To think it's a bit sad that both people nowadays need to work to afford a household?

[Lowef]

I know this isn't a popular opinion on MN but was thinking how rubbish it is that today mostly both parents need to be working to be able to afford the basics of food, clothing, rent. mortgage etc for the family without being on the breadline.

I have really fond memories of playing with my mum in the garden planting pots, watching her cook whilst i sat on the worktop. She'd collect us from school everyday and on fridays she'd have baked some warm muffins, sweet buns which were still warm and fresh from the oven. She'd give some to my friends too. She taught me so many things like sewing, cooking, gardening (she was very green fingered), growing veg. She spent alot of time with us kids and i look back at those days really fondly.

In comparison I am nothing like this with my children - I just don't seem to have the time and energy for the things she did. I can't bake cupcakes in time for the kids school pick up as they're in the after school club. Dinner is a quick whisk up whatever I have in the freezer / fridge , I'm too frazzled and tired for spending lots of time with the kids. DH is the same.

In an an ideal world i would love to be a SAHM and have more energy and time for my family and myself too instead of just rushing through life. The years are going by so fast and most of my energy and life is taken up by work. The children are growing up so quickly.

Not sure if anyone else feels the same too or if ill get an MN roasting!

@Chickencrossing

What's the point of girls receiving an education instead of simply learning to cook, bake, sew world book day costumes, clean and plant vegetables, drive others around? Perhaps play the piano, cards and sing as well?

I know. It’s likes stepping back in time.

It’s perfectly possible to parent and work.

I know many adults who had a SAHP but wish they didn’t. They say they were too over involved, no money to do anything or have anything etc. I bet the parents had a very rosy eyed view of it though.

I think the need for both parents to work, reflects falling wages and increased job insecurity and increased living costs. To secure a mortgage sufficient to buy a family home, is almost impossible on one income. Assuming someone earns £50k pa [which incidentally is almost twice the average industrial wage ] what would that buy, notwithstanding historically low interest rates? Blue collar jobs are in terminal decline, and how many would pay enough to buy a 3 bed terraced house, run a home and finance a small family car etc etc? When I was a school girl, I knew plenty of people where Dad worked in a manual job or a rather undemanding office job and Mum stayed at home. At the end of 40 years work, [people having left school at 16], these couples had the mortgage paid off, the kids educated and a secure company pension. Once house prices move beyond the 3x salary test, then both parents have to work unless they are very high earners or have received some family help. I think many women find themselves overburdened trying to work full time and care for children. Equality in the work place doesn’t necessarily translate into equality in the home place.

My mum worked and I have the same nostalgic memories of doing things with her on weekends and holidays. I barely remember time with the childminder and at playgroup other than enjoying playing with the kids etc.

People have a nostalgic idea of the "sahm" but the reality for mankind is it wasnt the norm for long or even for everyone. Working class people have always had to work! Children were taken along when their mothers worked , or often left with elderly relative, older siblings (imagine a 10 year old minding a toddler....) or a neighbour etc. Children as young as 4/5/6 left unsupervised.

@whatswithtodaytoday

Personally I'm incredibly relieved that I was born at a time when women can and are expected to work. I would go mad as a SAHM, the thought of it makes me want to scream. Maternity leave gave me enough of a taste to know that it's my idea of hell. I'm not a high flyer or especially well paid, but I enjoy working and earning my own money, and find housekeeping and many aspects of childcare unutterably dull.

My mum stayed at home until I was 12, and while she was happy to I think it was a huge waste of her intelligence.

It’s funny how nobody ever says men are wasting their intelligence when they stay at home with their children.

Oh and I agree that some of the kids I knew with SAHP growing up were painfully poor and very aware of it. Stressed parents struggling to pay bills etc.

40 years ago. My Father worked and Mother looked after kids

But she took small jobs to pay for holidays. She had crappy low paid jobs which worked with school hours. But without that, we would have survived but not had nice things like holidays abroad

Yes, agree. The choice has been taken away and having everything based on there being two people’s income to run a household means single people struggle much more even with a reasonable income.

As a single parent I manage ok now with tax credit top up but do worry how I will manage on just my wage to pay everything in the future as I’m a relatively low earner (have been taking steps to address this with extra training/qualifications etc).

I would have loved to be a SAHM and lived a more traditional way to raise the children but instead became a single parent and had to do it all 😣.

Talk of SAHPs is disingenuous: the proportion of SAH fathers is tiny.

Bring on the 4 day working week.

I'm sure there's pros and cons for each but I definitely don't think staying home is automatically best
I agree completely. I think it is often what the mum deems best for her. Less tiring, less pressurising. My personal experience through my own journey and that of my children is that it isn’t always best for the kids.

I loved going to my childminder. She was much more creative in ways to keep me busy than my mum, a career woman, was. I have fab memories of eating dinner in front of the tv with my mum which at the time was an absolute treat and the fun we had at weekends. I loved the holiday clubs I went to that kept me busy doing things I wouldn’t have otherwise have done. It also set me in a routine and used to long hours which made the adjustment to adult life much easier than many of my friends who’d had a more relaxed childhood.

It also meant my mum could afford things that left great memories, especially fantastic holidays abroad.

I also became a ft working mum and when I asked my kids if they’d wanted me to be a sahm, they looked at me with wide eyes and said definitely not for the same reasons I felt as a child.

It’s a natural process to assume that what is best for us and we assume best for our kids by proxi is indeed how they feel themselves.

My and DH have worked under several arrangements over the years.

Me FT and DH sahp
Me FT and DH part time
Me part time and DH part time
Me part time and DH full time
Me SAHP and DH full time

In terms of quality time with the kids, time for each other, time for ourselves and our own sanity from working, both of us working part time was the best.

I hate admitting this as I think it makes me sound horrible, but what I find worst is being a SAHP while DH is working full time. I hate it, I really really hate it. Counting down the days until its financially viable for me to go back to work.

The person who asked about economics upthread would probably like 'Who cooked Adam Smith's dinner' which is an exploration of the devaluing of care work and capitalism. It's great.

A stronger welfare state would mean we all worked less, lower housing costs would do the same. I've ways worked full time (my male partner is currently a SAHD because circumstances dictate but has generally worked fewer hours than me), but it's so important that the work of looking after small children is also seen as work (because you pay a nanny or a childminder or a nursery, don't you?). The issue is that it's not financially recognised despite the massive contribution to the economy it makes. If we did recognise it as work it would enable us to have a better conversation about how it should be compensated.

The idea of women sitting around eating bonbons all day is a nonsense anyway. It's a very small section of society who have had a sahp- women in my family have always worked as they have in most. It's an invention of the post-war generation who wanted to preserve jobs for men that never existed in reality.

I loved being a sahm, had no qualms about it at all

I saw it as a privilege

@Vooga

I think it's great that many women's lives don't amount to baking buns, cooking and housework. My mum worked a mix of part time, full time, from home, contracting through my childhood and I remember loads of good times. And she was a role model, a fulfilled individual person, even at times frazzled and tired. And now we're grown up she and my dad have been able to afford their dream home by the sea and renovate and now spend lots of time with their grandchildren.

I was at SAHM mum until DD was 18 months and hated it. Constantly trying to find ways to fill the day.

Work goes both ways. Yes it can be hard and tiring but it can also be fulfilling and a way to use your brain, not to mention financial independence that many women are left in the shit because they don't have.

This

Also, nobody says ‘it’s a shame childminders are wasting their intelligence’ or imply they must be stupid to look after children all day.

I don't find it sad at all and work full time. I did find a job which had great flexibility though which makes a huge difference. I start early and take a short lunch break I also worked from home 2 days a week prior to the pandemic and going back to the office 1-2 days a week.
I still have energy to do things and it works well with my DH he does mornings I do afternoon pick ups.
I don't know how SAHP do it personally I enjoy using my brain of the challenge of work. But I play with my son when he finishes nursery.

@Scottishskifun

I don't find it sad at all and work full time. I did find a job which had great flexibility though which makes a huge difference. I start early and take a short lunch break I also worked from home 2 days a week prior to the pandemic and going back to the office 1-2 days a week. I still have energy to do things and it works well with my DH he does mornings I do afternoon pick ups. I don't know how SAHP do it personally I enjoy using my brain of the challenge of work. But I play with my son when he finishes nursery.

Do the nursery workers not use their brains when they’re looking after your son?

I grew up with both parents working and I feel it was good for me, my care was done equally by my mum and dad and so I grew up with role models that a woman can have a career and a man can be just as much of a hands on parent and do equal housework. I do agree though that if both parents could work part time that would be best. I still remember doing baking, play dough, painting, Lego, growing plants etc and I also spent a lot of time playing on my own which I enjoyed, or playing outside with other children.

@Pumperthepumper yes of course they do but they also have undertaken full training and qualifications in child development so set up multiple education and child development activities each day. I cannot replicate what my son does at nursery and haven't taken child development courses!

To be fair you probably could replicate what they do at nurseries

I know a lot of people are saying that they can't afford to have a SAHP, but also on the flip, due to childcare costs there are families who can't afford to have 2 parents working full time.

I have 3 dc, and full time childcare for them is £720 a week. Plus, two of us working require 2 cars on the road due to where we live, whereas when one of us is at home (or when we were both PT) we only need to run one car.

We worked out that the cost of running our second car was £120/week (tax, insurance, fuel, maintenance and paying it off). So the cost to us both working was £840 a week. For perspective, our mortgage is £280 a month. Both working, our earnings mean we don't get any uc contributions towards childcare, and the tax free childcare scheme doesn't make much of a dent. Currently there's no way my earnings would come close to the cost.

If we move to an area with better childcare facilities and better public transport to reduce the cost of a second car and childcare, our mortgage would go up astronomically because of the difference in house prices.

We would definitely be better off in the long run both with paying the high childcare/car costs or with moving to a more expensive area, due to career progression etc, but we simply couldn't afford to get through the next 5 years or so until we'd start seeing the benefits.

I love my kids and I'm not complaining, I knew what I signed up for when I had kids that things would be tough. Just throwing my 2 pence in that having a SAHP isn't always a luxury, but sometimes it's a necessity.

I'm very lucky that my DH doesn't rail road me that his job is more important, so we've both taken our turn at being the SAHP and have both dropped to part time when it was necessary, so we have a good dynamic that way. And both understand and value the others contribution when they're the SAHP which so often is not the case.

Things are expensive but historically women did work just to keep above the bread line. When I was growing up lots of mothers worked on factories and shops. My DM should have worked but refused to and as a consequence we had few holidays, extras and I didnt go on school holidays or did anything extra curricular.

[quote Scottishskifun]@Pumperthepumper yes of course they do but they also have undertaken full training and qualifications in child development so set up multiple education and child development activities each day. I cannot replicate what my son does at nursery and haven't taken child development courses![/quote]
So not actually brain power then, just training.

@Pumperthepumper oh and no where in my post did I say that early years professionals don't use their brains it's a skilled job. For me looking after my son at home is not the same environment or learning. I can manage about 2 activities before being exhausted!

Its like saying all parents are adequate teachers just look at home schooling over the pandemic...... Most parents bow down and thank teachers as soon as their child went back to school!
Some obviously do home school and are good at it it's the same thing for young children!