to think dual person 'full time' worker family households should never have become the norm?

[workingdilemma]

Was thinking about the other thread talking about tax credits etc.

Around 40 years ago, as a society we'd reached a point where one person working in a household was enough to support a young family.

Now we've ended up where it's pretty much required to have both working full time to be able to afford the same lifestyle - mainly due to the insane 'cost' of housing.

It would have been far better to have had both people in a couple working perhaps part time to allow engagement with the world of work, and also a healthier work/life balance.

Why did we end up like this? Was it all an orchestrated plan to keep the debt cycle going - after all, you can lend on two incomes now for a mortgage. Lovely jubbly for the debt pushers. Is that why the banks and governments encourage this?

I dunno, but I do yearn for a better way to deal with the problems we're having now then everyone demonising each other.

I don't know any old people buying buy-to-lets.

You could always take them with you working.

Oh yeah - hadn't occurred to me.

Yeah, let's sell everything up, move them and us to the new place. We'll suck up the relocation costs, and deal with the hassle. Then I'll look for a job in an industry centered around where I live, whilst my partner does the same. We'll move the kids to a new school - they'll find new friends. I'll join a knitting class and meet like minded folk.

Yeah - simple. Whilst I'm at it, I'll be sure to tell my sibling to do the same thing. No trouble at all. I'm sure all four of us working parents will have no problem at all with all this, whilst looking after the kids + parents - easy.

Millions of other families in not dissimilar situations can also do the same. What's wrong with us eh?

I don't know any old people buying buy-to-lets.

I don't know of any who aren't.

Hey, I'm just trying to think of solutions, not problems. But, if you're not interested in my very sound advice that's entirely your prerogative.

Sorry your rent is so shitty high.

No - I'm sorry for the facetious post. But really - there are no easy solutions for the vast majority of young families the south east, which is why I find it so frustrating that as a society we've gone about chasing all the wrong things IMHO.

It's one massive catch-22.

I remember my parents rent was 25s per week. That would have been about 1960 and £1-25p in new money

Rates and water were ridiculously cheap. You are probably talking about £2 per week for everything.

There was no child allowance for an only child. Dad only bought second hand cars and never ever bought anything on hire purchase.

He always saved up first and then tried to negotiate a bit of a cash discount!

I don't agree that two salaried households have always been the norm though. I am of Welsh mining stock. Neither of my grandmothers worked; it would have been considered quite shameful and a slur on my Granfathers' abilities as providers. My mother only ever worked little pin money jobs, school dinner lady and the like.

I am not trying to be goady here, or get into a SAHM vs WOHM debate, but one of the saddest things I have ever read on here was a thread with people saying it was pointless being at home with babies and small children because anyone could feed them and change nappies and kids don't develope a personality until they are six or seven. It made me think that there must be a whole strata of people who see so little of their young children that they hardly know them. That is so awful.

However you work it still seems to me that women either do all the worrying about childcare, running the house and home while a sahm or do exactly the same as working FT away from the home.

I know absolutely no couple who truly and absolutely share all the child/home/cleaning/cooking and juggling issues fifty fifty even when both work.

It's still hard for women.

My dad would have loved the Internet :-(

*Dad only bought second hand cars and never ever bought anything on hire purchase.

He always saved up first and then tried to negotiate a bit of a cash discount!*

That's all we've ever done too - I've never had a loan in my life, for anything. If prices were normal the stinking great pile of cash we have would buy a decent house too.

If interest rates were normal we'd actually get a real return on it too.

Bloody credit - everyone else taking it has stuffed us savers.

My maternal grandmother worked bloody hard in menial roles because despite her intelligence, everything was stacked against her in her education (she was expected to work at 14 to support younger siblings / brothers staying in education); her opportunity (male colleagues paid more for same work, certain jobs not open to her); and her flexibility (always her who had to deal with kids, no childcare).

Meanwhile they couldn't buy a property because even though gran worked her arse off, her income didn't count. GF did but he earned less, because frankly, she was the brains of the operation and had a higher work ethic. (DGF was a good and diligent man BTW, this is no reflection on him).

DM and DGM both raised me to 'never rely on a man'. Thankfully these days I don't have to, so while it's not ideal, I would much, much rather live in a world where I can make an economic contribution and it counts.

Hard as it may be for those who make a different choice, why shouldn't I be able to buy a house rather than the titchy flat we'd have on DP's income only? I work for it. From a risk perspective, two good earners (which is our situation) is surely in some ways less risky than one great earner and a non-earner?

I don't know where this romantic idea comes from that men went out to work and women stayed at home and all was lovely. When my grandma was having her four kids they all lived in one room with a kitchen. My mum slept in a cupboard with her siblings and my grandma worked hard. until they got a council house. she always worked though. Her ssister had lots of kids (catholic marriage) and my grandma gave her money and food all the ttime as there were no benefits etc. Even the poorest people I know now live in luxury compared to the late fifties/sixties UN the north.

Sorry for typos - rubbish phone

Why is full time five days a week? Why aren't we working four day weeks now?

Rather presumptious to think I haven't bought the veg and a few chicken breasts from the store down the road, and chopped it and fried it up in a couple of minutes. I'm pretty sure my grand parents did the same in their day, and it didn't take them 10 hours to do it then either.

I'm pretty sure your grandparents didn't - chickens were almost always sold whole, and buying just breast would have been prohibitively expensive. Chicken was for Sundays in those days.

Surely they couldn't have fried them in a few minutes either. What kind of stove would your grandparents have had?

Recently speaking to my gm who is almost 80 about schools etc as we'd been going through a school appeal for ds.

She told me that she was considered "top of the class" and was put forward for an examination for a prestigious school at 13. She wrote her name on the paper but then didn't write a thing. She knew she was needed to earn money at 14, rather than be at school ( with an expensive uniform, other expense )

She's never told anyone else in her whole life and it made me feel really sad that she did this
She ended up working for the civil service in later years and is now financially stable, also due to buying a house very cheap via right to buy your council house.

It was certainly the norm in our family for women to work, my dm has worked since I was in primary school (I was born in 1978) but my dmil has never worked as dfil has a business and they don't need the money.

Funny though that she's often on at me to find a "better job" never having worked a day in her life:)

The thing is, I think that without shit hot childcare, with two parents working full time (especially as most job these days expect you to put way more than the 9-5 hours of the past in), the people that come bottom of the pile are the children.

Every family I know with more than one child under the age of 12 where both parents work in full on, full time jobs, have extremely hands on grandparents for school pick ups, sick days etc, or a nanny, where the parents can be confident their children are in a comfortable, consistent loving environment when they get home from school, childminder etc.

I work part time in a low paying job, (as most women I know do, rather than full time SAHM) as as a family, we cannot juggle and afford the various cobbled together childcare that would be needed for us both to work in full on jobs. My kids would have very little consistency, and we have no back up if kids are off sick etc.

I think my children benefit from having one of us available to them most of the time, and it is far less stressful for us all than two have two of us working full time.

If we could go back to the days where you weren't expected to be at your desk still at 7pm having been there since 8am that morning, and would be home with your family by 5.30/6pm, then actually it would be easier to have two full time working parents.

The only way I could work in a similar level job to my husband would be to have a full time live in nanny, which we have neither the space or would be able to afford anyway.

So back to one of us working in a 'lesser' job it is. Or we both work in less full-on, full time jobs which allow us to share pick ups from childcare, take equal time off when the children are ill, and both of our careers and earning power take a hit.

We are a one low wage household topped up with tax credits, we have a very affordable mortgage and we bought this place in the boom.. but it was a fixer upper and we negotiated on price and have done all the work ourselves over the last couple of years. DH works part time and I don't work at all, I'm at uni so have student loans/grants coming in though.

We didn't want any of the DC to have to go into childcare so we have always had one or the other at home, usually me, though when I am at uni DH is home far more than I am. Our roles are pretty genderless tbh, traditionally speaking.

DH used to earn lots more than he does now, but he was never home. When I became ill a few years ago and he had to quit his job to look after me and the DC we realised with tax credits we would be on the same income on a part time wage, its not morally right but my family's happiness is higher on my agenda - so sod it :)

I know lots of 'one income' / 'two part time' households, equally spilt between owners and renters - but I live in the midlands (which feels like the land of milk and honey compared to living in the south east with those house prices!)

Good to wake up to a couple more chicken posts.

Morning Working. Do, if a 'hypothetical' south east family has a £100k deposit, and can get a house for £300k, that's a massive 33% deposit. At that LTV a mortgage of £200k would costs £867 a month. Much lower than £1500 rent.

So why are you stuck renting?

Because i morally disagree with the housing market as it is. I don't want to take on a huge loan, and i dont want to bail out some swine who bought it years ago for pennies

Also the house we are in would cost more than 500k on the open market. Rents don't really reflect the price at the moment. A place that costs 300k is 1200 to rent, a place costing 600k 1500 p/m.

Its cheaper to rent the thing then buy it at the moment. Thats a sub 3% 'yield' they are making.

So leave my personal situation out of it - not to worry about me. I woke up quite happy. Worry about the millions of families entering into this nightmare.

So what's this post all about then? Because as evidenced by lots of posters, there was no single salary utopia 40 years ago. And you are living in a rented accommodation that has you moaning about your high rent just because basically you think you deserve a house better than you an afford to buy.

Ok - seeing as this keeps getting serailed by comparisons to the past - rephrase.

Considering the advances in technology over the last 50 years, why have we ended up still spending so much of our time at work vs family life? Yes for some work defines them - but why is it that for those who don't, we're forced to keep up the pace just to maintain a basic standard of living.

Can we move on from feminism and chicken?