to think childcare costs for 3 primary school aged children are too expensive to make working worthwhile?

[pingu2209]

Now that my last child has started school I decided to look to get back into paid employment. To pay for 3 children to go to breakfast club and then after school club, during term time, the fees will amount to £1350 a month. During school holidays the fees will amount to £1690 a month. On the basis my husband and I will try to take our holiday over a chunk of any school holiday, any salary I earn needs to cover the £1350 childcare costs PLUS any costs for parking and fuel for commuting.

On that basis I need to earn £25k/yr to break even.

I have applied and applied for jobs and can not get anything near the amount I need to warrent me working.

Due to my husband's salary we won't get any support for childcare costs.

I am so pissed off. I really want to work. I am worried that I will have bugger all pension and to be frank, we could really do with more money because everything is going up in price.

As I have a degree, a masters, a professional dimloma and 13 years work experience in marketing that is my preferred option. However, as I haven't done any paid work for 5 1/2 years nobody is interested.

Am I unreasonable to think that it is actually not financially viable for a mother to work if she has 3+ children?

Scholes- if you were talking about your own family set up, why did you post 'a full day in childcare is no fun for YOUR children' ??

How can you possibly know what other peoples arrangements are and how they work?!

Personally, with your qualificaltions and presumably, therefore, aspirations around a fulfilling career at some stage, and wider fulfillment, I would look at the outlay in childcare now as an investment.

By juggling holidays we manage to cover the majority of the summer hols - you don't need childcare every week - you and your DH will have how many weeks holiday between You. Keep some for family hols and use the rest for your own childcare.

If you can start to work p/t or freelance in your field now, opportunities will biold as the children get older. Your NI contibutions will build. Your prospects towards promotion and pay rise will build - rather than stagnate or go backwards.

Could you start some freelance work, projects that you can manage during the school day?

Oh I see it was the your bit...I didn't spot that.

None the less my DS's have friends who really get quite tearful when it's after school club time because they're exhausted and just want to go home like some of their friends can, yet their parents will tell people their kids can't wait to get there.

I think sometimes it's just a case of having to get on with it.

Maybe bitchy is the wrong word, but do think it's unecessary to make blanket statements like that in a thread about the OP's options. One option is to work school hours, and people have made suggestions about ways she might do that, another is for her to use pre and post school care of some kind, which might give her more options when it comes to employment and the potential to earn more, but yes, would be different for the children. Just think it's more helpful to offer experience and ideas rather than generalisations in an area that is really difficult for lots of families and especially women.

As for me, am happy with our choices, most of the time.

Dozer - it's from DWP stats (just tried to link for you but can't find the original reference now, sorry). I'm being a bit disingenuous because 'family' includes all informal childcare, including mutual arrangements with other families that operate outside of OFSTED rules. It also lumps people in formal/informal categories depending on volume of use, so someone with 70% childcare performed by their mother and 30% by after-school club would count as informal.

The point is that for most parents, it is difficult to get truly reliable childcare. The reality is that most working mothers would be unable to hold down a job without significant help from family/friends or by earning enough to pay for the top-level of professional childcare (i.e. a nanny who can cover unexpected eventualities, such as school closures or caring for your child when he or she is ill enough to stay home but not ill enough to need a parent comforting them all day).

We need accesible, flexible and affordable childcare and much more of it in this country, but I'd also like to see more financial help for SAHMs and a change in culture/legislation so that women who do take time out to care for their young children do not end up paying for it for sometimes the rest of their working careers.

Children have no choice to go to school either, mine tell me they love it there too. Perhaps they are just saying this to make me feel better!

I don't think 8-6 every day is ideal, and it is exhausting, that's the main disadvantage for me with wrap-around care. But I don't personally think more fun is to be had going home and watching TV, which is what mine do on the days they don't go to after-school club (I only use it a couple of times a week).

It's by sharing these type of experiences that people can make decisions, I think it's important to hear from those who do use these facilities as well as those who have chosen not to.

Thank you moonshine, that's really interesting, but depressing!

I agree to a certain extent moonshine. I would definitely like to see all regulated childcare being tax deductible. It is a joke that you are taxed on your income and then pay out of that net income for a nursery or childminder to look after your children- and they they are taxed too! When you consider that people who are self employed can set all sorts of things with a far more tenuous link to their work, against text, it makes no sense

However its important to see this all in context. Since I had my first child the following have happened:

• far more day nurseries around
• 16 hours (ie two day equivalent ) free nursery hours after child turns 3
• massively increased paid maternity leave- from 6 weeks to 9 months
• option of additional 3 months unpaid leave which means a mum can take a year off (which then massively cuts 'down the overall time the child will need 'pre school care)
• govt subsidies for childcare for low earners(has been up to 80% costs paid for, I believe with the cuts this may now reduce to 70)
• 2 weeks paid paternity leave (used to be zero actual entitlement!)

Yes, theres always room for improvement but you cant deny we've come along way. NONE of the above were available when many of us on here first had babies and returned to work.

I disagree with the point about financial help for SAHP though- I cant see how a system of remuneration for not working would operate. Who would pay for it for a start?!

Moonshine, agree with you, and also think that some flexibility can come from men making more compromises in their careers and their employers offering more flexibility.

Oops, the "your" was an error, and the use of the wording "no fun" was to indicate that I don't feel it's an ideal situation (I'm sure fun is had). However, I stick with my opinion that childcare and school covering 8.00 am to 6.00 pm five days a week is not ideal, and certainly not an option I have chosen, and have therefore opted to work hours that don't require childcare. Having a parent there at home after school for the children is very important, even when they're at secondary school.

Scholes - that's fine if its your opinion and works for you.
The problem is when it spill over into making general assumptions about everyone elses families.

Not all families believe they need a parent at home after school, whether children are in primary or secondary school. They have other arrangements and their children turn out just as happy, well adjusted and successful as yours no doubt will!

callmemrs I agree we've come a long way from 30 years ago. I have personally benefitted from it adn believe me I'm very grateful as the alternative would have been life as a single mother on benefits or without that probably starvation.

It's all very positive steps in the right direction, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a long way to go. More than 82% of the population become parents. That in itself is reason enough for current and future governments to keep working on this issue. It's an issue that affects the majority of the population.

When I say more financial support for SAHMs, I don't mean paying them as such. I mean things such as changing the law so that a SAHM gets some help with pension contributions and part of the father's earnings are legally obliged to go into a pension for her as well (as he is benefitting significantly from having the mother SAH in comparison to what would be paid for professional childcare). This would work both ways, so would apply equally to WOHM and SAHD for example.

In the event of a break up, doesn't 'the partner have an entitlement to some of 'the pension anyway?

I can see where you're coming from moonshine. The reality is that with the mess pensions are in right now, I cant see how things can improve in terms of any more subsidies. Many people who already pay hundreds out of their earnings each month into a pension are already worrying about 'the value it'll have when they retire. Difficult to see what more can be done.

I think it's about political will TBH.

People said it would be impossible to abolish serfdom and black slavery in the US because it couldn't be afforded. Now while motherhood is nowhere near in the same league, the country's economy does rely on an army of women caring for children either for no money at all or for very low wages. The truth is that for every father out there earning megabucks and creating significant economic growth, there is (usually) a woman caring for his children. He could not earn that money without that help.

Similar arguments against cost/feasibility were made against the creation of the NHS and welfare state. Granted, in the middle of a recession would not be the best time to introduce this, but I think as soon as the recovery is well established more can and should be done. Much more is done in other countries, and while they may pay the price in other ways, I think the benefits are worth it - not just for women but for the wider society generally (one of the main payoffs for greater equality in terms of childcare responsibilities is a generally more equal society which has the additional bonus of creating economic growth).

Have you thought about evening/ nightshift work. I do 18 hrs a week and with overtime can bring home £800 a month, £1000 some months with overtime. I work in a call centre (public sector) with generous annual leave and conditions.

Evening work means no childcare costs, DP and I juggle if I am on an early or backshift - he works all evening at home.

I have three children, a degree and professional qualifications in a different field. I am working on another degree. My current job is bloody hard, especially 10pm to 8am but needs must etc

And I love 'opting for school hours' try doing that in Glasgow

Re the pension: it only applies to married women, whereas I'd like to see it extended to cohabiting SAHMs.

Sorry cat I wasn't thinking of individual posters as such, I was thinking about my mother's generation and what was available then.

School hours is definitely something employers should give more consideration to. I probably pack in as much work in a week in 25 hours than I did when I was working full-time. Definitely more focussed and want to get on with things to leave in time for school pick up. I certainly feel I have to justify being able to "leave early", even though I'm paid a part-time wage. Good value for the employer.

It sucks that the cost of childcare is so high and YANBU to be upset that you don't have the choice to work or not.

I returned to work on a 3day workweek. 1st week in and all is good. DD is 3.5 months and I am very happy with the daycare center we are using. It isn't cheap but I clear just over $2000 a month after pension contributions and taxes. I live in the US though where the tax code supports families through taxing household income and not individual income.

The UK has a long long ways to go. Just comparing the childcare provision between the two is an eye opener. The lady who manages DD's room is an early years teacher with a Masters in early childhood development. She is basically a Norland nanny, with 2 assistants, in charge of 10 children under the age of 2. The cost is $1175 per month, a credit of $3000 a year is refunded through taxes for each of the first two children. It isn't a lot but it does help.

If we lived in the UK I couldn't afford to work. When I calculated it all out DH and I would be better off getting divorced and living in separate homes until our children are school age.

If I had a big business employing lots of people I would invent a scheme where certain jobs employed, on a job-share basis: parents with DCs at school during the term term, and students during the holidays.

But I am not.

Maybe scholes, but again , not all of us want to work part time. I am also a little at the notion that part time workers are more productive than full time!! I don't think most employers would be happy about the notion that full timers spend some of their hours slacking!! I am sure most people who work hard and work smart on 25 hours a week would put in the same effort with longer (or shorter) hours.

And of course there are many jobs which can't operate school hour term time only - many of the services you probably use yourself scholes- shops, doctor, dentist, banking.....

Ballon Sainsburys used to do that by hiring students to cover the holidays and mothers during term time. Their shifts were structured to accomodate mothers. I worked there for a couple of weeks in the evenings when short of money. The manager was a gem and very forward thinking.