenon, not set in stone.

Inadequate parenting would result in state removing the child from the parents, same as it does now. Not a reduction of wages.

Being a SAHM fine. Being a working mum - fine. Title of thread is should SAHP be paid for government and my answer is no as its an insult to all mums that have to do both in order to keep society running, often for very low pay. Of course bringing up children is important but being paid for it is not the answer.

Caring for children in general is low status. I know my job is but thats got nothing to do with my self worth. I know I am doing an important job so what anyone else thinks is irrelevant. I dont really get why SAHMS worry about status but I think thats a middle class preoccupation, and often comes from mums who did something 'fancy' prekids so it bothers them to lose that title. I dont really understand it tbh but I have never moved in those type of circles/live in that type of area.

Too bored to read the whole thread - but of course they should. The government have got loads of spare money floating around!!! YABU

coco - how are they volunteering in those areas for substantial hours a week with under 3s? Where are their children? Couple of hours doesnt really count I am talking about 30 hours a week.

I am not helping, sorry to others- I think me arguing for my utopia is derailing other arguments. I waded in on page nine, stated the bleeding obvious and then described my ideal. I stand by it, but I am not helping.

no tethers parenting is private individual act and state shouldnt pay
and i v much doubt parents would want the associated regulation
and govt certainly shouldn't pay someone to be at home whilst kids are at school

So you discredit any contribution if its under 30 hours?

tether I agree -this thread is very odd!

I also agree that paying parents to stay at home is a complete 'utopia' as you say.

I still think that ultimately, the Govt supports parents to work because it benefits the economy (including the childcare workforce).

If it is about contact time with children, then surely WOHP should get paid for the hours that they have contact with their children? Either way it would be a highly complicated and complex model.....

Your posts have been great tetherend they are good and valuable and nice to see a balance

Both working mums volunteer and raise money for charity on top of their job, and having the children. I do fundraising for the ms society on my weekends but I dont expect to haveany financial reward for it. You contribute in order to help people.

I will bring it back to what others have said what would working mums get? Would mums in positions like mine do the job, the charity work/volunteering and the care of their own children but be paid the same as someone who is an SAHP?