Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To ask why you go to work

481 replies

IamthepermedowlofVeronica · 10/04/2016 22:10

Try to be brief but thorough....
Due back from 1 years maternity at the beginning of June. Hate job, don't want to go back. Have had offer of temporary ad hoc work between June and start of summer hols.
Wondered how much job seekers is whilst I apply and interview over summer hols. Did the online calculator tangy: If I work current hours and pay childcare I would earn £6 less than if I signed on job seekers.
So why should I go to work (no career, just a money earning job) and how does signing on work? Has anyone found it detrimental to confidence etc?
Hopefully I'll get another cash earning job in September or,something when ds will be 15 months

OP posts:
SirChenjin · 12/04/2016 15:41

Where are you getting this 11 year old thing from? And leaving that to one side, 11 years is temporary in a working life that now spans around 47 years.

roundaboutthetown · 12/04/2016 15:46

You can get away with leaving them home alone for a few hours after school once they are 11?
State schools provide free childcare, even if that isn't their primary purpose. And I thought everyone was entitled to a few free hours of childcare a week once their child is three? And there are all sorts of tax breaks on nannies, etc, aren't there? Aren't these all ways in which other taxpayers help subsidise other peoples' children, even if they don't have children of their own and regardless of personal income? Aren't these all benefits?

roundaboutthetown · 12/04/2016 15:49

It's all a matter of opinion how much parents and children should be supported by the state. The only immoral position, imo, is for society to turn its collective back on the weak, vulnerable, young and old.

SirChenjin · 12/04/2016 15:50

Do you mean early years education? And state schools absolutely do not provide childcare.

What you are describing is an education system that tax pays for - not a benefit. Unless you mean something which benefits society as a result of people working, of course.

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 15:51

I have 4, no family and a DH who works away a lot. By childcare, do you mean after school clubs and the like? My boys go to breakfast club (dd is in nursery) and then have clubs after school. These finish 4.15/4.30 then they pop along to after school club until about 5. Eldest is at senior school across the road and does a club 2 days a week and HW in the library 2days a wk.

roundaboutthetown · 12/04/2016 15:52

A convenient by product of your child being at school all day is that someone else is in loco parentis.

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 15:52

Surely you mean 6yrs from 5-11?

roundaboutthetown · 12/04/2016 15:53

In what way is an education not a benefit?

SirChenjin · 12/04/2016 15:55

That's not childcare - that's an education system. You do understand the difference - and why it isn't a benefit?

Kennington · 12/04/2016 15:55

I enjoy working. I like the freedom having the money provides me.
I like my child to see what working involves.
I like my dd to attend nursery.
However I would not be so keen if I didn't have a great nursery, a support husband and grandparents on both sides - these make working much easier. Plus I have an 'easy' relatively speaking, child.

SmarterThanTheAverageBear16 · 12/04/2016 15:55

Tories are planning for subsidising childcare for those earning up to very high wages

Funny. Yes, the tories, famous for giving free stuff to parents, are going to subsidise childcare for all!
As fucking if!

SirChenjin · 12/04/2016 15:56

In what way is education a benefit in the same way as JSA etc?

SmarterThanTheAverageBear16 · 12/04/2016 15:56

In what way is an education not a benefit?

Seems like you didn't get quite enough education if you think your children going to school is the same thing as being on benefits.
And go tell a pack of teachers that they are in childcare, see how well that goes!

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 15:57

The fact that by 5, children are in school should make childcare costs even more affordable and viewed as temporary.

And the 15 free hours is only term time so when you pro rata it, it's nominal compared to what we pay for nursery. It certainly doesn't make a difference. 30hrs from 3 would be more beneficial to middle income couples than extending the 15hours to 2yr olds.

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 15:59

State education is not a benefit. Just because the state pays for something does not make it part of the welfare system.

I don't even use the state system but I still think this is ridiculous.

NewLife4Me · 12/04/2016 16:04

SirChenjin

I wouldn't have wanted any of ours walking home from school without an adult and being home alone after school before they were 11. hence childcare required until 11.
In our case we would have had to have paid for this, if my hours had come into this as couldn't rely on dh due to his work.
There is no way I would have made any money and I wasn't prepared to work for nothing, or indeed for work to actually cost us financially.
We are all different and have different sets of circumstances, hence I don't buy into this belief that we all need to work.

Lndnmummy · 12/04/2016 16:05

I work (or have a career) because it simply has never occured to me not to.

PerspicaciaTick · 12/04/2016 16:07

State education is general characterised as being a benefit to the whole state/community rather than an individual or family. That's why it is called a Public Good.

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 16:11

They can go to after school clubs though. Almost every school offers this these days.

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 16:11

And after school clubs are normally very reasonably priced.

PerspicaciaTick · 12/04/2016 16:14

Our school has no after school club. It is served by no childminders. The after school club based at another school does do pick ups and drop offs but places on the minibus are limited and the waiting list is very long.
So no options for paid childcare and my elderly parents aren't up to helping out on more than an emergency basis.

MiniMover · 12/04/2016 16:17

It's what you look for when choosing a school though, isn't it? Or if buying a house served by only one school you check it out before buying the house?

SmarterThanTheAverageBear16 · 12/04/2016 16:17

We are all different and have different sets of circumstances, hence I don't buy into this belief that we all need to work

We don't all need to work, nobody said we did. We do however have to support ourselves and our children as much as possible, and not purposefully set out to have children wholly dependent on other peoples money.

It's a pretty widely held middle of the road view, I think you'll find. Make whatever choices suit your family that you can afford to make. And when things go wrong, rely on the welfare system which is intended to be a safety net.
But setting out to milk the system for all you can get, choosing to have children you can't afford, and choosing a life on benefits purely because you don't want to work...thats not in the spirit of things. It's antisocial and unfair, and will help to bring down that welfare state, playing into the hands of those who want to reduce benefits because they can point to you and say: look, feckless folks who won't work. Hurts everyone in the end.

SirChenjin · 12/04/2016 16:18

I agree New, and if one parent working provides a choice for the other parent and provides a good (or reasonable, if that suits you) income/pension level then fine - however, this thread isn't about WOHP v SAHP, and that's what I'm posting about.

PerspicaciaTick · 12/04/2016 16:23

When my DD started attending the school (and Ds was 6 months old so I was on maternity leave) it had it's own breakfast and after school clubs, it was served by at least two child minders who did walking buses and two other after school clubs based in the area.
All these options have now closed except for one after school club. We move house or change schools - all for a job I haven't actually got yet and which will pay NMW so probably not financially sensible.
The zero hours contracts I am currently doing allow me to work during school hours. I enjoy it. The money is a nice extra. But at around £35 a week it isn't really enough to make major lifestyle changes on.