....to think that going on UC would be better than going back after maternity leave?

[TheDelorean81]

Long time lurker but this is my first post so please be nice to me :)

Basically I don’t know what to do. My little boy is two months old and I’ve starting to look at what will happen when I go back to work next spring. After costing up childcare in the area I’m in I’d basically be paying to go back! We’d lose my entire income from the family pot.

My partner works different shifts each week so finding a different job to work around his so we can share childcare is out of the question.

My question is this. Would I be unreasonable to go on Universal Credit for a year (ish) until the free childcare element kicks in and I can afford it? Or until my partner can find a better job to support us? Or until I can find a better job that works? My family and my partners family are all saying I should (they’re all very high earners and reckon I’m should make use some of their taxes....not sure what to say to that!), but I just feel that it’s not what benefits are there for?

But in the same vein I’m struggling to see another option.

Anyone else here with personal experience?

@strawberrieshortcake - what goods and services do you use/rely upon. How many of them are provided by the labour of working parents who 'have paid a stranger to care for their child'?

I think you should refuse all goods and services from anyone who has a child in paid for childcare to fully live your values.

GP has a child in childcare? Tough. Dentist? Tough, Supermarket assistant? No food for you! Lifesaving treatment by a surgeon? Better save up for that funeral...

And I do mean either parent - so the dad or mum, or the mum and mum, or the dad and dad, or the single parent.

If anyone provides any services to you who has a child in paid for childcare then the only honourable thing for you to do is refuse it,

Sorry I've tagged the wrong person @strawberrieshortcake!!! Eeek

I meant @inkysplatter - my miffed response above is for you. Grrr.

@Micah OP is working in a call centre on a low wage, she won't be able to retire before 66 with the type of pension contributions she will likely be making.

Not everyone will be able to progress in their place of work. Some jobs have limited opportunities. Even management jobs in the industry OP is in do not pay that much.

because as a household, they will not be any better off. Doesn't matter who is paying for the nursery if it wipes out a whole wage

So why is it always mums wage it wipes out?

If a man is married to a high earning female GP or lawyer why doesn’t the dad sah? In those cases the dad usually stays employed even though he earns less. Why?

Why is it always women with the minimum wage jobs?

If men are out earning women to this extent we have a real problem.

In my experience it's usually the lower earner who stays at home. There are a few women on here who out earn their husbands and the husbands stayed at home with the children.

The 'if you can't afford a child then keep your legs shut' argument is getting really boring.

Contraception failed with my partner of 6 years. As a late thirty-something with stage 3 endometriosis...I had never even dreamed I'd get pregnant naturally.

Were we hoping to wait for a better time financially? Yes. Were we about to destroy perhaps our only chance of conceiving a child naturally?! Of course not.

Truth is there is never a right time to have a child. Yes, I find myself in a sticky situation right now...but nothing is forever, and as I stare at my gorgeous little boy as he snoozes in the cot next to me....he's the best damn thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't change him or anything else for the world.

Staring at him....does make this all seem a pathetic really.

My UC application is complete. I start training on my course for my new career in two months time....I'm on the road to a better life already. If 12 months of tax payers money keeps a roof over my head and food in my family's belly during that time....I can only thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Just nice in this country people get the choice to.

Congratulations on your baby OP! Quite the surprise but a welcome one by the sounds of it.

Listen, it's your life not Mumsnet's. Long gone are the days where one parent earned enough to support an entire family. The fact of the matter is families with a SAHP need a income boost due to poor wage growth and inflation.

Enjoy your baby, and the toddler years. Enjoy studying for your course to better your career prospects in the future.

I've been where you are in a call centre paying people to look after my 16week old baby, I hated it I wish looking back I had stuffed it all in and spent time at home with him because turns out he will be my only child. I missed his first steps, his first words all because I stupidly decided to "work for the state and pay my way with taxation" than enjoy my baby.

I'm glad you've applied for UC, and I really hope you enjoy this time of your life.

It's your life, live it as you wish. What's a UC claim for a year or two in the grand scheme of things, when you are of state pension age you'll be claiming that a lot longer than you will have UC but not a single person will be moaning about that.

Good luck op.

If 12 months of tax payers money keeps a roof over my head and food in my family's belly during that time....

You make out like your actual job wouldn't have given you those things. You said upthread they would, you just don't want to be paying for childcare. Do any of us really want to be paying so much for childcare? No, not really but the country would fall apart if we all made the same choice as you.

she won't be able to retire before 66 with the type of pension contributions she will likely be making.
@Waxonwaxoff0 - most of us in our late twenties early thirties won't be able to retire until at least 66. That's not unusual these days even with high paying jobs. DH has a well paying job with a reasonable pension and he won't be able to retire before 66. I'm on an NHS pension and won't be able to retire before then either. That's not a reason to just give up your job and have even less in your pension by the time retirement comes around.

I start training on my course for my new career in two months time....I'm on the road to a better life already.

you don't want to work because you don't have childcare yet you are going on a course? Who will be holding the baby and could this arrangement not be used to help you to work?

Out of interest, what course is it? you did not manage to improve your employment prospects in your 20s and 30s despite not having a baby to look after and you are going on a course now when you have a baby and no childcare?

sometimes does not add up, sorry.

Once more with the ‘other people raising my kid’ nonsense.

Putting food on the table and a roof over their head IS raising a kid. Changing a nappy is an act of parenting; so is paying for the nappy. If it’s not my responsibility as a parent to feed and clothe my child, whose responsibility is it?

Good luck OP. Your decision is for you and your family.

So training for a 'new career', is going to get you a job that you have no experience in, earning more than you do today in 12 months?

What a load of crap.

What training course have you managed to get on in 2 days that will improve your job prospects? Plus who will look after your 4 month old?

No you shouldn't claim off the state you should go back to work or live off partners wage. This is a huge problem with the country and the financial disaster we are in

Well one of the reasons UC costs so much is that businesses are paying poverty wages, forcing the taxpayer to top them up. The four big supermarkets alone cost £1bn a year in tax credits. We are basically subsiding poverty pay and then blaming people for it

Exactly, while everyone is frothing at the people like the OP, it diverts the focus away from the real issue...low wages, high costs of housing, plus the costs of running a home.

For example, I don't know of any retailer who pays its shop floor employees a proper wage. Often managers aren't anywhere near the average...

Anyone working a full time job should not need government intervention.

The hard facts are that pride does not pay bills...although reports of UC would not fill me with confidence to do what OP is planning.

A low paid, compliant workforce is easier to manipulate...

I often wonder what would happen if everyone did decide that one wage household was the way to go...how long before the system collapsed and a complete reset was implemented.

To the “paying other people to raise your kid” brigade.

Fuck off.

I think I’m being a bit sensitive because I’m 2 hours late leaving a shift in a paeds dept but I worked all night looking after sick kids with doctors and nurses who are parents. The only way they are able to look after your kids is because someone else is looking after theirs.

A nursery is not “raising your kid” FFS!

(In all fairness a nursery wasn’t looking after them overnight but the sentiment stands)

As a liberal, I find anyone taking this kind of attitude deeply embarrassing. No, madame, you don't take benefits because you want to make your life easier when you are perfectly capable of working. If you don't want to work, you and your husband need to make a budget you can live with. FFS.

How are people thinking staying home to raise children is easier than going to work? Genuinely confusing.

Why on earth should anyone pay money to go to work?

So training for a 'new career', is going to get you a job that you have no experience in, earning more than you do today in 12 months?

^OP is in dreamland

Also to everyone being so god damn nosy about my new job and insisting I'm in dreamland....

It's going into to a career similar to one I had and consequently gave up when I was in my 20's. I didn't enjoy it which is why I quit and downgraded....but it was good money. The course is part time and is to update my certifications, and in 12 months time I'll be back on good money and able to enter the work force again.

Yeah it'll be in a job I absolutely loathe, but hey....that's clearly better than living off you hard working tax payers am I right?!?!

I'm not saying which sector or career it is as it'll pretty much out me to anyone here who might know me.