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!

a mum constantly complaining about how she can't afford to give up her part time job and how lucky I am to be able to spend time with my kids.

You're taking her very literally, I'm sure lots of working mums say "how lucky" SAHMs are in conversation just to be polite, especially if she does evidently have a lot more than you, I don't think it necessarily means that she actually wants your lifestyle or that she doesn't understand if they cut back she wouldn't need to work.

@SnackSizeRaisin

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

That's just the last 10 years though. If you look back over the last 100 years it won't be anything like that. There will always be fluctuations.
In addition, most of that rise was probably in the south east. I don't think there's been anything like that round here.

Found it:

www.schroders.com/en/uk/private-investor/insights/markets/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/

Houses have rarely been more expensive relative to earnings than they are today in more than 120 years

It says rarely because While average house prices fell by 23% between 1845 and 1911 (-0.4% a year), due in part to the two factors above, earnings rose by 90% over the same period (+1.1% a year).

I think its bloody evil to be taking babies and toddlers to some childcare facility at 7 am in winter and picking them up at 6 pm.

don't know what the answer is, but that stinks.

@randomer

I think its bloody evil to be taking babies and toddlers to some childcare facility at 7 am in winter and picking them up at 6 pm.

don't know what the answer is, but that stinks.

Evil???

Nice bit of judgement there 🙄

@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!

The world has changed and people now have (and want) more stuff than they ever used to have. Everything is more disposable and not made to last and people change their furniture, decor, have new cars often more than one. Same with appliances, as technology speeds up we want new washing machines, hairdryers, latest gaming console, camera, phones, gadgets, toys. Fashion is disposable.

A lot of children nowadays aren't as content to sit in the garden watching someone pot plants up and turn their nose up at home baked food or learning to sew I guess. Even some adults aren't content with a simpler, less extravagant lifestyle. They eat out in restaurants more, have food delivered. It all comes at a cost in the end.

I think its bloody evil to be taking babies and toddlers to some childcare facility at 7 am in winter and picking them up at 6 pm.

Is it ok in the summer? Asking for a friend.

It simply isn't true that families survived with just one working parent in the past. Maybe for middle class families, but not for working class families. I am just the wrong side of 60 and I can recall only one woman in my street during my childhood who did not work. That was because she had so many kids it was not possible for her to work.

My mother worked all her life until she retired at 62. My grandmothers also worked throughout their adult lives. They were both extremely poor and, at times, had to take on whatever jobs they could get, including shoveling coal from the back of a cart, putting up wallpaper and laying out the dead.

I had two years off after my first child, paid for by redundancy money. I was climbing the walls with boredom towards the end of that period and returned to work, but I have worked mostly part time once the other children arrived. Part time is the best of all worlds and the worst of all world. We all need to take our chosen poison.

I agree that today's youngsters are being shafted in relation to property, but to suggest that they are having it much worse than previous generations is simply not true. Each generation bears its own burdens. I can assure you that the burdens carried by my grandparents were much, much heavier than they are today.

YANBU - it would be great if both parents didn't have to work. I guess it's kind of the 'price' of women entering the workforce, because things would adjust to expect that income.

I couldn't enjoy being a SAHM myself but I know many women would if they could.

What we really need to work at now is making men staying at home/taking on more childcare normal - that would improve things!

@MiddlesexGirl don't get me wrong, staying at home with young children is a valid choice and could be hugely beneficial to your own husband and children. I just don't think there is any benefit outside the family. Whereas women who work outside the home are likely to be contributing financially through tax, saving towards their own retirement, as a minimum. Their job may or may not be directly beneficial to society but in many cases it will be, whether they are a shop assistant or a nurse or teacher etc. I don't truly believe that a child who attends a nursery for 2 or 3 days a week is any worse off than one whose mother is at home all the time. Obviously there will be exceptions to that, especially for children with specific needs.
Voluntary work is obviously hugely beneficial but that is not confined to SAHMs. I would guess retired people do most of it anyway.

@randomer

I think its bloody evil to be taking babies and toddlers to some childcare facility at 7 am in winter and picking them up at 6 pm.

don't know what the answer is, but that stinks.

You know they don't stay inside all day? They have gardens. DD spends most of her day in the nursery garden when she's there.

I stayed home with our DC, and we wouldn't have had them at all had one of us not been able to raise them. We sold our house and lived above DH's business in a tiny flat for some years, and then managed to buy a house. There were sacrifices, but none that weren't worth making.

I do feel for our own DC though when they start their own families and don't see how on earth they could manage to stay at home with the cost of mortgages etc.

I agree that today's youngsters are being shafted in relation to property, but to suggest that they are having it much worse than previous generations is simply not true. Each generation bears its own burdens. I can assure you that the burdens carried by my grandparents were much, much heavier than they are today.

This. The way poor people lived in the 1950s and before that would be unimaginable today.

Well, another Mumsnet thread that makes me feel guilty for working, thanks.....

I think I've been really lucky. My mum worked PT until we were 13 or so
Then she retrained in a professional role which was great for us (4 girls) as it showed us that women could do whatever they wanted.

I was able to work PT until my child went to school and then was able to work the elusive 9-3 in a professional, well paid role which meant I could do both the school runs.

My memories are different to yours, OP, because I was a latchkey kid in the 70s, like lots of other kids.
We could just about survive on my dad's salary (and he was a professional), but only because my Mum did without things, like food, clothes, etc etc. And we lived in an area where houses were comparitively cheap, so they could afford a house that wasn't big enough , and had no mod cons. We didn't have an indoor bathroom till I was 7, let alone things like central heating or a fitted kitchen.

@name674398

a mum constantly complaining about how she can't afford to give up her part time job and how lucky I am to be able to spend time with my kids.

You're taking her very literally, I'm sure lots of working mums say "how lucky" SAHMs are in conversation just to be polite, especially if she does evidently have a lot more than you, I don't think it necessarily means that she actually wants your lifestyle or that she doesn't understand if they cut back she wouldn't need to work.

Maybe that's true but then why complain about it almost every single day. She didn't want to return to work post the covid disruption but ended up going back because they financially couldn't afford it. They are all set for Florida in a few weeks though at the cost of 9K ....half of our yearly income. I'm pretty friendly with them and i'm pretty sure she's not doing it to make me feel better about my life because she knows me well enough by now to know I don't give a shit what anyone else has and that I willingly made my own lifestyle choice after I had kids (pre kids i worked full time 50+ hours a week and had a more 'luxurious' lifestyle...albeit I was young and partied hard and don't have much to show for that time in my life either) and I'm very content with that decision.

My ideal would be both parents working part time. A shame it’s not affordable for most- though I recognise it’s not desirable for many people also, which is fair enough.

I was raised by a single mum who had to work full-time (dad paid no maintenance and saw me a few times a year). I consider my son incredibly lucky to have a “normal” 2 parent family that I always dreamed of as a child. I don’t want him to spend too much time in childcare after school like I had to though- luckily my mum is happy to help and will get some of that time back with my child that she didn’t have with me.

Swings and roundabouts.

@SnackSizeRaisin

I agree that today's youngsters are being shafted in relation to property, but to suggest that they are having it much worse than previous generations is simply not true. Each generation bears its own burdens. I can assure you that the burdens carried by my grandparents were much, much heavier than they are today.

This. The way poor people lived in the 1950s and before that would be unimaginable today.

It really wouldn’t be, you know. Here’s another article for you:

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/how-poverty-modern-britain-echoes-past/

This poverty caused such shock that it led to the first measures of what became the Welfare State: free school meals in 1906, old age pensions in 1908, National Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance in 1911. Expanding state welfare and government measures to create secure, better-paid employment reduced poverty and inequality, especially post-1945, driven mainly by Labour governments, though it was never eliminated. Income and wealth inequality were narrowest of the whole period since 1900 in the 1970s. Contrary to popular denigration of the 1970s, this was also when the range of state welfare benefits and services reached its peak and there was no evident shortage of affordable housing to rent or buy. Poverty then shot up under the Thatcher governments of the 1980s – about 13% of children in Great Britain (and of course their families) were in poverty in 1979 and 22% in 1990. It declined halfway to the 1979 level under New Labour before rising again since 2010.

*The housing crisis and rise in poverty since 2010
The JRF found 20% of the UK population in poverty in 2015-16, 60% in households that included an inadequately paid worker. The Child Poverty Action Group estimated that 30% of children in the UK (4.1 million) were in poverty in 2016-17 and 67% were in households with at least one full-time worker.

That might be your memory op but lots of women were massively unfulfilled in the stay at home mum time. They also had no financial independence and were often trapped in unhappy marriages.

@LH1987

Well, another Mumsnet thread that makes me feel guilty for working, thanks.....

It shouldn't make you feel guilty. Everyone makes their own choices, feeling guilty wold imply you aren't happy with your choice and if that is the case then rather than feel guilty look at how you can make changes to make things how you would prefer them to be.

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

My PILs still don't. They see nothing wrong with a weekly bath and a daily flannel wash

@LH1987

Well, another Mumsnet thread that makes me feel guilty for working, thanks.....

Why would you feel guilty for providing for yourself and family and showing a work ethic to your children?

Agree with the posters saying if wages had gone up at the same rate as utilities and housing we would be in a much better position to decide.
Unfortunately in many cases now thchoice isn't there.

I have spent time on furlough this last year and have been back to full belt work for four weeks and after a lifetime of building my way up so to speak and going back to work after each of my dc I'm looking at things very differently.

Covid dealt us a not so helpful hand in that dh was made redundant so has take. A job working permanent nights.

He gets in at 6 am and is asleep before I wake up.
I go to work when the kids leave for school.

I currently am getting home anywhere from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm plus working a weekend day and I can tell you it's utter utter shit.

I absolutely hate it and so do my dc.

I m astounded that I worked these hours mostly for so long and hacked it but it was always about needing two wages to cover the mortgage and life in general and no we don't have holidays every year or new spanking cars etc. Just a big mortgage for a modest house and two dc to support

I seriously am looking at condensing my hours into three longer days and no weekends however I don't think my boss will go for it so the next option is self employment which is scary in these times but a work life balance is needed now.