To ask for one, simple, summary about all the angry SAHM threads.

[catinboots]

Pleaseeee??

I haven't read them all - but there seem to be lots of SAHMs on here today, moaning that they won't eat help with child are costs.

Eh?

Have I missed some key piece of information? Have a got it wrong?

Surely the whole point of being a SAHP is so that you don't need childcare?..

Oh and I don't care about the childcare tax subsidy, infact I agree with it. At one time We were paying £2k a month for nursery for 2 DCs. Crippling cost. It should all be tax deductible.
I do care however that my tax allowance isn't transferrable. And yet my CB has gone because dh is over the threshold. You either tax and calculate benefits as a household OR as individuals, not the mismatch they have at the moment where one income households pay disproportionately more tax. How can anyone see that as fair?

Yes, social trends do operate on a pendulum basis (as do economic trends) and many of us agree that's not the best way for it to function.

I still think this issue of 'valuing' a SAHP is bugging some people more than it should. It should be an individual decision for families, and there shouldn't be a need or an expectation that the govt 'rewards it' . The only validation needed is that of your own family

I take it you only have daughters then molehill? Because those of us with daughter AND sons would say the same thing about both of them. I hope my son feels strong minded enough to not feel he has to earn a lot more than his future wife, and that she'll have first 'dibs' on staying at home

Amid- by support I meant 'financial support'. Of course the money can be paid into a joint Account, but it's a simple fact (not a value judgement) that it's the working partner who has earned it

But who says that the "only validation you need is from your own family..." You cannot legislate for how everyone feels.

but janey68 often the working partner cannot "earn it" without the non-financial support at home - so "earn" becomes less of a single-person defined thing. my hubby earns a heck of a lot more money since I gave up work and take care of the stuff that prevented him doing so before (his mum needs care...etc)

Bytheway- This has been covered (although it may be on another similar thread.... There are so many of them right now!)
The thing is, there is so much variation in what families feel they can cope with, and what they want for their family life.
For every family where the wife says she can't work because her husband works such long hours, has a lot of stress, she needs to do all the household stuff etc, you'll find another family where the husband works long hours and the wife works too... They employ a nanny, cleaner, and work things out somehow.
I'm honestly not making a value judgement here... My point is entirely that what suits one family doesn't suit another. If you feel that your family operates best having one partner working long hours in a high paid but high paid job and having the other at home then that's fine, but you cannot pretend that youre in the same position as a family with two working parents. That's a simple fact.

Sorry Partridge to be obtuse - but who the rubbery fuck do you wnt validation from, apart from your family then?

David Cameron?

Me?

Confuzzled

Yes and that's exactly why I wouldn't want to work at this moment in time. Why would I want to pay for cleaners, nannies etc when I'd prefer to do it myself? Since Tony Blair started bribing both parents out to work, the message has been explicit, not even subtle: outsource your children. It's better than staying at home with them. Hell, that's one of the reasons I went back to work. Everyone else was. It became the new normal. I pretended I was alright with it for a while, got made redundant, became a sahm for a while, then carried on.
I do thinks its a shifting social trend though. You only have to look at the massively praised childcare model in Sweden where 80% of parents are back at work, cheap cheap daycare, night nurseries fgs, so if you work night shifts your baby can sleep there, I shit you not... a backlash has starts though. Parents miss their kids and would prefer to do it themselves. The crazy thing the government consistently overlooks when they're bribing people back to work is that children, especially the under 3's, are far far better off with a sahp than nursery. Unless they're being abused at home obviously.

and I do get fucked off when the government and the media and some mumsnetters want to pretend that 40 hours a week in nursery is just as good a place to be as home with mum or dad.

i tell you what i think is really bad - where the man is high earning self employed but they use the SAHMs tax allowance to pay less tax by paying her a salary to do naff all. Some of these people even claim familly tax credits! you cant have your cake and eat it.

i have nothing against staying at home with the children. i think it is somewhat inevitable if a professional man marries a woman who was in a relatively low earning job - her salary would be the same as the cost of childcare. But i am glad they are recognising the rise in famillies like mine where both work and earn a reasonable salary as, as others have said, this reflects the fact that more women of our generation went to university and have careers. And I can only see this trend continuing as gender pay and equality continues to even up in this country.

As others have said, would anyone really want their daughters who are in school now to not get good gcses, not go onto university or do an apprenticeship, or to get good qualifications but then do nothing with them?

Oh yawn wee wifey- don't try to turn this into a WOHM bashing thread. People have been discussing the economic issues intelligently without making value judgements about whether people choose to stay home or work

You prefer not to work- great, lovely for you, enjoy it without feeling the need to denigrate parents who do things differently. And there is no reputable evidence to suggest childcare is good or bad for children, so don't start that nonsense- you're in danger of looking like the type of person who can only enjoy having given up work if you can convince yourself that the children of working parents won't turn out as well as your kids . That says more about you than anyone else.
Let's not allow someone to derail the thread by just trying to slag off WOHP

Um, yes actually. It might be nice if the government said that sahp make a contribution to society actually. Because they do. His comments on budget day were inflammatory and did the opposite.

I am 'doing something' with my GCSE's, A levels and degree.
Education is about far more than exchanging skills in exchange for cash!
I want my daughters to get an education because it broadens your mind, not so they can earn a 6 figure salary and see their kids for an hour or two a day. And I'd hope that they have the choice to be a sahm if that's what they want. Because, with a few rare exceptions, it's women who want to be sahm's in the early years. Pregnancy, maternity leave and breastfeeding probably play biggest part in this, rather than some patriarchal coverup to control and oppress women. Believe it or not, some women are sahm's through choice, not by accident.

I'm baffled how a SAHP makes any more of a contribution to society than anyone else. Yes of course if you use your free time to help out in the community or whatever. But staying at home does not in itself benefit anyone in society other than yourself and your family.

I am doing things with my qualifications though. Education is never wasted, whether you use it to generate money or not.

I am currently helping my ds through his GCSEs, something I would struggle with if I didn't have any qualifications.

Oh Janey, there's plenty of well researched, subjective, highly regarded research about children in daycare vs children at home, and you know it!
If anyone suggests that kids are just as happy and well cared for by a nursery key worker responsible for several other kids, than having the undivided attention of a parent at home, well then you would be wrong.

Who said they make more of a contribution?

Partridge- there is a difference between economic contribution and all the other kinds of contribution.
Millions of people contribute through raising well adjusted citizens, volunteering within their local community etc etc... Often these things are quite diffiicult to quantify. But these things aren't exclusive to SAHP - many people do them, whether they are working or not.
It's a bit like me saying that as a WOHM I feel aggrieved that David Cameron isn't congratulating me on bringing up two lovely children, being a govenor at the local school and generally being an all round 'good egg!'

Good points weewifey I think there is a backlash here and in Sweden. Because Sweden is not really a move forward if there is little choice. Why go from the 1950s where mothers had little choices but to stay home to a state where mothers have little choice but to work?

Wouldn't real progress be working less? Such as if both parents wanted to work, both doing 20 hours each and sharing childcare? Because a society based on two 40 hour incomes will always be unfair on lone parents for a start... If we base everything on dual income prices simply rise accordingly like they did with mortgages. Eventually we are no better off. If families could manage on 40 hours then they could choose who worked those hours between themselves. Those who see equality as simply both earning money can do so.

Society that devalues unpaid workers and the unemployed soon devalues those born with disabilities and the elderly and of course children (poorer ratios etc).

'Fair enough subsidise childcare for those who need to put bread and butter on the table, not those choosing to work to pay for privilage and luxuries.'

Also agree with the above (sorry not sure who the poster was).

Is weewifey still banging out the same old tune from two days ago?

You're beyond ridiculous woman.

Sorry - that wasn't helpful towards the debate. Which has been mostly intelligent and interesting so far.

Well you spoke the truth there wee wifey- there's plenty of SUBjective stuff out there!
Anyway, my children thrived in nursery, sorry to disappoint you!

My opinion is perfectly valid and plenty of others feel exactly the same way. If it makes you so mad, I would wonder why.

you lose the argument when you call someone a 'ridiculous woman' because they don't agree with you!