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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be a SAHM/Housewife with children at school?

999 replies

Pinkbutton85 · 29/05/2019 08:32

I've been a SAHM for the last 6 years. My youngest will be starting school in September and I'm unsure of what to do next. Financially, I don't need to work at present. Would you still be a SAHM if you didn't 'have' to be?

OP posts:
Hollowvictory · 29/05/2019 15:28

Make sure your dh is paying into your pension as well as his own though

G5000 · 29/05/2019 15:30

I'm reading this and thinking how sad it is that many (almost exclusively) women see no other option than to give up work because they can't afford childcare and/or job offers no flexibility. Yes, of course there are more and less flexible jobs, but on many cases, employers could do a lot so people can have both.

I work for a large company where I can work from home when I want to. Nobody bats an eyelid if someone stands up and declares they are going to leave early to pick up kids, or brings DC to the office for an hour or two - just as likely to happen with men. It would never happen that you are not allowed to stay home with a sick child. If you work late, the MD tells you to go home, as it's the family that matters. Unsurprisingly, employee retention rates are through the roof. Oh and the company also makes a ton of money.

I don't see why so many places nowadays are still so unflexible and don't even want to acknowledge that their employees are people, not robots.

formerbabe · 29/05/2019 15:33

Funny how sahms are criticised for being financially dependent on someone else. How many working mums are dependent on others providing them with free childcare?

RussianSpamBot · 29/05/2019 15:36

Very true G5000. There are some jobs that have to be done in a set location and specific hours, of course there are, but there are workplaces that could offer more flexibility but just don't want to. This is detrimental to us all. It has a societal impact. It isn't just about more highly skilled roles either, there's been an explosion in the demand for flexibility from employers in low paid sectors like retail over the past 10-15 years. It seems rarer now to have set days and hours than it used to be, and that inevitably excludes some people from the labour market. Yet it wasn't always so.

DH and I have both been able to carry on working since having children, which was important to us, but had we been in a position where only inflexible work was available, I think probably one of us would've ended up dropping out. That wouldn't have benefitted the people who utilise our skills or the economy.

Hollowvictory · 29/05/2019 15:37

I don't know any parents (why did you say mums? Do dad's not need childcare? ) who get free childcare. However I think most people who go to uni tend not to go back and live near their parents? They just pay for childcare instead?

ssd · 29/05/2019 15:39

SAHMs are criticised for everything on here. God forbid you want to raise your kid yourself and take a hit financially and career wise. You are the lowest of the low then. Yet what could be better for the kid than knowing a parent is at home after school or in the long school holidays. But wanting to do that is dismissed by so many other mums.

formerbabe · 29/05/2019 15:40

I don't know any parents (why did you say mums? Do dad's not need childcare? ) who get free childcare. However I think most people who go to uni tend not to go back and live near their parents? They just pay for childcare instead

Really?! My dcs school is full of grandparents doing the school run. Other people I know whose parents live further away often send their DC to then for a week during school holidays.

RomanyQueen1 · 29/05/2019 15:40

Unfortunately, I know just as many wohp who were financially screwed when their spouse left them. Whether that meant having to sell the family home and having something much smaller, not being able to afford all the luxuries they had when married with joint income, having to pay for childcare etc.

RussianSpamBot · 29/05/2019 15:40

Funny how sahms are criticised for being financially dependent on someone else. How many working mums are dependent on others providing them with free childcare?

Let's include working dads in that too. Care of children isn't solely the responsibility of the mother.

But otherwise I agree: the fact is that few of us with multiple children young enough to require childcare could cover all the costs of maintaining the family plus childcare solely on our incomes. We've heard a lot about how the clearly fictional OP is relying on her husband to financially support her and how she needs to bring money in, less so about the economic value of the wraparound and holiday childcare she will provide if she continues to SAH.

Pa1oma · 29/05/2019 15:41

Thinking about this, most of the long-term SAHMs I know (which I wouid estimate as about half of the women in this area), are in this position because -

a) they are trailing spouses / non-British
b) they were SAHM when the kids were little, but, during this time, the DH’s career took off massively or he made muti-millions or something, so they find themselves in a position where any money they could earn would be barely noticeable anyway in terms of the family finances - eg. £50k is a good salary but some DHs make or lose multiples of this via investments or on the City Index every day, so if you are in this situation, might well wonder what is the point in working 40 hours a week for that, when I could be with my kids instead and make more impact there.

Hollowvictory · 29/05/2019 15:41

No, nobody. Parents are far away, ill or dead. Or in our case a combination of all 3!

ssd · 29/05/2019 15:41

And I said mum's as dad's usually don't get their knickers in a twist about this stuff, they either go out to work or stay home, they don't seem to have the angst we do or the superiority complex.

Hollowvictory · 29/05/2019 15:42

Yes I agree if your dp earns millions there's no point work. But that's only a couple of people I know.

ssd · 29/05/2019 15:43

I don't know anyone who didn't have free childcare in some capacity. Except us!

Pa1oma · 29/05/2019 15:44

Also, what about the SAHMs who are married to men who could easily retire or take time off if they wanted to and just live off investments, yet they choose not to for whatever reason.

RussianSpamBot · 29/05/2019 15:45

Whether dads spend any time focusing on it or not, when there is free childcare being utilised, it pertains to them every bit as much as it does the childs mother.

mbosnz · 29/05/2019 15:46

I don't know anyone who didn't have free childcare in some capacity. Except us!

And us!

MarshaBradyo · 29/05/2019 15:49

I’ve never had free childcare

Pa1oma · 29/05/2019 15:49

I don’t know anybody who had free childcare as most people round here were not born here nor do they have family nearby, or even in the same country.

RomanyQueen1 · 29/05/2019 15:50

And us, we lived too far from family and friends.
When we finally moved back near family family were too old to help out and needed us to help them.

LaurieMarlow · 29/05/2019 15:53

I’ve never had free childcare either. Only know a handful of people who do.

notso · 29/05/2019 15:55

I don't know any parents (why did you say mums? Do dad's not need childcare? ) who get free childcare. However I think most people who go to uni tend not to go back and live near their parents? They just pay for childcare instead

I don't know many full time working parents who solely use paid childcare. Some work around each other, loads use Grandparents and other family members.
In my parents circle of friends several couples travel miles each week to look after grandchildren in different towns and cities and I have friends who's parents have relocated to assist with childcare.
As a SAHM I'm the 'go-to' for working friends and family who have sick kids/are working late/run out of annual leave etc

ssd · 29/05/2019 15:57

Although, going by a lot of the posts on here, free childcare often comes with strings attached.

Ifyouknowyouknow · 29/05/2019 15:58

I plan to, we can drop our hires services as I’ll have time to clean, garden, iron myself at my own pace. I enjoyed my time prior to children reading, writing, shopping. Organising the home, Spa, travel planning.

Pa1oma · 29/05/2019 16:00

You could be in a situation where you have no family around and your DH is a permanently on-the-edge, extremely hyper, workaholic type (and you can’t really do much to change men like that, unless you want them to have a total breakdown). There are pros and cons to this. The pros are the lack of money worries. The cons are that you can’t plan around him or expect much input. Combined with the fact any money you make wouldn’t even be noticeable, you might do what you think is best to give your kids a more balanced life - ie SAH. I know so many women in this scenario. They’re not low IQ. They’re not lazy. They’re just making decisions in a particular context which, unless you’ve been in that situation, may be hard to understand for some.