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?

The sense of entitlement in your post is unbelievably overwhelming

Er... it never states an opinion

Its asks questions. Its a debate!

How you can you so spectuatculy miss such an obivious point?!

Personally I think there are so many variables that it is impossible to make a valid judgement.
A WOHP may have a greater influence, or a more positive one than a SAHM and vice versa. Personally I feel my life has been shaped as much by my father (who worked long hours) as by my mother who spent a large chunk of her adult life not working. Plus of course the countless other influences- nursery school, school, friends, relatives, neighbours.....

working9while5, your posts are spot on

of course a WOHM doesn't spend as much time parenting as a SAHM, thats obvious to anyone.

thats like saying I work 4 hours a day in an office but I do as much work as someone doing 10 hours a day, because I don't get a lunch break or a tea break and I don't leave my desk for 4 hours a day. Of course the person working 10 hours does more work than me because they are in the office full time and I'm not.......don't really see how anyone can argue this point no matter how much they dress it up.

and all this "its a lifestyle choice" to being a SAHM, well guess what folks we all choose our "lifestyle choice", whatever we end up doing!

I don't think parents who SAH should be paid, but I do think we as women whatever the hell we do, should be honest about our lives and choices (or no choices as the case may be) and stop carping at others who made a different choice

How about you have kids when you can afford to pay for them? Why should I work to pay for your kids. I had my son at 36. Why? Because that's when we were financially stable. I'm all for benefits for hardship and if the money was there I would like to see carers getting more as they do not have a choice of working and it's hard work. Tax credits should have never started as it encourages a mentality of relying on the state. An increase in thr minimum wage and subsidised childcare provision would have been a far better way to go. Then it's simple economics - if you can't afford to stay at home you go to work.

cliniquemum, then no kids would be born!

how about those who had kids and were financially stable then lost their jobs and lost their stability? do we take their kids away?

your post strikes me as you being someone with one child who sees life in black and white and most of your choices have worked out just tickety boo so far, well guess what, lifes very rarely like that for most of us!

I would imagine that CliniqueMum is referring to people that have children when they are not in a financial position to do so. Not people that have fallen on hard times. There does seem to be a load of people that have kids without working out whether they can afford to do so.

Ridiculous idea IMO. I think that having children is a personal decision and therefore it's your responsibility to support them financially. The state has given CB to all families for many years, and more recently tax credits. Just the nature of having a family means that you are more likely to use public services i.e. education and local services i.e. leisure facilities, libraries etc. People who do not have children already support services for children through the taxes they pay so why would anyone want to pay parents to stay at home? Plus what would happen to all the nurseries and childcare that currently contribute to the economy if parents stayed at home?

Surely the happiness associated with bringing up a child to adulthood is sufficient reward for parents?

Clinque

For a start if such a payment exsisted you wouldn't "have to work to pay for your kids" as you would have a choice of being paid for the work you can do as a SAHM. Why does not such an obvious point occur to people?!

Subsided childcare provison is still relying on the tax payer to pay for your children anyway!

It could be argued why should the tax payer pay for your childcare- if you cannot afford to work and have kids then thats your problem.

By this logic its only fair every parent waits until they can meet every cost associated with their child

If the country was desperately struggling to maintain its population, I could almost get my head around this idea, however we are massively overpopulated so it is an absolutely bonkers notion.

I personally think anyone planning to have a child is selfish to go ahead without making sure they can afford them. Personally apart from £20pcm in tax credits which I imagine will stop, we are 100% self-sufficent.

However what staggers me as how many people smugly declare everyone should pay 100% for their own kids, whilst forgetting if it wasnt for tax payers meeting your childcare costs in 9/10 of cases you wouldnt even have the choice to work!

People arent as self sufficent as they like to feel really are they?

If I hadnt received tax credits for a short time to meet childcare costs there is no way I would have been able to work. So I am very grateful we have a system in the UK that allows this help, but dont be naive to the fact many people deeply resent having to pay for other peoples childcare out of their tax money

Lyneham rose, there is no 'what I said earlier' as I've been saying more or less the same thing. As for sighing, I am sharing my perspective so not sure how that means I need to read your posts more carefully. Interesting the subtext you put into my words.

If I am saying that wohps and sahps are not equal, am I saying sahps are better? Where have I said that? How does that tally with my active choice to work? Are you casting me as self-flagellating here? I have made the same point about women's desires being equally valid again and again and stated that there is room for ambivalence. Not sure where you are coming from.

You said that a WOHP and a SAHP influences on a child are not equal. That is making a value judgement. I have no idea whether you think WOHP influence is 'better' or vice versa- and in fact the detail is irrelevant. My point is: how can you judge that they are not, in totality, 'equal' ?
Given that we are all agreed that hours under the same roof are not necessarily paricularly relevant.
Tbh there are so many variables.... Eg a parent with a strong personality and particular skills /interests may shape their child more than a parent who doesn't have these characteristics- regardless of who spends the most minutes A day in the same room as their child !

My point is simply that when you assert that two different experience don't have equal value, you ARE making a value judgement.

This isn't about 'sides'- its about logic.

Is it the semantics? There is equal as in the same and equal as a qualitative statement of worth. I think wohps and sahps are following equal paths in terms of worth but they are not the same. And I have said this about a million times over.

Ssd, amen to that - your final line is what I am saying only much clearer in brevity!

YABU - if you chose to have children then that is your choice, not mine and I shouldn't have to pay for other people to look after their own children.

Lynehamrose I really think working9while5 is not saying anything bad.

Just that it is a pure fact WOHP are unlikely to spend as much time with their kids as SAHP; just like a part-timer is more likely to spend less time at work than a full-time employee.

I dont think she means this equates to a WOHP being less worthy or less of a parent.

I can understand some people might feel a guilty for being at work.

Personally I never did as a WOHP, and when Im working from home now I dont feel guilty at all for spending time working than with dc.

I don't think she is either coco! I am just intrigued by the obsession that two different experiences cannot be equal.
Its not semantics, because unless we are talking mathematically, 'equal'' does not mean identical- it means 'equitable', having equal value . And I think we agreed several hundred posts back that we're not talking maths, 2 hours, 4 hours etc!

Bureaucratic disaster, I'd say.

The golden rule- you have kids if you can pay for them.

I don't believe we established that being a SAHM parent is better for the child than being a WOHM. The whole idea of paying one and not the other works on the assumption that the one being paid is somehow worth more. Being a SAHP is an individual choice and not a universally superior one.

I am teaching my children to work hard and do something with their lives, among many other benefits of being a WOHM.

So the whole idea of paying SAHPs and (presumably) not WOHP is flawed at the assumption of one being superior to the other.

I would like the child benefit of those who are on low incomes because they chose to stay home with their children and give up work. We should be looking at helping those who help the state, and not those who advocate the entitlement culture because they want a fluffy life -- on my bill!!

"Just that it is a pure fact WOHP are unlikely to spend as much time with their kids as SAHP; just like a part-timer is more likely to spend less time at work than a full-time employee."

Holy audacity, Batman!

Did you really just liken WOHPs to part-timers????

You have one full time job. I have two.

I think your being rather sensitive to read it like that!

If you actually read the entire post it did say

"I dont think she means this equates to a WOHP being less worthy or less of a parent"

Whats my one FT job btw?!

The biggest point your missing is we are discussing what another poster is perhaps trying to say anyway!

Calm down!

Being a parent is one full time job -- for either SAHP or WOHP. Nobody stops being a parent when they go to their other job. I outsource much of the frontline work (laundry, school run, etc.). But my value to my children as their mother is no less valuable than that of a SAHP to his/her children.

Your proposal is ludicrous and offensive. You are asking for people like me to pay people who prefer to stay home for the priviledge. That is totally outrageous and selfish.

strix - "The whole idea of paying one and not the other works on the assumption that the one being paid is somehow worth more."

I took issue with that at first too but I decided that if we took the 'reward' aspect out of it and looked on it more as compensation (financial and in terms of loss of career progression) it made more sense. if it really is impossible to go out to work because there is no afforable childcare, and a parent is being forced to stay at home, it seems reasonable to compensate.

It's all hypothetical anyway as it can't happen. But in principle I can see some logic to it.

Yes- I know I have stated quite clealry I work to (but from home!)

Its quite clear its not a 'proposal' its a debate! Im have never stated it should happen at all, Im really on the fence and many people agree its a an intresting discussion.

Dont forget if it really did happen (unlikely) you could have the option of staying at home too! Why would it exclude you?

(x posts last was for Strix)