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?

Have not read the whole thread (unusally for me but was incensed - most bonkers thing I have ever heard) so apologies if point already been made. But SAHP do get "reward" as compared to working parents - their reward is saving the childcare costs others pay.

Otherwise no-one would work - SAHP get paid to do so. People who go out to work have to pay someone else.

SardineQueen if this is indeed the Coco's reasoning for the post then it is ill thought out.

You cannot compare a SAHP to a Working Partner or (Womens Work) as you called it.

Firstly if you want to go SAHP you need to be sure you can afford to do it as a family. Your role is very important but could not be done without the support of the Working Partner. You do not need society to appreciate you in your life choice but you do need your partner to support and appreciate you.

Again having kids is not a job but a choice.

Habving kids is not your right if you cannot afford it, infact I would go as far to say it is neglect.

Agree with Scholes34

I would also have liked my personal tax allowance to have been passed to my DH when I was a SAHM

I agree that having children is not an entitlement.
That's like saying people are entitled to have as many children as they want and if their wages aren't enough to support their growing family, then the government should pick up the tab.

This discussion reminds me a little of the example in Economics 101 of "taking in each other's laundry." Basically is shows that if we each take in our neighbour's laundry and our neighbour takes ours and we pay each other, there appears to be a lot of economic activity (taxable economic activity too), but in actuality nothing productive has happened. Money moves pointlessly back and forth and the result is the same as if we had each done our own laundry at home, ourselves.

This often seems a trap that women get caught in because of government tax schemes to encourage work outside the home. Woman A goes out to work at the widget factory and pays Woman B to watch her children for her. Woman A ends up just ahead because of child tax credits or vouchers or the like.

How pointless, especially if Woman A would have preferred to be the one to spend this time with her own children. Surely better in this case to have Woman A look after her own children and have Woman B work in the widget factory. The same actual productivity is happening; the widget factory gets one worker and the children are looked after. There is however less appearance of economic activity and fewer cash flows to be taxed.

YABU but hypothetically, if we did have a bottomless pit of cash in this country to pay SAHP a wage, would like to know if it was a flat rate of pay or performance based? Would you get paid more for feeding your children organic, locally produced food, as opposed to ready meals? For taking them out loads and not allowing them to watch too much telly while mummy mumsnets?

Would there be an annual appraisal, and if so, who'd do it? Other family members? Goverment offcial? Would there be sick cover, paid annual leave?

Why are SAHP's penalised though? Most people SAH with their kids if they can afford to. That is THEIR choice. Its hardly like they are being punished is it?

How on earth can that op insense anyone?! Weird!
Its not saying anything either way -its a debate within itself! It clearly states no opinion. Odd.

missing - that's an incredibly basic example and whilst I get the point, doesn't take consideration of emotional factors. What if woman B doesn't want to work in a widget factory but that is now all she can do?

It is all cause and effect. There are women who want to work and there are women who want to stay home, we all have to live within our means and to the best we can. Ideal worlds are far from reality.

Stop with the YABU!

The post is posing questions not actually stating a formed opinion either way.

I don't think the implication here is that working parents are in some way less of a parent than stay at home parents.

The question is whether childcare should be financially rewarded when undertaken by a stay at home parent rather than a childminder or nursery (who would obviously be paid).

I agree with the poster who said that the financial reward is not having to pay out childcare costs.

I'm sorry but people are entitled to have children no matter what their income. If the state didn't recognise this then they would try to starve the children of the unwaged rather than support them the way they do.

I don't think SAHP should be paid.

I went out to work when my DC was 3 months, even though I am a single parent, got paid for that, so we had enough money to live on. The idea that I should be paid to care for my child at evenings and weekends is as ludicrous as the OP proposing we pay a SAHP to look after their own house and family, whilst having the other parents money to live on.

Cocoflower you may say that you have no opinion but you come across as wanting SAHP to have a wage but you have put no arguments against them having one. So therefore I beleive you either have an agenda or you are more opinionated than you like to beleive.

missinglalaland Just had a total flashback to First Year Economics class. You are absolutely right.

I don't believe SAHP should be paid by the government for what they do. I do think that the role could be valued more without belittling anyone else. I had a full time job pre-child, a part time (24 to 30 hours a week) job after child until I was made redundant when they were nearly 3. Thanks to our rural location the fight over equivalent jobs is fierce and from a purely financial standpoint travel plus childcare before and after school and the holidays would eat too much of what I could earn to be, in my opinion, based on our circumstances worthwhile.

Despite losing nearly half our income and having a child our quality of life has actually improved because I made a job out of this, (I really can't understand what we managed to do with all our money pre-child) and It's taken time for me to really get good at it. I don't see this as a life style choice, it's the logical choice at the moment. Anyway, it would be nice if less people assumed I sit on my bum all day watching tv, (or mucking about on my P.C. I've stopped for lunch in case you were wondering). I do as many hours "work" a week as my husband, I make sure off it.

As for subsidies we get child benefit and the basic child tax credit, we did even when I was working. (I talk as if I don't work at all but I have been a self-employed cleaner and now work a couple of hours a week as a playground supervisor). Anyway, I'm grateful for what we get and I guess the government would worry that if they don't subsidise procreation to some extent there won't be enough future tax payers.

I'm new by the way, first post. Chances are I have just annoyed someone so I have said my prayers and donned my flame proof knickers just in case. .

Missing, who looks after woman B's children when she goes to the widget factory or am I missing something. Anyway there isn't many widget factories left now.

Ridiculous idea.

1. having children is not a 'job', it is your life now.
2. most importantly - we cannot afford this, the country is already in a shitload of debt.
3. what do SAHP give back to society? They are not paying tax, getting paid as well = take take.
4. more people would choose to stay at home if they were getting paid for it, again we cannot afford this.

I would like to see the role valued more... but whether paid or not is open-ended.

If you look closely at my op it argues agaisnt too;

^why should the tax payer foot the bill?

Would this system just encourage people to have children they dont really want?^

Have you ever watched a debate show where the host plays devils advocate and puts both points across to those debating it? Thats how I pretty much was intending to put it across. Like when you write an essay and include counter arguments etc

Well, since we all still do the cleaning and cooking, etc (SAHM or not), maybe we reduce the allowance to £35k and EVERY parent gets it. Then you can either stay at home and view this as your salary or use it to pay whatever childcare needs you have to go to work.

Fair?

YABU, obviously. Those of us who work also do everything that SAHP's do, in our non-working hours, and we completely fund the childcare and arrange and/or pay for meals, laundry, cleaning etc when we are out of the home. So why on earth should we fund people who have made the decision not to work, and ONLY do the work in their homes that we ALSO do in ours? Ridiculous suggestion.

Thanks MollysChamber, I was afraid that I might come off as a babbling loon there! :)

incensed because I do not even see the debate. i see no arguments that coudl be made in favour of this at all. If you want to see a finanical reward it is the money saved in childcare fees. Otherwise there is a double whammy. To make it workwhile anyone doing this they would have to earn (after tax) more than the aggregate of what they woudl get if a SAHP and what they actually pay for childcare. There are exremely few jobs of this type. No one woudl work and no tax woudl be collected. in ANY economic circumstances.

3. what do SAHP give back to society?

Really?
Well first example... I used to be on a committee for the local playgroup. Legally we were needed for it to run. We were pretty much all sahm. It was the only childcare provider in the village bar one childminder. It provided childcare for the children of all the working children. (by commitee not just meetinfs, fundraising, painting, gardening you name it)

Second example...
Oh sod it

I don't want to be paid but really I now understand fully the biscuit smilie

WOHP

What if you had a choice though?

A choice to be paid for work either outside the home or inside?

Would you look after your children regardless of whether or not you are paid for it?

Would you do you still show up at your place of employment if you weren't paid for it?

I would suggest that the answer to the first would be yes, and to the second, no.

If I am wrong, then yes the goverment should pay SAHPs. Otherwise not.

And what if a SAHP wasn't doing a good enough job - for example they fed their DC a bad diet, smoked in the same room as them, failed to support the, in school? Would they get a pay cut?

It implies that those benighted individuals who have to work while they are parents simply aren't good enough. And I'd take issue with that. Strangely .