To wonder how it is affordable to be a SAHM?

[Moobieboobie]

This is not a WOHM vs SAHM debate but am genuinely curious ....... I am on mat leave with DC2 and keep being asked if I am returning to work. I would love to stay at home this time round but sadly this is not a possibility as both myself and DH earn roughly the same thus my salary is 50% of the household costs. We would not receive any benefits etc as we would still be above the threshold even without my salary. If there is someway around this please let me know as I will try anything!!

Fluffy - nursery near us not far from Chelsea is £92 a day ( plus £6.50 if you need it 7.30am-8am)

our workplace nurseries are 177 a week and it is fully tax deductible, so that brings it down to 140 a week. That's not nothing, but it isn't 100 a day. I can't remember what the sibling discounts are.

mamalino the mother has to return to work before her maternity leave is up ie before a year has passed. The father can take his leave from 26 weeks until the baby is 1 year old.

However I can't see what could stop a woman from handing in their notice during the later stages of mat leave once her partner was already off. Obviously you would piss your employer off!

My DH took APL and I wish more would. It didn't damage his career. We need to fight attitudes like Greengrow displays, women who want a career and children take time out and we need more men to to even the playing field.

I am very pro working women.. Why is it a bad attitude to like your work and find it more interesting than staying at home doing the domestic chores? Most men and women share my views. If more women did then women would not be in such a mess inthis country. We need more pro Greengrow views not fewer.

It's not a bad attitude to enjoy your work. I think though that if we want a constructive and sisterly discussion then it is only polite to tone down the comments about earning megabucks, as if this is the only valid way to be.

Just a small point, because I don't want to meddle up this interesting discussion. Where I am from, and where my parents still live, nurseries are heavily subsidised by the state and it costs around £7 A DAY to send a child to a nursery. Including all meals, and all nurseries have to follow a specific curriculum, similar to the EYFS in the UK. The state aims to provide a nursery place for every child, I think from the age of 1. There are also private nurseries running alongside the state ones. The system has faults, it's not perfect, but over there most parents go back to work. The debate we are having here is over and done with, as most women will continue working after having a family. Since this system is in place (about 20 years I think) the workplace has changed dramatically, and there has been many changes to the culture of the province, of the number of women in senior managerial positions, etc. I don't think it would be feasible here, because of many factors including the number of people and children in the UK, or if there's a political or cultural will to do this, but families are hit very hard by the cost of childcare and this is having repercussion the country's economy, not just on the debate sham vs wohm.

Is that Canada Rocketjam? I used to work in a company where we had an office in Montreal and I remember my colleagues describing their system as similar to that. They were horrified about the cost of childcare in the UK. The colleague I spoke to most often took lengthy paternity leave when his wife when back to work, it sounded as though that was much more the norm.

There is a limit to how much someone will pay a middle-aged woman for a creative career, sometimes you do just have to retrain as a book-keeper...

Hmmm

I've just gone back to a creative career. A middle aged woman. The jobs are there although they are not paid at the stellar rates that so many mumsnetters think is the norm.

I think the key for me was that I took a full time position and accepted that I will have to work 9-5 including the school holidays.

I enjoy it. I'm more tired, the house is messier, the children have to take more responsibility fur themselves but I enjoy the challenge of working on projects and the organisation I work for is very interesting.

If you want to go back to work don't feel you are washed up or too old or useless - because it's not so

Depends what you think is creative. I would argue accountancy, being an actuary, performing surgery - all these things are hugely creative. I do loads of music, sing every day have perfect pitch etc which is of course creative but no less so than practising my profession or writing my books.

Best to pick creativity which pays a small fortune. I recommend it to all. Don't be the muggins on the minimum wage who chose work they must have known in their teens when they picked it would leave them on the breadline when there are so many other choices they or at the least your daughters (unless having a mother who is a housewife of course results in practice as most children are influenced by what mothers do not what we say, means they will also be such).

There is a limit to how much someone will pay a middle-aged woman for a creative career, sometimes you do just have to retrain as a book-keeper... made me laugh (having spent years book-keeping rather than taking in laundry).

Almost as much as the OP This is not a WOHM vs SAHM debate but am genuinely curious.

Curiosity assuaged OP? Really, truly? Bwaahyeahbabehaha.

There are two high flying women in my team. One has returned after ML and her husband has given up work. The other openly admits trying to juggle school/nursery/work/sickness nearly destroyed her. It's a bloody nightmare working for them both because they disappear off at 6 to get home for bedtime, then come back online at 9 or 10 so you end up picking up work from them then and having to stay ridiculously late.

Genuinely amused at this idea floating about that those on minimum wage jobs somehow "chose" that path. It really isn't that simple.

A lot of people find themselves in less than desirable jobs and on very poor salaries because of unfortunate situations.

float especially as I am a chartered accountant and get a bit tired of being patronised by some of my posher "creative" friends who couldn't possibly sully their lily white hands with anything so sordid yes, unaccountably, can't find jobs.....

Greengrow, you spout such rubbish sometimes.
There have been lots of threads on here talking about how daughters weren't influenced to do the same as their mothers, from both sah/woh camps.
It seemed to depend on the quality of their life whether they followed or not and other factors such as living with more choices.

My dd has announced at 10 what she is going to do and ironically it is the complete opposite of me and she isn't mature enough yet to understand that the profession she wishes to enter will mean making exactly the same decision as I had to make, she already knows what she is doing, her choices are already different to mine.

As for creative professions they don't all earn a handsome wage.

We accountants are very much dissuaded from being creative. Tends to lead to grey areas.

Joking aside, and not meaning any disrespect to those who have been lucky enough to earn enough following their dream...

I did a lot of music when young and I toyed with the idea of a performing career. I then thought I could be an accountant in an opera house or something. But when I qualified and looked around I found I couldn't pay the rent that way.

Some of the very confident and wealthy kids at oxford with me (remember we are talking about the early 1980s before all the access efforts) went off to be violin dealers, Persian carpet dealers, do a bit of singing, etc. In those cases it was underpinned by daddy paying rent and very soon by a rich boyfriend. I do of course know a lot of ppl who have had careers singing or performing and teaching who are not like that, they are properly and endearingly hard up. But they also get by as a family with someone else doing a more mundane job which pays the rent. And I know a lot of lovely creative fun women who say, "well of course I have no earning power at all" and see no way forward from that. In some cases the family is broke and they are very frustrated,

I thought this was a generation thing, because I was told that a creative career was now much more of an option, with the rise of the Internet, film, etc. I thought that ppl doing A levels in art and humanities degrees would find higher paid work. But it doesn't seem to be happening yet to DC's cohort. They are all out there, but doing non-graduate jobs, or in some cases not really finding a proper job at all. Whereas the kids who did science and maths are on the whole not doing non-graduate jobs. And the very musical kids are out there trying for performing careers with not much of a backup in terms of saleable skills.

Which slightly worries me about girls a level choices because I think you can follow a pleasant route at school and Uni doing what you enjoy, and then find that as a mother it is hard to identify a smart career option, which allows you to earn well in minimum time and minimum commute while spending whatever time you want with your kids.

I sort of think that anyone who might to work part time and/or have time as a SAHM should seriously consider doing A level maths and other sought after subjects to protect their future earning power....

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes yes it is! It's only for the province of Quebec it's not throughout Canada. But there are what, 7 million people in Quebec, and taxes are much higher, I can't see it working in the UK! I was trying to point out that sometimes a political choice will have a very wide social impact, and that a more 'left' decision has consequently increased the economic power of the province by enabling families to maintain a higher income whilst having a family.

Ah, we never discussed taxes! Only childcare. It is always interesting talking to people from other countries about the different systems.

I have a bit of a dilemma about the whole 'you should study maths/science' thing. What if you hate maths and science? What if the idea of studying them at A level then university then spending 45 years working in a related field makes you just dread the future? Is that really all that we should be encouraging girls to aim for? It all seems a bit depressing.

I'm also intrigued as to how society will function in Greengrows ideal world. If everyone is out earning mega bucks, as it is apparently their duty to do, who does the unglamorous stuff? Who does the admin work? Who does the childcare? Who empties the bins? Where are the nurses if everyone is a doctor? Where are the GPs if anyone who is a doctor should really be aiming to be a surgeon?

"There is a limit to how much someone will pay a middle-aged woman for a creative career, sometimes you do just have to retrain as a book-keeper..."

classic

wheres the book keeper classes then

I see that if you really haven't got a talent or interest in science / maths that might all be a bit depressing. However, as a scientist who loves maths, I can't help feeling that so many more people could love them if they just tried them, but people are put off because the perception is that they are hard. I personally would have found art and music impossible though so maybe I'm biased. But most of the scientists I know aren't super intelligent boffins, just normal degree educated people.

I do think though that science and technology are going to play an ever increasing role in our society - the internet and film industry as previously mentioned for example is all underpinned by scientists, mathematicians and engineers and yet relatively few people (especially women) see it as a potential career. When I chose my degree course 30 years ago (chemistry) there was a definite perception that a science or maths degree could take you into a larger range of careers than an arts one, I would still think that is likely to be the case.

One of the best things about the UK university system is that it doesn't matter very much what subject you study at university (medicine being the main exception) You don't have to do accountancy to do be an accountant: most didn't and I didn't do Maths beyond GCSE level and I have an arts degree. You certainly don't have to do law to be a lawyer.

That's true, littelbear I did languages and then trained as an accountant. But I am thinking I suppose of the kids who don't make that switch. I don't especially want to believe this, you understand. It's just been more than slightly depressing watching DCs cohort and seeing how the bright creative girls have started to run into the sand because they haven't made the switch. Even that classic, teaching. Two kids trained as teachers in our cohort, one offering maths, the other RE or classics. You can have one guess which one has got a job.

I don't want to move this into the usual working and stay at home mother bun fight.

I do think in life there are choices and too many people just seem to go with the flow. of course if you're born with an IQ of 80 you're not going to be a leading female surgeon - I am not saying back luck (if indeed that is bad luck) does not happen. However there are plenty of teenage girls who make things happen rather than decide they will never amount to much and pick low paid work. It was not by chance I got the best A levels in the school. It was absolutely hours of very very hard work when other people were out at parties and drinking. It was not by accident I picked a higher paid career (law) than I might have done given my talent for music - it was because I looked as a teenager int he library at books about what people earn and decided what kind of life I wanted. It was not by accident I won a scholarship to university. Instead I wrote to 10 universities to ask them about scholarships and how to sit and forced my school to let me sit hours of special papers. Etc etc It was not by accident I always worked full it and earn reasonable amounts - it is because I chose that as a feminist and because it was best for the family. It was not by accident I won university prizes - it was because of hours of work there when others were out getting drunk and worse. It was not by accident I am in London where I can earn a lot more than the NE - I chose to move hundreds of miles away from all family support and had my children where I would not even get a night's babysitting a year from parents. All choices. Not the choices everyone will make but certainly choices.

Yes bad luck befalls us all but we can to an extent influence our life choices. I want women particularly teenage girls making life choices they are stuck with for life in most cases to make informed choices and realise their potential whether that be to sit in a yurt praying for 50 years, to stay at home with children for decades or run BP.

ssd to give you a serious answer, there are tons of them, online, distance learning or at your local FE college