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!

I'm a single parent and manage on one income, I do get top ups from tax credits but it's not equal to 2 incomes.

She would have been miserable at home, intellectually completely dissatisfied

The two do not go hand in hand.

Ask anyone over 70 if they had a daily hot shower or bath when they were young.

Hahahaha that includes my privately educated father who is 74.

They had a car, as many baths in their inside bathroom as my dgm could force him into. And yes they had a car and a telly. It was the 50s/60s and there was a middle class then too.

Mumsnet is truly nuts

@MiddlesexGirl

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Once I was at school my mum worked 2 days a week. But we had one bathroom with no shower and a weekly bath. A coal stove for the whole house no central heating. A twin tub washing machine, no tumble dryer. No car. No TV until I was about 12. No phone till I was about 8. Never went out for meals or had takeaways. Only holidayed in this country ... camping, youth hostelling or staying with relatives. No extra activities beyond after school clubs.

Expectations are much higher now .... it's not just about affording a home.

Such expectations! I grew up then, too. I thought it sucked. What's with the race to the bottom here? My father grew up at the tail end of the Depression. He said everything about it sucked, there was nothing nostalgic about it. Same with bloody WWII that everyone likes to bang on about.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Haha...who said equality! Equality just means women now have to pay half and still work out all the home shit. No man ever sat at his desk wondering what Emily was going to be for world book day- women have been well and truly shafted!

Sadly I think this is true in many, many cases!

Yabu. I am really distressed that housing costs are so out of control in parts of the country, and that salaries in middle and lower income families are more or less stagnant (while the rich just get richer and richer) but I'm not sad that adults, including parents, are expected to work for their living.

My mum always worked, as did my grandmother and great grandmother. Absolutely no one in my family was a SAHP.

for those of you where you both work FT and are happy with this, don't you feel frazzled, aren't you knackered?! I dont have the energy or the mindset to be playing/ baking or whatever with the kids

Nope. I've never found full time working difficult. I don't know if it's because we had our children young (early 20s) so I've just not known any different, or because my career just isn't particularly knackering. I'm senior (and earn well) but it's office hours, I don't stress about it outside of work hours, I don't work myself to the bone, I work flexibly and now I WFH I don't even have a commute to contend with. We usually have a cleaner (although don't at the moment) and I click and collect shopping. DH does more than his fair share. Weekends are completely for fun with the kids, bike rides, baking and in normal times days out. Also football as I have 2 boys!

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Haha...who said equality! Equality just means women now have to pay half and still work out all the home shit. No man ever sat at his desk wondering what Emily was going to be for world book day- women have been well and truly shafted!

Agree with this. Thankfully my dc are older teenagers now but I think back to when they were younger and I was working full time and most of it is a blank. I think I was so frazzled from trying to do both well that I went through most of it in a daze. I certainly didn’t feel like I ‘had it all’ and definitely felt shafted!

Except that’s complete nonsense - the standards of living hasn’t raised costs above wages, housing has.

I don't think that is true at all, apart from perhaps in the south east of England. We both earn £15,000 a year and the cost of our rent is about a quarter of our combined income. That's for a nice 3 bed house in a nice area. The rest of our "essential" bills are slightly less than the rent (and yes I do like a daily hot shower).

@Teateaandmoretea

Ask anyone over 70 if they had a daily hot shower or bath when they were young.

Hahahaha that includes my privately educated father who is 74.

They had a car, as many baths in their inside bathroom as my dgm could force him into. And yes they had a car and a telly. It was the 50s/60s and there was a middle class then too.

Mumsnet is truly nuts

Isn't it? Can you imagine all those smelly, stinkers? Boak.

@SnackSizeRaisin

Except that’s complete nonsense - the standards of living hasn’t raised costs above wages, housing has.

I don't think that is true at all, apart from perhaps in the south east of England. We both earn £15,000 a year and the cost of our rent is about a quarter of our combined income. That's for a nice 3 bed house in a nice area. The rest of our "essential" bills are slightly less than the rent (and yes I do like a daily hot shower).

Nope. Here’s a really interesting article for you:

www.propertyreporter.co.uk/finance/uk-house-price-growth-outpaces-occupants-salaries-over-the-past-decade-by-nearly-3-to-1.html

New analysis from independent mortgage broker, Private Finance, shows the average UK property price has risen 43% since 2008, while wages have increased by just 15% over the same period.

According to the figures, the average UK home experienced a rise in value between 2008 and 2018, from £160,954 to £229,861.

In comparison, the average annual UK salary has increased by just 15% from £24,606 to £28,860 over the same period. Had wages experienced the same percentage increase as house prices, the average employee would now be earning £35,187 per year.

I think a lot of people could stay home if they wanted to if they really looked at their spending etc.
I'm a sahm, I used to work 45 hours a week, my DH has always earned more than me but previous to being a sahm we had 2 cars, ate out a minimum of once a week, bought everything brand new, went on holiday every year.
Yes we had a lot more luxuries when both working but I think having that time at home to bring up my DD far outweighs that.

@MiddlesexGirl sorry to hear you had a childhood in poverty.

My own experience of the 70s/80s was entirely different:

• a 4-bedroom house with 2 bathrooms, one with a shower, the use was unrestricted
• we had a telly always. My maternal gm had a black and white telly which was hard to watch snooker on but y’know.
• we only had one car when I was very young but that was largely because my dad was a lazy idiot who cba to drive. One he learnt age 40-odd we had 2.
• I got a ZX spectrum for Christmas once which cost £150 ish in 1985.
• my life was much the same as everyone else’s I knew at the time. Okay maybe my upbringing was privileged but it really was comparable materially you my own children.

@SnackSizeRaisin

Society does not value the stay at home parent.

That's because a stay at home parent is generally not contributing to society. It's only of value to their own family. Nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent, but it's of no value to society in general

SAHMs round me help out in lots of volunteer and community projects. They can be the ones who give elderly people lifts to medical appointments, for instance.

@Crazybunnylady123

I am a full time stay at home mum to two under fives. My dp earns enough for us to pay our living costs. We have a nice house, run one car and have pets. But there is no money for extras like sky, cinema, holidays or days out. But I can be with the kids and that’s our choice for now. I think once kids are both at primary I will look for work. But for now this is how we are and I don’t find it easy and I miss work sometimes. But things change and kids grow up so I’m just going to go with the flow.

I really hope your 'DP' is paying into a pension for you equivalent to his, has covered you in his will, paid into a savings for you, etc etc because with unmarried couples where one person gives up their financial independence to their partner, poverty is just a split away.

@SnackSizeRaisin

Society does not value the stay at home parent.

That's because a stay at home parent is generally not contributing to society. It's only of value to their own family. Nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent, but it's of no value to society in general

I would disagree there, from how I see it. But you have totally expressed the problems stay at home parents have with how people view them.

The stay at home parent is contributing by bringing up their children, which I would say is very valuable to society.

@Pumperthepumper to be fair you can’t look at that without interest rate changes. Our first mortgage in 2000 we were paying 6.5%. So although it was well lucky when it went down and we had loads of equity the payments were a lot at the time.

People's ideas of the breadline are massively out these days I find. People think they are hard done by if they can't afford to go abroad, they can't have multiple cars on the road and meals out etc. The reality is that people's minds are focused on material things and having enough money to pursue these lifestyles.
We made the choice for time with our children over material things. I can't afford a car but I enjoy walking along with the children with plenty of time to chat with them along the way. We don't have a holiday away but we do have plenty of very cheap or free days out and the payoff from no holidays is having everyday to spend time with my children. We have a low income with one parent working and lots would say 'oh I couldn't survive on that' but we still have luxuries we aren't scrimping every penny for food and shelter but our luxuries are just more realistic to our income. Many of my friends lead much more exciting lives, exotic holidays, flash cars but the trade off is the barely see their children during the week bar breakfast and bedtime and have missed out on a lot of their children growing up, that is time that can never be got back. I will enjoy these things whenever my children are older and no longer need me to be as present.

I’ve not read all the replies so someone may have already mentioned this but one extra thing that has to be factored in now is commuting. Since the Second World War it has been fairly common for both parents in a household to work - lots of women had to start working outside the home - but everyone lived pretty much in the same place they worked. One reason everyone who is working FT is so frazzled now is that an hours commute each way is very common, so to do a 9-5 job as well as drop/pick up kids means you’re out the house 7.45-6.15 or you’re doing a different pattern to your partner to enable pick ups etc. That adds a lot of time and stress to the day and basically means you can only live day to day during the week - mornings are a rush and by the time you’ve got the kids back and fed and in bed and you’ve grabbed some food yourself it’s time to go to bed and then get up and do it all again. No wonder we need weekends to recuperate.

If everyone - both men and women - could afford to drop down to 3 or 4 days working then I think it would help our mental health and stress levels enormously. But in many cases that’s not affordable, or it’s not affordable whilst also maintaining the lifestyle most of us have become accustomed to. Eg holidays abroad, full wardrobes, takeaways, days out at weekends etc. A lot of people see these things as “essential luxuries” ie know that they could live without them if they had to but they don’t want to. Social media makes it harder to resist the temptation to keep up with whatever everyone else is doing.

@Lowef

for those of you where you both work FT and are happy with this, don't you feel frazzled, aren't you knackered?! I dont have the energy or the mindset to be playing/ baking or whatever with the kids or even doing anything for myself even. I cant cram everything into a weekend - i just need to chill out and switch off too.

It’s hard to answer this, whilst wanting to be sensitive and not make you feel bad or sound smug ☺️

But yes, I work full time and I don’t feel frazzled and knackered.

Maybe that’s because I’m sat at a desk and you’re on your feet all day? I am sure there are multiple factors.

But, I’m very good at switching off from work. I have a frazzly day, I have got rant about it to get it out of my system, then I set it aside. I have quite a lot of responsibility, but I enjoy that, so that’s possibly why it energises me when it gets busy, rather than sapping me.

I never feel any guilt for “me time”. If I want an hour to myself - I couldn’t care less that the iPads come out.

I don’t expect myself to cook from scratch all the time. Which doesn’t mean we eat crap - but baked potatoes with tuna mayo and a side salad is almost zero effort.

I don’t have a sparkling house - but it’s not a hovel either.

I don’t over commit myself.

Honestly, I would go right back to why you feel so knackered.

• do you have good sleep habits? (not too late, phone off well before, ear plugs and eye mask if that helps)
• do you eat well?
• do you get enough fresh air? Just getting into the garden for 20 minutes or a walk if you don’t have one is good.
• have you actively thought about how to walk away from work stress each day? (15 mins to yourself before you pitch into anything else?)
• is the load shared fairly in your house?
• are you doing unnecessary tasks (like ironing underwear and tea towels!)
• are you efficient in your admin? (direct debits everywhere!)
• do you create time to do nothing (if you use after school club for example, sometimes picking up half an hour later than you could is good!)

[quote Teateaandmoretea]@Pumperthepumper to be fair you can’t look at that without interest rate changes. Our first mortgage in 2000 we were paying 6.5%. So although it was well lucky when it went down and we had loads of equity the payments were a lot at the time.[/quote]
Sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that housing costs have risen much faster than wages and no amount of only showering once a year will change that.

for those of you where you both work FT and are happy with this, don't you feel frazzled, aren't you knackered?! I dont have the energy or the mindset to be playing/ baking or whatever with the kids

Nope. OH and I are both hospital doctors. He does shifts sometimes, I don't (on call from home)
I do loads with my wee one. I enjoy teaching her stuff, we do loads in the garden. She is at a lovely nursery and after I pick her up at 5.30 we have all evening to do things together. My parents were the same. I'm very close to them still and had a lovely childhood.

At work we have a saying "work expands to fit the space available" I.e. if the department is quiet you still feel busy once you're used to less work. I realised home life was the same when I was on ML - after a while I felt super busy even though I had the life of Riley.

I've had the opposite experience OP. My mum worked full time, whereas I'm lucky enough to be able to work part time so I can pick up my kids from school some days.

My mum was a SAHM up till when I was 7 and my sister was 5 but she is an artist and that was/is where her real enthusiasm lay. She was great at taking care of us and the household but not emotionally available and was visibly bored by it all at times. I'm not sure I would have been unhappy if she'd worked more. I have struggled at times balancing motherhood with my career and neither she nor my MIL have had any useful advice there - it's not something they ever had to think about. My MIL has in my opinion wasted her considerable intelligence and drive by not working after the age of 20 or so. She would have made an amazing lawyer or magistrate.

So no I don't relate to this at all. For every woman frustrated in the present there must have been many more frustrated in the past, albeit for different reasons.

It may be significant that my DC is very demanding though.