Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask how much your OH makes so you can be a SAHP?

382 replies

justasliver · 16/01/2017 17:58

Curious. How much does your DH (or DW!) make in order for you to stay at home and not be skint at the end of the month? I don't know how couples do it!

OP posts:
Whatabloodyidiot1 · 17/01/2017 14:27

Agree luciana, much of the criticism I field about being a sahm is from women, not men.

PostTruthEra · 17/01/2017 14:31

Icy I don't care if your DH has kids. You still have no experience of being a parent yourself.

Do you think that the only people who should do childcare are those who are paid for it?

PyongyangKipperbang · 17/01/2017 14:32

Reminds me of Lucy Worsley saying that she had been educated out of having children, as if the rest of us are too stupid to stay childless....

Whatabloodyidiot1 · 17/01/2017 14:35

I thought education was the way out of ignorance, not in Icy's case....never read such ignorant tripe. You don't have a clue icy, it's like asking a fork lift truck driver for a cancer diagnosis....

icy121 · 17/01/2017 14:39

tiger I wouldn't bother making that point, you'll be told to have a "reality check".

Chocolateandwineplease27 · 17/01/2017 14:52

So having step children means you've no experience of being a parent?! Just wow.

icy121 · 17/01/2017 14:54

"Icy I don't care if your DH has kids. You still have no experience of being a parent yourself." As a fully involved step mum I beg to differ and have 7 years of experience of parenting, right down to dropping at school, wiping arses, picking nits and buying starter sanitary packs. Enough to know that a domestic life isn't my ultimate ambition. But step-parenting counts for shit in your view. I suppose you're also of the belief that if you don't give birth to them they're not your kids and you couldn't possibly love them as much as a "real" parent loves their "real" child. Nice.

Lots of defensiveness about not working however. I personally think it's a waste of talent and ability and I do not ever want to not earn my own money, be dependant on anyone, and am keen to achieve professional goals. Others think it's a lovely ambition. What's the problem?

Lots of women worldwide have absolutely no choice about having to live a fully domestic life... and lot of them hope that their daughters won't have to do the same.

FlyingElbows · 17/01/2017 14:54

ALL the criticism I have received about being a sahm has come from other women. It cut me to the core the day a woman I considered a good friend told me I was a "parasite". It's always women who drive women down.

ShesAStar · 17/01/2017 15:03

You are only wasting your life if you are doing something that doesn't fulfil you. Fulfilment for some us a good career generating money, respect etc. Obviously for others it's raising their family and being available to their DC. You cannot argue which is more valid, it's like arguing if the colour blue is better than green. Or my mummy is better than your mummy! Wink

drivinmecrazy · 17/01/2017 15:07

Have only skimmed over the thread so forgive me of I am repeating others but...
DH earns about £65k, Im a SAHM.
It's tough for several reasons. If DH had been earning that when our DDs were babies it would have been heaven. But he wasn't, more like 30k when they were babies. But we still made a conscious decision that I would be at home
With them. That was 16 years ago.
Now my girls don't need me in the same way, but obviously need money for other things (uni, school trips etc) I am desperate to get a job. Guess what?? Despure being a marketing executive, dealing with government agencies and defence deals across the world, I am unemployable! !
Do I regret it? Not a single feckin minute!!
If you want to stay at home, do it. Just don't do what I did which was to wait until my youngest started secondary to decide I might want to work again.
Having said that I have no regrets, though DH often laments that if I had continued working we both might be retired now.
point is Do what makes you happy.

icy121 · 17/01/2017 15:07

The men don't care.... they are probably happy to limit the talent pool and keep the best jobs to themselves! The amount of times I've seen really excellent women drop out of work having had kids and see very mediocre men step up to the really decent high paying and powerful roles is ridiculous. Of course the most ironic thing is the most senior jobs can be the most flexible as well - no one to answer to if you need to WFH, split shift or whatever to make it work. But women won't get to those jobs if they don't take part... 'Lean In' etc.

RogueStar01 · 17/01/2017 15:10

i quite agree she, yes, as long as you are happy with your own choices, that's all I want for my daughters,

HorseyHorseyTwat · 17/01/2017 15:11

Tbf to icy, she's having a baby with a man who split with the mother of his pre-school children and was in a new relationship by the time they were 2 and 4.

I wouldn't want to risk being financially dependent on him either.

Dagnabit · 17/01/2017 15:14

I was raised by my step mum from the age of 3 and she most definitely was a parent. That being said, Icy, you're still coming across as an arse.

RogueStar01 · 17/01/2017 15:16

also, there's one critical way step parenting is usually different from other types of parenting - it's part-time. Presumably icy the DC spend some time at their DM's, it's not the day in day out relentless affair that my parenting experience has been. yes horsey, in a relationship and introduced and looking after the kids already. icy I hope you manage to smash the glass ceiling and be a lovely mum as that's what you want out of your life, I hope you don't find that it just involves too many shabby compromises in your DC's lives.

NickyEds · 17/01/2017 15:16

icy, how will you feel about the people who take care of your child all day whilst you work? Will you show the same distain for them that you do about people who chose to SAH with their own dc?

PostTruthEra · 17/01/2017 15:18

I apologise, for my comment about step parents. I'm adopted Icy, of course I don't have that view that you have to be biologically related. It's just if your step kids have a Mum, you're not a replacement.

I fully support your decision to work. My own mum worked so hard throughout my childhood and I'm proud of her for it. She's also really proud of the fact I'm going to be a SAHP, just as she'd be proud of me going to work. It's not a waste of talents - I'm smart and can turn my hand to most things. I think I'll be good as a SAHP. I want to provide one to one educational activities to my children and do lots of fun stuff with them.

Lots of families thrive using childcare. I am not judging that. I just want to see my child take their first steps and teach them about the world. As a well educated person, I think I'm better placed to do that than some of the childcare providers I viewed.

You haven't answered my point about who should do childcare? Should it just be a role for the lesser educated?

corythatwas · 17/01/2017 15:23

To use the vernacular, being financially dependent is pig fucking ignorant.

Ah, that's where I went wrong! Giving birth to a disabled and chronically ill child who needed a parent at home for long periods because she was unable to attend school/childcare was due to my pig fucking ignorance. Well, it's nice to know that icy will never be at risk of the same fate, because she is, in her own words, "over educated". Might we know what shape this all-protecting education takes? A PhD and excellent reviews in major academic journals didn't do it for me.

One thing, though- though I am now back at work and loving it, I never felt those years at home fighting for dd was in any way a waste of my talent or abilities. Those were tested to the limit and I can only hope they didn't let me down. I don't expect anything in my academic career to test my ingenuity, resourcefulness, verbal ability or sheer bloodymindedness in the way that fighting for treatment for dd did.

ThroneofJudgypants · 17/01/2017 15:26

42k plus bonus. We couldn't live on less but we live in an expensive area.

PyongyangKipperbang · 17/01/2017 15:33

I know Cory! Those pesky disabled kids selfishly needing care! Had I known that all I needed was to be "over educated" in order to prevent brain damage in DS I would have worked much harder at school.

Some people......

Purplebluebird · 17/01/2017 15:38

My other half earns £18,500 :( I am only SAHM because I'm too ill to work, but hoping I will get better soon. Also childcare in SE England is so expensive that it would basically eat up my entire wage (my other half already spends most of his pay on rent, bills and petrol, so childcare would be for me). I have a University degree that I'd love to use, and hopefully I can work soon!

Niklepic · 17/01/2017 15:55

Icy I used to have a job, I had 2 children in childcare and both of us worked full time. I actually earned more than DH. That changed the day ds was diagnosed. My priorities changed.

I now care for DS full time and i really don't feel like my life is lacking in any way, despite the fact that being a sahm was never something i ever saw myself doing pre-children. He's going to be with us such a small amount of time, I'm fucked if I'm wasting it sat in an office. If that means I'm beholden to dh financially then that's something I'm really ok with.

RosyGold · 17/01/2017 15:58

About £25 to £27k depending on bonuses...we're pretty skint, always run out of money towards the end of the month but unfortunately what I'd earn if working would cover childcare costs and leave pretty much nothing left over - so being a SAHM works in our family. My man likes me being at home looking after our 1 year old daughter and so do I - hoping to get some sort of work around school hours when she's old enough, although I know those types of hours are hard to come by!

corythatwas · 17/01/2017 16:11

the way this society is structured- and increasingly so- is that there are a very limited number of jobs which pay extremely well, whereas the majority of jobs do not

it is further a fact that society could not function for very long without those lesser-paying tasks being performed

the rising costs of childcare mean that a sizeable number of people may find it financially more viable for the least well paid parent to stay at home

so icy and enormoustiger, given your very laudable concern for the position of women in society (and one I share), what precisely is your answer:

that low paid jobs should only be performed by men?

that low paid jobs should only be performed by the childless (who presumably can afford to carry on working)?

that childcare should be subsidised for the low-paid to enable them to further their careers?

that low paid jobs should be scrapped altogether and nobody do them?

Kenworthington · 17/01/2017 16:18

I've been a sahm for several years, dh is on about £80k BUT I am going to work part time from next week as two dc started private school in sept . It won't help out much but it's something.