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?..

Partridge - how in what way would you like to be valued though? Not being funny, honestly asking.

Would you like to be valued with a statement of appreciation from the politicians? A monetary reward? How?

Sorry Partridge

Just read your 2nd post

I just don't think either side is going to get the other. Just to restate my view. I am a sahm as part of a family decision about how to manage our time and money. I don't feel the need to outline how hard it is because I enjoy it and have chosen it. We will soon have absolutely no government assistance. Quite right. We earn enough through the career luck and work put in to fund ourselves. Anyone who doesn't really ought to get government help. Hence the idea that tax relief on childcare for those who need two salaries to pay even basic living costs is a step in the right direction. But why should anyone who is financially able to cover childcare costs and is living well, either now or for future financial advantage, get government assistance? I do think that in amongst the people who are working because they absolutely need to, there are others who are confusing needs with preference and choices. And there I draw the line at the government giving tax breaks. It's like giving a medal to those who have two wohp which in my book is actually saying that two wohp is better than one. And the frustrating thing is that this government can make this statement at no cost because the plan isn't going to be enacted for two years. Thank you very much.

Wasn't the Big Society all about everyone contributing to society?

Most SAHP I know go into schools to help with reading, sit on parents committees at Surestarts and playgroups, do breast feeding peer support and man enquiries lines for charities. They don't expect payment, but it's a kick in the teeth to be branded as lazy.

Maybe I should start a new thread because its a different question I'm adding now...

But SAHPs. If you want valuation/recognition but not financially - what exactly is it that you want ????

Who's branded SAHPs as lazy?

'Work hard and get on' - surely if you're a SAHP with a partner that can support you and your DCs - you are 'working hard and getting on' anyway

How are you being branded lazy?

Molehillmountain- I sort of half agree and half not! I think we do 'get' eachothers viewpoints- it's just that people genuinely disagree over this issue. I take your point that there are some families where mum and dad both work and can afford all the childcare and commuting costs easily. BUT first, I reckon such families are very few and far between. Families with two really high earners are rare- and as has been stated they must work their backsides off juggling everything and frankly pay in far more than the small amount they 'get back' in tax breaks. The vast majority of dual earning families aren't like that. They might be nurses, teachers, retail managers... Decent money but by no means rolling in it. These families are hit hard by nursery fees and commuting, and I think it's absolutely right that there is some financial recognition of the fact that both parents are economically active, even though the huge costs of working could act as a disincentive.

And these fictional families where mum and dad each earn £149000 ... Well frankly, we're all benefiting from the tax they pay and the employment they generate. It's easy to snipe about them- but it would actually be worse for the economy if one of them decided to jack it in and sit at home!

MolehillMountain.

I totally agree with your last post. I objected either this post or last to somebody who was saying that working was gaining no money when childcare was paid, but expected subsidising so the family could move to a better catchment area for dc schools.
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.
I mean that for all people/ benefits.
There are people living below the breadline who are receiving cuts, and others wanting a luxury lifestyle subsidised.

I think the Tories are tying themselves in knots. They've done so much to devalue people who don't work in paid roles that they've forgotten it clashes with their want to 'conserve' the 'traditional' familial set up of the mother staying at home.

The context of working hard and getting on in this instance was about people going out to work. The rhetoric used has a subtext - politicians aren't naive enough to miss this. The subtext is that if you aren't working hard and getting on you are not as valuable as those who do.

It is disingenuous to pretend that both sides of the woh and sah debate aren't highly emotive. They are stereotyped negatively both ways - I happen to be a sahm so this is my experience and all I can legislate for.

Someone PLEASE answer me

If you don't work, but are supported by yourself or a partner; what exactly is this 'value' that you want from the government?

In what form do you want this 'value'??

Butmorethan I think you are concentrating only on what people get from working and forgetting that they are giving to society in the form of services they provide.
They dont rock up at work ,sit there and then go home- they are benefitting ALL of us in providing education,care,services we all rely on.

Cat I agree-the question of stating SAHM are lazy keeps coming up - Where has anyone actually said this ??

I thought the "work hard and get on " was in reference to the anomally that many people were better off staying on benefits than actually working.
People who wanted to work but due the childcare costs couldnt.
Where did this refer to SAHP ??

The idea that sahp = lazy is in the subtext. It's in the idea that high earners are entitled to financial top ups, even though they don't need them, because what they do is valuable, but sahp don't because what they do isn't. I think that non sahp perhaps don't notice the subtext because it isn't aimed at them. Sahp are maybe more sensitive to the implied criticism.

I'd like 'value' from the govt in the form of a transferable tax allowance. What I do enables my dh to generate lots of tax, but now he is above the 40% tax threshold, the additional 10k earned by my dh is worth less than 10k earned by someone below the 40% threshold. So if he earned 10k less and I earned that 10K instead, it would be worth more to us in real terms. I think this is unfair and a negative judgement on the value of a sahp.

From the telegraph:

Asked whether the Prime Minister was “concerned” that the vouchers scheme was penalising stay-at-home mothers, his official spokesman simply said the measures were “very important as part of supporting those who want to work hard and to get on”. When asked if Mr Cameron believed that stay-at-home parents were less in need of state help than working parents, the spokesman would only say that the Prime Minister wanted to support “aspiration”.

I don't want financial value - I would like to be seen as a valuable and contributing member of society. I do work hard and get on. I look after 3 kids - the youngest 2 are not at school. I am vice-chair of the PTA, volunteer in the school library 2 days a week and take reading groups (bringing the youngest 2 with me as i have no childcare) and volunteer on a parenting helpline one night a week.

I would like to think that this adds value to Cameron's Big Society. I do not do it entirely altruistically - I am adding skills to my cv and gaining confidence for an attempt to return to work when the kids need me less and we don't have to pay for child care (which we can't afford).

Janey68-I think half agree is where I'm at really! It's all very complicated really but if I look around my group of friends I see some who'd get help with childcare where I think it's eminently fair and others not. Even if I were working I'd feel it unfair that we got help. That's why, and I was working when it came out, I felt the child benefit being means tested was actually fair. Ouch - but when I looked at where we'd be without it it left us with plenty that others still couldn't afford, it seemed fair ish. And we are in a position where we bought our first house when things were rising but not ridiculous. We could so easily be struggling to pay a bigfer mortgage for less house and needing two salaries to pay for it. It's those families I feel are trapped at the moment. To get a reasonable, slightly above bread on the table, roof over head lifestyle that people could afford at their salary level Pre housing boom/credit crunch, they are only just breaking even on two salaries. The government ought to help. It's a clear unfairness and disincentive to get on. But others in our circle are just unable to see things as choices. Both of them have to work. I'd much rather they rolled on the floor laughing at us for our financial folly than were blind to choice. Our dearest friends have an income three times ours (bit of a fairly well informed guess) and are able to recognise this as a pleasant by product of choosing to work. I recognise having no salary now and reduced pension later as the costs of our family deviding that i wouldnt. It works. I respect it. They laughed at the idea of childcare help with their nanny. Of course they'll take it. We took child benefit and maternity pay. My dad draws a state pension. You'd be some kind of fool not to take money that's offered. It doesn't make it right.

Karma- I think this is something people fully 'get' but just don't agree on.
To many people, the principle of taxing people as individuals is highly important on many levels.

Put this into the wider historical context.

One thing that's cropped up on this thread is people thinking the govt are undermining the traditional family set up: dad earning, mum staying home. I think what the govt IS unashamedly doing is recognising that this is the 21st century and women are just as capable of having the same earnng power as men. (and equally men are just as capable of nurturing)
Yes, they are 'rewarding' (for want of a better word) Family A: two parents who both earn decent, similar incomes, more than Family B: where father earns the equivalent of Family A and mother earns nothing. It's not that we don't understand that- it's that many of us don't have a problem with it. First, because Family A are generating work because they'll be using a nursery or child minder, and also have all the costs which go along with that, whereas Family B dont need to pay for childcare. But another, broader reason is that this reflects societal changes about family set ups, and equality between the sexes.

Those of you who, like me, have a daughter and a son. Hand on heart, do you honestly look at your dd and assume that she won't be capable of earning as much as man? Do you assume her role in life will be to support a mans career? And do you look at your son and assume that he will have to have a high flying career to support a wife at home? Because I don't. I think the expectation that women can earn equally to men is great. Who honestly wants to hark back to the days when it was just assumed that women wouldn't have such opportunities

As I keep saying, this is by no means anti SAHM because if you want to be at home and your partner is happy to support you then that's up to you. But it doesn't mean that you cease to be an individual for the purposes of tax allowances. You are a separate person from your partner.

No gaelic, tax credits are a benefit because they beat no relation to the tax actually paid. So many cases where the tax credits actually exceed the amount of tax paid by the household. Therefore the name "tax credit" is a misnomer. Childcare vouchers, on the other hand, are a direct offset in the tax payment calculation itself.

If I'm a separate person to my dh for tax purposes, then why am I losing child benefit (that's claimed in my name), on the basis of his income?

I have sons and a daughter. I do assume that she will be capable of earning as much as her brothers, but in wanting a level playing field in an 'ability to earn' sense, that also translates to her not being discriminated against or viewed as 'less' if she chooses to sah with her kids.

I really dont understand how anyone can think not getting something you dont need is penalising them.

OK so Im being penalised as well then !
I dont need childcare because my Dc are too old and at the time DH and I worked flexibly but how dare they give something I dont need to someone else [ hmm]
Except I dont need childcare...

On the question of volunteering - lots of WOHP do it too. I did help with swimming and reading at school and I help an elderly neighbour .
The value is there ,in the actual act of helping others .

Sorry - this was replying to Karma

Well if you want an honest answer karma, I don't believe child benefit should ever have been 'attached' to the mother and not the father...yet again it's part of that historical discrimination which assumed that mothers didn't earn and fathers were the 'inferior' parent

In an ideal world, it would be great if child benefit could continue to be a universal benefit, but the country is in economic crisis and tough decisions have to be made. If you are at home, with a husband earning over the threshold for CB, then yes, you'll feel a bit pissed off that you're losing it. . If you're a mum and dad both working and each earning just under the threshold and therefore keeping CB, you'll be looking at it from the perspective of paying shed loads of childcare and other work costs.
So I can see why people are going to feel disgruntled due to their own personal perspective. But given that cuts need to be made, many other people will feel its right to support working parents

I m not upset about not getting something I don't need, I'm upset that there are plenty who feel because they pay taxes they are entitled to something back, whilst those who are genuinely in need of a little extra help simply don't get it.

I wish the government supported aspirational families, of whatever shape or size. And as for not seeing why families are penalised by not getting something they don't need-that applies equally to families receiving tax breaks on childcare when they are also able to afford an above basic (plus a bit) lifestyle.

Why do social trends always operate on a pendulum style basis? Thirty or so years ago, wohp (unfortunately usually the mother) were not seen as the best option. Rightly, the pendulum swung. I think it's kind of in the middle now, or getting there, but the government's vague (but pointed) notion of tax incentives for aspiration is pushing it the other way. So off we go on another swing until families who choose to have one at home are off norm and criticised. Great. Hope my daughters are strong minded individuals able to make their own minds up.

Janey68, I agreed with everything you said apart from "partner supports you". What a 1950s attitude.
Money earned by dh (I am SAHM ATM) is paid into our bank account
He doesn't "support" me. What does that mean?
I think he would say I support him and the kids rather than the other way round. With dh's hours, work pressure and travel it would be a nightmare for him and the kids if I was WOHM.