To give up work and become a SAHM?

[YouAreMySunshine9]

This is more of a 'what would you do' but I suppose I am posting here for trafficking Have name changed as the figures I give will out me.

First DC is due soonish and I'm thinking, after maternity leave, that I should give up my job because financially, it's not worth it and I want to SAH with DC as it'll have more benefits to it?

Myself and DH are both low earners. I earn just under £20K, he earns £21K.

We aren't entitled to anything with us both working, but, somehow top ups would make us better off if one of us didn't work?

I'm quite a poorly person, I have an autoimmunity disease so I have a feeling working just to pay childcare (if it even ends up covering that?) and missing out in DC's first for it will send me into despair.

My concern is... The whole career break thing. I would go back to work when DC is a few/3 years old but I'm not sure how it'd impact my job prospects. I work as a Medical Secretary in the NHS.

I would say work part time, but I'm not sure we'd get any help there either and it's a lot of huge effort just to fork out to pay for childcare.

What would you do?

I'm really worried

I would think that this dilemma affects most parents I'm working part time when I return my entire salary bar about £150 will go on childcare most likely so we will have to rely on husbands salary I wouldn't give up my job because in a few years time she will be at school and I'll want my career. The NHS are quite good with flexible working you may be worse if initially but in the long run when you get to three/four and they get free hours you'll be better off and prob will feel better for earning

Ironically, given her age she'll most likely actually be working to contribute towards some older poster's state pensions, as will her DH and possibly even her child.

Unlikely, given their earnings, unless they retrain or get promoted several times. On average individuals are net recipients from the tax system (i.e. not even covering their own costs) unless they earn in excess of £36k per year each, more if they have children.

For now.

Well stickerrocks in my opinion you have chosen to work full time, you have chosen to put your child in to full time childcare, in my opinion this isn't the optimum choice for any child.
You are paying childcare in all likelihood the consequence of which is that another person is working full time to care for your child and is possibly placing their own child in childcare.

It is madness that we accept living in such a society where extremely young children cannot have their needs met by either one of their parents for forty hours a week. That we think that this is beneficial, acceptable and normal.
That we denigrate people who choose not to buy in to this model and who are satisfied to subsist on one low income and state provision for a very limited period to care for their own child.

You don't have to work full time, nobody is forcing you to do so.
You don't have to pay your taxes. You choose to.
By all means place yourself in OPs position, have a proportion of my taxes whilst you do so.
You will still be getting them when you can claim your thirty free hours at the expense of the tax payer and it makes no difference to me either way.

In fact, apart from the NHS there is no way in which I would personally prefer my taxes to be spent than in facilitating parents to raise their babies/toddlers.

Nobody is asking anybody to fund the choice to be a SAHP in the long term, this is not beneficial and it doesn't make economic sense for either the individual, the family or the state.

Everybody should be afforded state support of a nominal amount, and make no mistake, tax credits truly are nominal when another adult in the household is working full time, in order to raise a baby.
Taxes should in my opinion be raised accordingly to effect this.

I worked seventy hour weeks when my DD was a baby so that she could be raised by her father and not be placed in childcare from babyhood. I don't deserve a medal and neither do you for making a different choice.

The OP deserves three years with her baby, she has the next forty odd years to pay her taxes and balance her indebtedness to the tax payer.

I see bugland

So to follow this through to its logical conclusion; nobody can complain about paying for others to be a sahp unless they themselves are net contributors.
By your definition that is earning 36K in the absence of dependents.

That's fine actually, what that does is negate the arguments of the parents on here who are opposed to supporting OP for the next three years unless they earn over say 42K and only have one child.
Otherwise you aren't contributing to her tax credits so your argument is built on a false premise

Thanks for pointing this out bugland

Incidentally though, OP was earning a salary of 22K at quite a young age and so far only has one imminent child.
It's really quite conceivable that both her and her partner or at least one of them will in fact become a net contributor.

Let's not fail in our eagerness to vilify her, the merits of her comparative youth and the very many years left until she is of state pensionable age.

If she is twenty two she could realistically have fifty years of work ahead of her, minus the three she's taking now to raise her child.

So forty five years in employment to double her salary. Not impossible by any means.

Apologies, OP currently earns circa £20 K.

Still perfectly possible that she may become a net contributor.

I wasn't earning anything like that at her age and I'm now a higher rate tax payer at thirty four.

What alabama said.

I'd take a year maternity then see how you feel. You might be able to do a career break after that with the NHS? That way you can get back in when you want to.

"you aren't contributing to her tax credits so your argument is built on a false premise"

Yes, I am, because I am a net contributor by quite some margin.

"It's really quite conceivable that both her and her partner or at least one of them will in fact become a net contributor."

Conceivable, yes. But as I said, unlikely, unless she retrains or gets several promotions. Given the attitude to work she has shown on this thread, personally I have my doubts.

I didn't infer that you weren't a net contributor, nor was I directly referring to you as I made rather clear.

I believe I specifically used the term 'they', rather than 'you'

I was directing my comments towards the contributors to this thread who aren't economic net contributors, which I kindly took the time to define for you as earning less than approximately 42K (conservative estimate) with only one child.
Obviously with two plus children such people would need to be earning exponentially more than this before they can lay claim to contributing towards the OP's as yet hypothetical tax credits.

I hope that's now clear to you.

And in any case I fundamentally disagree that OP will not become a net contributor.
After all, it's not difficult is it? She has forty five or so years to effect such change and she is very young.
Lucky her hey?

As I have stated previously, I for one would very much like to assist her to have the time to raise her baby as I fully believe that over her working life she will have the opportunity to repay the public coffers for nominally supporting her in this endeavour.

If there were a clear correlation between having a parent at home and better outcomes for children- e.g. They're more likely to get higher qualifications, better jobs, suffer less from physical and mental health issues etc then I've no doubt the govt would implement policies to chase women back into the home pronto.

Conversely, if there were a clear correlation between children who had childcare under the age of 3 and poor outcomes, e.g. If these children were more likely to become a drain on society when older through increased health issues, poor qualifications, unemployment, even criminal behaviours... again,I'm sure the govt would be chasing women out of the workplace. Make no mistake, it would be women not men!

As it is, there is no clear correlation. There is some evidence that the level of the mother's education and also family income is linked to better outcomes for the child. That's about it.

Anyone may have a 'hunch' that having a parent at home is better for one year, 3 years, 7 years or whatever, but that's all it is- a hunch. There are so many variables anyway... having a parent who interacts positively and provides an enriching environment is very different from the parent who sticks the child in a buggy while they sit and natter in a coffee shop or spend half the day on their phone.

Working parents have been around a long time, well before tax credits came along. Happy to report our children are now adults and are fine

I'm glad that your children fared well, I did too as it happens.

That's not to say that I and my parents wouldn't have fared better, especially mentally and emotionally if one of them could have stayed at home to raise me through baby and toddlerhood.

I feel it's a great shame that you don't sufficiently value the role of a loving parent raising their child full time to attribute greater benefit to it than placing a baby in childcare.

Children deserve to spend all of their time with their primary attachment figure, somebody who loves them.
I consider it disingenuous in the extreme for anybody to deny this.

There is scientific evidence that a stay at home mother benefits the child in the first three years of life because of the neural and cognitive developments which take place during this period.
A cursory glance through google scholar will avail you of this fact.
It's a fact which I'm going to take the liberty of extrapolating to fathers too, why not?

I fear that you are misguided at best and completely naive at worst in placing your trust in the present government's positive regard for the mental and emotional health of children and their parents.
Not if to do so proves economically detrimental and may lead them to have to raise taxes to facilitate stay at home parents until age three.

Sounds like you're saying it'd be better for you now, rather than your child!

There aren't any conclusive scientific studies- if there were you'd be able to link to them. There aren't any conclusive studies that childcare is better either. Therefore it makes sense for couples to make an informed decision based on what they can afford.

Oh and where are all these hordes of poor children who have now grown up and are riddled with angst because their parents worked?

Didn't you realise working parents have been around for yonks?

Babbity I actually did a research project for my criminology degree which showed, using spearmans correlation coefficient, that the adult children (16-24 range) of single working parents were more emotionally immature and most likely to be deviant than those from a home with one Wohp/sahp. I will admit It did also show that children from homes with both working parents were also less likely to be deviant but the most stable were the ones with a sahp. Happy to show my project if needed.

No it wouldn't be better for me as I am the main earner.

I would like it if my partner was afforded the opportunity to be a SAHD whilst our youngest is still a baby, not from a financial aspect as fortunately we are able to afford to pay family members to provide childcare. I would not place him with somebody who is not family, but this is my choice and one which I am fortunate to be able to make.

There are lots of studies which allude to the benefits of stay at home parents for the children studied and/or their siblings.
Of course there aren't conclusive studies as it is difficult to extrapolate findings to the population at large.
The fact remains that there is vast evidence to suggest that it is not optimal for under threes to be placed in a childcare setting when they have loving, engaged parents who would otherwise be caring for them.

I can't link on this old phone I'm surprised that I can access the internet tbh
But I've told you where to find the studies if you're interested, which I presume you are.

See, I'm not just interested in proving my point on this thread, my ego isn't sufficiently invested in scoring points from other posters on the platform that is mumsnet.

I have read extensively around this subject, I'm inviting you to do the same.

Nobody is suggesting that children placed in childcare from babyhood are riddled with angst, and to be honest there's really no need for you to be so facetious.
However those not cared for by a loving parent in their first three years were not in my opinion cared for optimally.
I suppose it largely depends upon how much this matters to you whether you consider supporting babies to be cared for by said parent by raising taxes to be a matter of importance.

I've said it before but I would rather my taxes were spent facilitating this than on anything else, bar the NHS.

I'm unsure why you asked whether I'm aware that there have always been working parents.

Perhaps you could explain this to me?
As the child of working parents, a fact which I made you aware of I find it a bit baffling.

Healthcare, education & adult social care are all massively underfunded. I would vote against any party which proposed a chunk of my income should fund SAHPs to spend 3 years with their children at the tax payers expense simply because they think it's a nice thing to do, rather than using taxes for merit goods and those in society which actually need support.

There is another similar thread running at the moment. You make the supposition that having a parent at home with a child is best for everyone. Sorry, it certainly wouldn't have been best for my family. If people want to be SAHPs, let them, but don't expect me to fund their lifestyle.

So you are a net contributor?

On what salary and with how many children would that be?

Can you please explain which bit of legislation allows you to "choose" to pay taxes?

Sorry, pressed the return a little too soon. As a partner in a Chartered Accountancy firm, I would love to know so I can tell my clients that tax is now entirely voluntary.

You choose to pay taxes when you choose to work through PAYE or self assessment I presume.

You're the expert though I would have thought.

Essentially I expect that you choose to earn money through employment/self employment in this country and you choose to accept the relevant taxation inherent in doing so.

Incidentally, if my taxes were voluntary I would continue to pay them in their entirety.
Do you expect that your clients would choose to do otherwise?

If people are capable of working, but they choose not to in order to be a SAHP for 3 years, they need to be able to fund their lifestyle. If they are not capable of funding it themself to such an extent that they need to rely on the state, they should reassess whether they can afford the luxury of being a SAHP. If they simply can't find a job which is cost effective, that's a different matter, but tax payers should not be funding a 3 year life style choice for middle class mummies under your proposal.
I doubt of many working fathers would voluntarily take 3 years out to raise a child, knowing that the impact on their career and earning potential would probably affect them for many years to come.

Legally plenty are allowed to do this and do. I don't blame people at all whether they are male or female. The rules are there. People can make the choices they want based on the rules.

I AM a net payer by a huge margin and have always worked full time. We have our best employment figures (but very low productivity - people are as lazy as sin at work these days apparently) for a long while in the UK so we may be reaching a point when the state would prefer more women to be back home again but we shall see. However lots of Labour and Tory voters who are parents do resent working full time when others make a lifestyle choice to work part time on the back of their taxes so I would not be surprised if we saw even more changes.

Missalabama the tax wouldn't just be to pay for the three years though, would it? Who would pay for all the professional women ( and it would be mostly women) who took time off for 3 years who are GP's, or doctors or teachers? Who would fill those gaps. There is a massive issue with having enough staff in the NHS and teaching as it is. They would all then have to be retrained at the expense of the State because, after at least 3 years out of their professions, their skills will be massively out of date. 50% of GP's are female. I would guess that about 80-90% of primary teachers are women, many of childbearing age. It's all very well saying all children should have a stay at home parent ( meaning mothers. I highly doubt men will be jumping at living on state benefits for 3 years and taking the subsequent career hit) when those SAHP's can't get a doctors appointment for a month, or their children are in classes of 40 because of a severe lack of teaching staff. Not to mention any of the other professionals who work in huge number of other sectors who would then be shoved to the back of the queue due to the cost of retraining. There would be more pressure on women to give up work because well, why not? The state is paying for you to have 3 years off. Don't you want the best for your children...?

I agree with every word River.