To think that it's ok to want to bring up your children and to be a mother, just as it's ok to go out to work instead?

[bronya]

I was brought up to 'have a career' and to think about work not babies. I admit I'd be bored doing nothing, and love the tutoring that I do - but I have no wish at ALL to be the main wage earner and leave the childcare to someone else. When my DS was born, it felt like I was complete. I'm happier, have more self esteem and confidence than I've ever had. I've met many other mums who feel similarly. Surely, our choice is just as valid as those who are WOHM? The point of feminism was that we should have that choice - whichever one we choose is our decision, surely?

Again, I don't think she has been saying me, me,me ,I, I, I

She is saying SAHPs

Off to bed now so this is going to be a much more effective flounce

Flounce, flounce, flounce

Just before I go (Christ I'm crap at this )

I don't necessarily agree with retro but I think she is being picked on a little

Definitely going now

I'm off too Rufus,got to produce a bun in my dd's hair tomorrow morning.Will end up in a cat fight if I don't get a good nights sleep.

Happy latte supping!

Actually, permanentlyexhausted- I've got a little niggle
I don't like having lost CB. I'd prefer to have kept it.
However, I'm not going to moan over it and I certainly wouldn't expect to get it if I decided to give up work or reduce my hours!

I'm also off to bed as I need to leave for work at 7am tomorrow.

Janey I am getting a little sick and tired of your continual obsession and picking to pieces of my life- it is bullying.

If you want to belittle sahp as a whole for being pissed off with treated unfairly then have the balls to do it to the group as a whole instead of snidely picking at my life.

Nobody is interested in my life but the group as a whole.

Oh and if you are going to examine my life in detail I suggest you do it properly.I have never reduced hours as I didn't have hours to reduce.My clients didn't want to pay for school holidays and were part timers so my pay what it was and no different to many other working parents on the same scale.

I gave up work as my kids wanted their house back,my mindees were starting school and due to my dc getting older it was a good time to regroup and start focusing on the next step as regards work.I haven't been working for a year(but I have been very busy).I have no idea why you feel the exact minutiae of my life needs to be examined in detail,scrutinised and ripped to shreds.People,families and circumstances differ hugely so really it adds nothing to any discussion and simply bores the maj of readers shatless.

The fact remains it is unfair that families on 50-60k are penalised and classed as wealthy whereas those on a lot more get CB and will be getting other universal benefits and childcare help on top.The lack of consistency and fairness indicates a slap on the wrists from gov to go with their anti sahp rhetoric.

I will highlight this and I expect to be able to do so without bullying and hounding over every detail of my life.It is boring for other posters and completely derails threads.

retro - you keep looking at people who benefit from the current changes and complaining 'how unfair?'

DP & I, who will hopefully have children, will never get £1 of CB - so we were worse affected by the CB changes than you - who benefitted from CB for many years.

do I have a problem with the change? no.

Well when you have experienced having kids and a sahp you may feel differently.

As I say no problem with one cut off point for household income being seen as wealthy and all benefits and help being treated the same.

No other UB is treated like this and it's a pain to sort out.It's well recorded what the many negs are and how much it is costing to administer.

My dp is having to fill out forms and meddle with his tax for a benefit he never claimed.

All because they want to make a point.

but that approach costs too much to administer.

and do you want the govt to spend billions on a new IT system that does even not work?

for what its worth I think HH income would be best - but the govt's systems are in a state and there is no magic fix for that problem.

personally if we are inventing fantasy govt IT systems, I would like corporation tax rate to vary depending on how many people you employ and how many of them you pay over a level that lifts the average HH out of the need for benefits.

so if you make a large profit but employ few people, you pay a higher rate of tax than if to make the same profit but employ more people. also if you pay 90% of your employees over an agreed salary, you pay less tax than if only 10% of your employees earn that sum.

but that is just fantasy! and its not going to happen. so I get over it. a bit like the whole CB thing.

Life isn't fair. And this isn't about fairness anyway, is it? It's about not getting what you think other people are getting, whilst not wanting to do what they do to get it.

Fair would be every single person working exactly the same number of hours for exactly the same pay. Any takers?

Universal CB should never have been removed, but enough people thought it 'wasn't fair' that people wealthier than them got it that the Government got away with it. Be very careful about crying 'snot fair, Retro - you are playing right into their politics of envy hands.

I still don't understand why SAHP are treated 'unfairly'.

Why does a SAHP need their childcare paid? They are their own childcare - is that not part of the point of SAHP?

Working parents will not be 'getting their childcare paid', they will be getting a tax break so that they are getting it slightly cheaper - they will still be paying x amount of thousands out to the childcare provider that the SAHP isn't in the first place.

I have no problem with the principal of the welfare system, I am glad that I live in a country which provides a safety net for those who need it - this includes those out of work/single mums low income households etc etc.

As a mother who 'worked for free' for around 3 years as nearly all my wages went on childcare (and no I didn't get tax credits etc either), I am still interested to know why I am apparently in a more favourable position than someone who made the choice to be a SAHP.

Why have they been treated unfairly? Whilst I was working for no financial recompense they were at home with their children - what was unfair? I was in the same financial position as a SAHP - we were living on one wage, but neither of us were at home as we were out working - surely this means that the SAHP had it better than me??

(FWIW I'm not 'whining' I made my choices and stand by them, I have no regret re working for free as it paid the dividends I expected it to in the end)

Not interested in your life retro and its not bullying. The fact is you are the SAHP who continually whines about life being unfair despite your partner earning enough that you don't qualify for CB. Most SAHP seem happier with their decision.

And please stop telling me that I don't agree with SAHP as a choice because you know darn well I think it's a totally valid choice. I guess it's more convenient for your to think otherwise though!

I don't know the exact figures because I do not earn enough to be affected, and neither does my husband but using the eg that Sovery gave:

1 x wage earner on £60K loses cb
2 x wage earners each on £40K therefore £80K total keeps cb

The glaring difference between the 2 scenarios still has to be that the 1 wage family has a parent at home.

That's a parent at home who presumably runs the household and sorts out the children and all other aspects of being at home.

I would expect that for a couple to earn that sort of money they would have to be doing the sort of job that requires longer hours and higher levels of responsibility than people of a similar wage to me (ie too high for tax credits etc but not high enough to be affected by loss of cb) and as such they will probably outsource more of the house stuff (ironing/cleaning/childcare etc etc).

Again, these are the roles that as a SAHP I would expect to fulfil myself - why would I outsource when I am there to do it??

I am genuinely bemused whenever these threads go into SAHP being treated unfairly as I just can't see it, and no-body ever actually answers it.

I think SAHP and working parents are both equally valid choices and begrudge neither, as sovery said, if a benefit was being given to working parents and not SAHP then that would be wrong - but it isn't, so I just don't get what is 'unfair'.

You know, this debate is totally redundant in countries where benefits are not an option, and being a sahm is not a choice taken lightly, as two salaries are necessary to pay for life.

I think many foreigners especially just cant get their heads around this whole thing, and shake their heads at how feminism is involved in issues that is more to do with the state spoiling people for choice...

If you did not live in a country with a strong welfare state (despite all the moans and complaints benefits are "ruined") awarding benefits to people, and salary levels so variable that in some families one person may earn the same as two people, this debate would not take place.

There are places in the world where feminism still is about women's right to work and get paid a decent and equal salary, and not about women's right to not work.

There are also places on this planet, where the difference in salaries regardless of your level is relatively small and where senior managers make 40k (and is satisfied) and pay 40% tax, necessitating both parents to work to be able to receive the salary of ONE high earning person in the uk.

Feminism here is about right to work and right to an equal salary. Not making feminism out to be a choice to not work.

Retro, I'd just like to say aswell that the reason I was asking you these questions last night was because it just happened to be you that was the SAHP on the thread - I was in no way trying to make it about you personally, and I never intended it to come across as a personal thing. If it did I apologise.

For some personal perspective from my point of view, I was in the forces when I had my children - I had to make a choice to leave and be a SAHP, or stay in and go back after 4 months maternity leave. It was very difficult and I made the decision to go back to work, not without a huge dollop of guilt because my job also involves me going away for long periods of time. I had to make that stark choice - there was no option to leave the role and rejoin after a period of SAHP, I would have had to rejoin at the bottom rung again and restart a 22 year career path, which I wasn't prepared to do.

However, after lots of soul searching I made the choice to go back and now that my children are a bit older and childcare is not such a crippling factor I am seeing the outcomes of my choice - I have an option to leave in 3 years that will give me a large payout and immediate pension and provide me with security for the rest of my life, we actually see my wage now, so we can afford to do all the things we wouldn't have if I'd left.

I am lucky to have had that choice, too. It was only in the early 90s that the rules changed in the forces to allow you to stay in as a mother - until that point you were sacked as soon as you were pregnant.

I would never undermine anyone's choices - to SAHP or work, the choice is tough for all and there will always be elements of wishful thinking for all of us. I do not think my way was 'better' than anyone elses, far from it - I have been envious of SAHPs many times over the early years especially, but I made my choice and made it work the best I could, and I am proud of what I have achieved.

It has always been a genuine question when I ask about 'unfairness', because I only have my own experience to base it all on - and this has still not been answered, so I am still in the dark.

Sorry for such a long ramble, I just wanted to give you an idea of where I am coming from when I ask questions.

I think the mistake retro makes with the unfairness bit is just to mention SAHP

Let's pretend I work nearly full time in a minumum wage job and get about 10k, my husband earns 60k and we lose CB, fair, enough

My neighbours both work full time on 50k each and get to keep their CB

They earn 30k more in their household and get a government 'handout'

I am more than aware of the following

Everyone is different and that's probably quite an unusual example

Fairness is a very abstract term!

Basing it on one income is absolutely and completely the cheapest, easiest most convenient way to do it

However it does seem unfair to a lot of people, my friends husband left her and she is struggling financially even though she works full time....that's unfair, a friend of mine is unable to find a full time job and is struggling financially....that's unfair, my mum died at 54 and never really knew any of her grandchildren....that is really fucking unfair.

retro is saying that the system is unfair

Disclaimer - I am a SAHM because back in the day it suited my family, I do not care if you work or not. I know you don't care whether I work or not. I may have made the biggest mistake of my life....but I have loved every minute of it so who cares!!!

Monica don't worry it wasn't you.My mother was a forces wife who had to give up work so hats off to you,being a forces wife is hard.

Re the unfairness it boils own to what is classed as wealthy and not wealthy.

A sahp is doing a job of childcare,it has a financial outlay.

You can not say you are taking one thing away because a family is wealthy and the country isn't wealthy enough to support wealthy families and then let others on more keep it alongside yet more help and UB. Are they not wealthy then?If so neither are the families on a lot less.

It is not fair.

Also families want choice,many will want and need a sahp which is only temporary and a valid,valuable choice.Such families could do with access to childcare for retraining,getting back in the workplace(before I'm lambasted by a certain poster I personally don't but I know many who do).

If we're going to fund and support the childcare and lifestyle choices of some,others should get some degree of support too.

Took me so long to type that I didn't see monica

That's what I felt last night, that's very good of you to say that

Rufus you sum it up well.