To think if you SAH and your DP works and earns X, you do not therefore earn X yourself

[catgirl1976]

I do not want to start a SAH / WAH bunfight and this is inspired by another thread but......

A thread recently was asking people if they earnt over £40k and I was surprised to see a number of posters saying they were SAHM / SAHD but their partner earnt XX, so therefore they did too.

Now, I am not commenting on the value of the work a stay at home partner does - the value is huge and it is a tough, worthwhile thing to do.

But you do not earn. (Even if you should etc etc).

I work. My DH stays at home. If I heard DH saying "oh catgirl earns xxx so I earn xxx too" I would be really peed off and think - "no, no dude - you don't."

We don't have separate money - what's mine is his and vice versa, and I am happy with our arrangement. It is hos money as much as mine, but I earn it. He didn't spend 20 hours negotiating a deal or whatever - that was me.

It has never even occured to me before, but I was just surprised that people felt if DP earned an amount, they earned it too and would actually say, well yes I earn over £40k as DH is a GP or whatever.

It almost felt like some people were saying they were somehow personally doing better than others because they had "married better" which seemed really

AIBU?

Linerunner - I am not taking it up the parc for anyone. Even on a Sunday.

SMR - we have a joint account for household bills, and our own accounts for our own stuff. It avoids all the permission stuff and is much easier to keep track. The partner who earns more could contribute more into the joint account or pay for big bills or something. As with Rhonda, at one point one partner earned twice as much as the other, now the (originally) lower earning partner earns a multiple of the other. Money situations can change massively over the course of a long relationship.

(Catgirl has a cool, long thread. She'll be thrilled, won't she???)

Sorry catgirl - you didn't want a bunfight. But hey, we saved you some buns!

I need to sleep - have to get to work in the morning! Night all!

Yeah, got to be up at 7am, then work, then be a super-mum. Yay.

Just an anecdote.
A friend if a friend owns and runs a nursery....top rated, the place to send your kids....

Now she is having her child late in life.......when asked if she would put her child in nursery her answer was no.......she will go with some form of one to one care till the child's three.

Her reasoning was.......In Her words....
Not having one to one attention in those early years changes character......she sees that the strongest kids end up dominating the less assertive kids and itbis in effect survival of the most brutal on some level.so the kids have to become more tough to survive. Maybe some people think this a good thing. She does not.
Kids often regress with potty training as they fear going to the loo will mean they lose their toy when they return to another kid.
And she said that for the staff, It is just a job so whilstvtheybensure the kids are safe, she observes they do not interact in the same way as parents, or carer would.

Anyway it is just the opinion of someone who has run a nursery for 15 years.....but I listen when I hear people inside something tell me their insight.
Should I have to return to work after my second pre thee I will get one to one or two care, because I just do not see how anyone can think a child being looked after in a bigger group is as beneficial as a child being looked after by one person....until they are older. I do not know why we can,t just be honest about that....it is like this big mass denial of the benefits of one to one care is going on to protect people from acknowledging what they have chosen to priorities.

That's really helpful and useful information missic

How sad that your friend who has 15 years experience in managing nurseries is not able to recruit and manage staff that interact sufficiently with the children in her care. Something tells me this is not "the place to send your kids".

FWIW I send DS (2.1) to nursery three days a week whilst I indulge myself in that filthy habit called 'work'. He is a happy, well rounded little boy. He has made some good friends there, and attends birthday parties and social events via these children outside of nursery.

Last week I was admitted to hospital heavily pregnant and with a collapsed lung. The nursery staff have gone beyond the extra mile to help us out. They have moved the registers around to accomodate him on extra days, stayed late for a hour with him with no charge, and then presented DH with a "get well soon" card for me.

But yeah, go ahead and make your generalisations.

Anecdotes, when facts aren't proving a point.

Morning ladies! Hope we're all up bright and early - its a working day! Or should that be a sitting in the park in the February sun day, while alternating between singing wheels on the bus and doing intensive reading practice??

It's been a laff ladies- I thank you

P.s. i agree midnight- that woman sounds like a thoroughly shit excuse for a nursery manager

I think this thread was bound to go this way, unfortunately.

Don't worry about it dana. Your posts were honest and refreshing. You enjoy being at home, and that's why you do it; you're not making any spurious claims that it will have better outcomes for your kids and you're certainly not stooping to the level of talking in hushed tones about all those terrible childcarers out there and the poor working parents who haven't a clue how their children are being treated. That sort of behaviour is plain nasty and you have to ask yourself why someone does it...

Anyway the park digression was extremely funny. Like Quattro, I've never been a huge fan of parks - give me a proper old ramble through real countryside with a picnic en route, but I feel I could be converted ...

misssic, my friend manages a nursery and when she returned to work after maternity leave her baby went to the nursery.

She would be a poor excuse of a nursery manager if she wasn't providing care of a standard she thought good enough for her own child.

Oh FFS! I was fortunate enough to have been able to engage a wonderful nanny when dd was small, so I have no personal axe to grind with regard to nurseries. But if we're talking about anecdotal evidence, I have to say that I know quite a few children who were in FT nursery care as babies and toddlers, and they are every bit as delightful, happy and well balanced as the kids looked after by SAHMs.

Personally, I agree that a single carer such as a nanny or CM is preferable to a group setting for very small children, but I know others who feel that their kids benefit from the greater socialisation they get at nursery and prefer the more regulated environment.

Each child is different, each parent is different and each childcare setting is different. However, I don't know a single WOHP who would leave their child in an environment that they felt was damaging.

Ah but they don't know it's damaging honey!! I think that's the point those posters above were darkly hinting at. As SAHMS they know from their extensive research at playgroups and nurseries that childcarers are really childcatchers!!

Oh yeah, silly me - as WOHPs I forgot that we are presumed not to know our children well enough to spot any signs that things aren't working out. Because obviously, we don't spend enough time with them, you know....

Well, I have been a SAHP and a WOHP, as has my husband as well as a working from home parent, so I have no axe to grind and think all are equally OK, it entirely depends on the parent. Personally, I am pretty poor quality compared to most on this thread as I really haven't done as much reading as you lot.

However, I could not let the nursery manager comment go unchallenged as from my personal experience of a friend who manages a nursery, she was happy for her baby to go there.

Everything else, as you were.

My DD's first nursery was a Montessori nursery and it was amazing.

Anyway, off to work.

fuzzywuzzywozabear said "hmmmm

sahm's or sahd's are supporting the household though aren't they - how could the wohp earn £X if the other wasn't there to support the family life and keep all the balls in the air. It's nothing to do with "marrying well"

YABU" at the beginning.

I don't agree, I think you do have to marry someone with a successful career (or the prospect of one) in order to be a SAHP. Surely your partner has to earn £xxx before you are able to SAH? Then you facilitate the high flying by taking care of the domestics?

That nursery sounds dreadful, missic - no wonder your friend didn't want to send her own children there.

Luckily, the two nurseries we've used have been amazing and the carers have been loving and wonderful. Most of them cried when DD left (at 2.6 months, having been there for 2 years - we were moving 60 miles away). Not just a job to them, you see.

rhonda, I do not need permsision to spend our money. DH does not need permission. But we are married which means on the whole our money goes on stuff that we, as a family need. SO if either of us chooses to buy something over a certain amount, say £50ish, we tend to mention it to the other. Not asking permission, just using the other's brain - can you think of any reason why we shouldn't spend this money now. I might say - Probably don't spend 100 on DVDs right now as it's my friend's wedding at the end of the month and we'll be doing hotels/presents. Obviously if he's in town with the DC and they need shoes he doesn't ring me first. I don't check with him before filling my car with fuel, even though both those are over the £50 limit. It's just common sense and courtesy. If he chose to go ahead and spend the DVD money anyway, not a lot I could do. It's a bit like making plans for the weekend. You can have the arttitude that you both make your own plans, as grown ups, in charge of your own time. Or you can accept that you're a partnership and a family, and the plans you make affect everyone else, so it's couteous/sensible to check with the other. Does that make a bit more sense?

Not necessarily YonSeaCow - DH isn't very well paid and that's not likely to change much in the near future. In fact his job isn't permanent, so we could be looking at having to move in a couple of years. We've just cut our cloth to suit our means - we live in a cheap (but not nasty) area, bought a house that was in bad repair and so was below market value, only run one battered old car, don't have much in the way of luxuries etc. I definitely didn't "marry well" - DH literally had a couple of grand in the bank when we married and no income. I was working full time at that point. We both decided that we wanted me to be a SAHM and so worked towards that by saving, planning ahead, etc. It might happen that in the future I'll have to return to work but in that case DH will probably become a SAHD. Whatever happens we can live on one pretty average wage, and either of us could earn it as necessary. In fact we could live on benefits if it came to it, but we're hoping that won't happen.

how could the wohp earn £X if the other wasn't there to support the family life and keep all the balls in the air
Plenty of people earn without a partner to support the family life and keep the balls in the air. As someone else pointed out earlier, this is more relevant when people are earning less, but if you're earning a large salary then you can afford to pay for care and other things and wouldn't have the expense of supporting another adult. On £100k+ pa it's cheaper to have paid for help than it is to have a SAHP to support - the difference is that your children are not being cared for by their parent and that's the important bit. The SAHP of a high earner is enabling their partner to earn that without recourse to paid help, but not enabling their partner to earn.

And it's not just SAHP parents who enable their partners to further careers and support their families and keep all the balls in the air! Partners who are both working have to do this too. I got offered a job last year that will mean my STBXH (we have 50/50 custody) is going to have to, on top of working FT, make a lot of sacrifices and do a lot more than 50/50 care this year. It's an opportunity that will be very good for my career and earning potential and he agreed to do it - obviously I discussed it at length with him before accepting the job and, in future, I will help and support him in a similar way. We are no longer in a relationship, but we are a family (of sorts) and family support each other - WOH or SAH.

Your wage is what you are personally paid.

My mum helps me a lot with childcare, pickups from school. I probably couldn't do my job as well if it wasn't for her, or at least I would have to pay more for childcare, same as a SAHP. She doesn't think my wage is anything to do with her and she wouldn't say 'as a family we earn X, or I earn X' in relation to my wage. She's a separate person who happens to contribute to the smooth running of our family (thank goodness). Her contribution is worth more than money, but it's not the same as it.

Great that many of you are happy with your nurseries.
The nursery is both owned and run by the person and it is a top rated nursery but that was the owner,s opinion, that one to one care is better for her child until that child is three.
I was shocked she made that admission and it reaaly made me think, here is someone who sees young children go through nursery for 15 years and yet she does not choose it herself when she needs childcare.That does not have to be a parent but a one to one carerLook if we have the freedom to say......

Oh nursery is the best for my child because they get socialized and I think it is preferable to just being with a parent or one person all day, then we also have the freedom to say, I don,t think being in a nursery is the best thing for my child until they are at least three years of age.There is plenty of research out there that also makes this claim. We will never be dealing in the realm of facts because it is so hard to quantify.
Of course we all decide what is best for us and in conjunction ourselves but people who choose to stay home and dare to say they think it is the best for their child are attacked on threads like these by wm, when they are just being honest......yes they probably do think it is better than nursery and I don,t think there is anything wrong in someone taking that position.
This is why it will always cause a tense debate because many people do not think all choices are equal in value.

"how could the wohp earn £X if the other wasn't there to support the family life and keep all the balls in the air. It's nothing to do with "marrying well""

It'd take a fair bit of outsourcing, but providing enough money is earned to pay for the outsourcing (if it's not free) then an SAHP isn't necessary per se.

I could keep all the balls in the air without DH, although he doesn't SAH. In fact, now you come to mention it, the idea is strangely attractive