to think this is a depressing headline: Childcare costs and the luxury of working mums

[toots111]

This is Mumsnet's 'Blog of the Day' today: www.mummysays.net/2015/02/19/childcare-costs-luxury-working-mums/

I'm frustrated that the challenges that working parents face is often just positioned as an issue for mothers. And not fathers. Surely, if a child has two parents, the issue of paying for childcare if they both want to work is a joint issue, and not a mum's issue. It also reinforces the expectation that women earn less than men (and it's pin money not real money) whereas in my experience pretty much all my female friends earn more than their male partners.

This is not a SAHM / WOHM thread, just a rant about headlines that are unhelpful.

I think my close 2 or 3 friends had mothers who worked and juggled it is our peer group and also their other halves come from juggling households. My dp had a sahm and it was important for him and I to have the kids and childcare discussion up front. Because it's one thing to say I want to continue to work it is another thing for dp to step up in every sense.

Soverylucky - men already do have that right too! DH did when I went back to work after DC1, he shifted his day to start a little earlier and finished at 4pm to be back for pick up.

Unfortunately, after I had DC2, the nursery costs were higher than my wage. We do pool our income. I earned considerably less than DH, we could live easily on just his wage, we'd struggle on just mine, and we'd struggle with us both working as it would mean we had less coming in than if just DH worked.

As to why he earned so much more than me, I guess he was a lot more ambitious than me, managed to get into an area of work that was recruiting heavily in the late 90s, then in the early 00s when I graduated, wasn't so much about. Up until just before we had DC1, our salaries wheren't that massively different, but then he got promoted based on some additional qualifications he did in his spare time (spare time we had equally before DCs, he'd always pulled his weight round housework, having lived alone in a pristine place for years).

Interestingly, he picked a career where he can do more flexible hours than I did - but for both of us, it was completely accidental, I know very few men or woman who've thought about flexibility when deciding their career paths before thinking about having children.

What do you mean by 'it's one thing to say I want to continue work it is another thing for dp to step up in every sense'?

Why would that provision be for women only lucky?

I mean I saw my parents taking turns and help each other so they could both work and look after me. My dp has never seen this. In his office it's very old school vet senior men working long hours with sahw. Me saying I intend to work is an abstract concept the reality is we intend for him to work from home one day a week. Not accept every single overseas travel option. Ie a true partnership. And most importantly we have agreed to just one child and started to save and talk about involvement of family.

I think it is the muddling along and making up the rules that causes wohm to be a luxury. True partnership is hard.

I think we can take offence where no offence was intended.

DH and I earn similar, or did, he is now outearning, we can live on his wage, but there'd be no holidays or savings after the bills and obligations have been paid. I need to work otherwise I'd doss on the couch all day, and there would be no money for coffee/lunch with friends, gym fees etc...

I stayed home with the DC for a year each, and then returned to work. Thankfully I earn enough to cover the childcare. We need to look in general terms, it's generally the mum who stays at home, whether that's agreed in the family or not, is their business, and it's generally the mum who will then go back to work and find out the family can't afford it with the salary she would bring in.

It's all family money, we don't need to keep having the same argument about the dad paying half the fees, it's still coming out of the same household.

Last year we paid out US$16k in preschool, after school and summer camp. In the US we can claim back on our tax return a max of 6k, with tax rate at 20% we got a credit back of 1200. basically one months worth of care. Better than nothing.

I've also used childcare in Canada. In quebec, if you can get a subsidised place it's $150 a month. Not means tested. If you can't get a place, then you can claim back the cost based on your income, lower earners get the full subsidy and then staggered the higher you earn, but everyone gets something. I think we would get something like 26% back on the fees if we didn't have the subsidised place. In BC we paid $37 a day, no subsidy. Quebec had their system to increase the birth rate, along with enhanced mat pkge, it worked so well, they were considering dropping the enhanced mat pkge, but keeping the subsidised child care. Of course they all pay about 60% in taxes when all is said and done to pay for these programs.

... should add, so now I'm at work to help pay for future goals, but DH does all the school drop offs, I do pickups, he'll finish early now and then to come and watch kids at their activities, or take one to an appt.

He is pulling his weight in the home and financially, just as I am. But again, this is all down to family choice and agreement. If he wants me working, he needs to do his share.

Lurking, governments of all colours have tried to manipulate the masses. I read an article where provision of the pill as contraception in the 1960s was frowned upon by men - women were meant to just have children, stay at home and nurture the next generation. A few broke free and started what became known as womens lib! My own dad is 92 and always held this view. Nothing can convince him differently, and i have tried! ( he is old school and always will be.) times have moved on a lot, but not enough for a really even playing field.

Dh was earning his salary + mine two yrs after I became a sahm.
He wouldn't have had the same opportunities had he done 50% of the childcare.
My earning & promotional opportunities were already damaged by taking maternity breaks .

In my circle this is very common.
Our school has 220 pupils and one sahd.

whodrankmycoffee agreed, it becomes less of a 'female' issue if everyone is requesting flexible working, not just women, and actually I think it is equally bad for men who really want to drop the kids off or work 4 days a week to spend more time with them and are judged negatively for that. I think we need more senior men saying 'no, my family are important too and I am going to leave at 5 to see them' so it isn't seem as just something women do.

And I completely agree that sometimes it does make more sense for the mother to stop work if she doesn't earn as much as the father, but I don't think that is a female problem, it's a family decision.

Is the men earning more than women at the point of having children partly because often (obviously not always) the man is slightly older than the woman and therefore already has a few more years experience in the workplace etc?

The problem is that it is almost self selecting everyone who wanted a more flexible left the coming. Those happy with the status quo stayed.

As for earning potential agreed depends on the couple. I work in finance so good potential and this is true for my friends too. Whereas are partners are plateau-ing now. We are not the norm

Doingit in my circle there is the traditional age cap but the women are in the more lucrative industry

Can't type on my phone sorry

The age gap is than the men are three to ten years older than the women

Not necessarily Doing. There are a few reasons. In general women are laid 15% less than men. Also traditionally 'female' jobs tend to lay less than 'male' jobs. Research has also shown that because women anticipate having to give up work when they have kids they fend to hang back and not gl for promotion even before they have children. Women negotiate less for pay rises and when they do negotiate they tend to be seen as greedy. Successful and ambitious women are told they're aggressive in performance reviews.
It all adds up to the current situation.

paid 15% less

"Is the men earning more than women at the point of having children partly because often (obviously not always) the man is slightly older than the woman and therefore already has a few more years experience in the workplace etc?"

I'm pretty sure there's also a strong element of a)men going into areas that traditionally have higher salaries and b)men asking for/getting more raises and higher starting salaries, rather than it just being a matter of "more experience == more money". I discovered some years ago in a previous job that a female colleague and I were earning considerably less than two men who were in an almost identical role.

Ha, xpost with cailindana saying almost exactly the same thing.

One of dh's colleagues told him that he'd been held up as a role model of flexible working at a women's networking meeting (intended to help promote junior women into more senior roles). He laughed as his "flexible" working involves him leaving an hour early one day a week in order to collect the dc from the childminder. Whereas I dropped to 3 days, including 1 wfh & 1 early finish. He also (more than) makes the time up. His ever so slightly flexible accommodation barely makes a drop in the ocean of what is needed to enable 2 parents to work. He would love to drop to 4 days a week, or even 1 day wfh, but hasn't been in role long enough to request it yet & given that his employers & colleagues seem to think that one hour is beacon of flexible working, it seems unlikely they'll be racing to offer it when he can...

Research has also shown that because women anticipate having to give up work when they have kids they fend to hang back and not gl for promotion even before they have children.
Yes - that's what this networking meeting was meant to be addressing - telling young women not to throw the towel in yet - their dh's could share the childcare - maybe even as much as dh!

I am aware of lean in networking groups bring set up to help women to overcome some of these structural issues such as not asking for pay rises and going for promotions.
I am part of one but I find the discussions and just the knowledge other women are struggling too very helpful.

I have hope the cycle could be broken that those who want to continue working are not inadvertently being eased out by the pay differential.

Great minds blended!

Interested in this. I am (female) breadwinner, DP is SAHD. It works for a few reasons, not only financial.

I agree that the headline writers have it wrong often when reporting about issues with childcare and costs it is often phrased as a 'women's issue' and whilst that may be true that in terms of frequency - the cost of childcare vs salary calculation hits female employees/parents very much more often for all the reasons PP have stated.

HOWEVER the only way that is going to change is if families like ours, are included EQUALLY writing about childcare and family issues. Not because we are as common (far from it), but because society isn't going to miraculously change it's attitude to parents having equal responsibility for parenting (especially early years) until the rhetoric around 'motherhood' is re-branded as 'parenthood'. The media has a massive part to play in that, I think.