To think modern life is shit for mums

[barelycoping1]

I have a 1 year old son and would give anything to be a SAHM. I don’t want to put him in nursery or with a childminder, I’m his mum and I want to bring him up myself - not pay someone else to do it. I want to spend every precious moment with him because he’s our first and last and I’ll never get to experience this special time again.

Sadly though I have no choice but to return to work so we can pay our mortgage and bills. I don’t earn that much more than the cost of nursery, but it is about £350 difference every month so worth it.

I just feel sad that I don’t have a choice in the matter thanks to the sodding cost of living and sky high rents/mortgages now. I wish we were back in the days where one salary could easily cover the mortgage on an average home. Hose prices have essentially adjusted now to mean that both parents need to work to keep a roof over their heads.

Also because I’m back at work, my free time is a constant battle trying to keep the house in order and deal with life admin. I’ve lost touch with quite a few friends because I have so little time.

AIBU to hate the fact that I have to go back to work and to feel sad that I’m missing out on time with my son? I know some people will say to find a job I love, but there’s no job in the world that I’d rather do than be a SAHM.

I feel so stretched all the time and like I’m on a hamster wheel and can’t get off. If this is what having it all means then it’s just shit, sorry. What can I do to change my life for the better?

Watching (and hopefully learning) with interest OP. I've just gone back to my (full on) job FT, barely keeping my head above the water. Been looking at nurseries, cannot find one with the availability I need, all cost a fortune, and house is essentially imploding around my ears. I'm exhausted and been in tears most of today after a frankly awful morning.
I hear you! My mum keeps reminding me she managed but I know for a fact she didn't work until I was 2 (mine is 10months) and that was PT, with a mortgage based purely on my dad's (entry level) salary. Her house is about twice the size of mine bases on 2 FT salaries, & in theory I earn an absolute fortune compared to her earnings when I was a baby. It is hard; cost of living has increased disproportionately to income in real terms and people just aren't around the way I remember growing up in the 90s. Sigh..

@PaperbackRider

But society tells us that housework and raising children is 'women's work' and therefore by extension, not worthy of being paid. It's double pronged misogyny.

I don't believe "society" tells us that, at all. Not any more. I don't know anyone under the age of 70 who thinks housework and childcare is just for women.

Really? I don't know anyone who says it out loud, but the vast majority of my female friends do far more housework, cooking, childcare and general domestic labour than their male partners. So it feels like a message that's still very much ingrained.

"Absolutely. Childcare in other parts of Europe is prioritised and subsidised to make it more of an actual choice."

Not really. When childcare is heavily subsidised parents feel like they can't afford not to use it so there isn't really a choice.

As an aside, I hate the phrase “someone else raising my child”. A kid going to nursery is not having someone else raising them, you still raise them

This. Carved in stone. Its the most bone-headed, knee-jerk bit of twattish goadery and I'm sick of it.

I have no choice but to use nursery/childminders because I'm a single parent. My daughter barely remembers the carers at the first nursery she went to, from the ages of one to five. Even though I've used FT childcare almost throughout her childhood.

There's plenty of goadery on both sides of this debate and the WOHMs can be guilty of this but this is just an ignorant insult and I wish people would keep this sort of thing to themselves.

Hi OP. NRFT so apologies if this has already been said. I felt like you when DS went to nursery but in the long run it was best for him and best for me.

Fast forward to starting school - DS had no quibbles / meltdowns / issues despite the fact he knew no-one (we had moved house by time he started school). I put this down to the fact he had highly developed social skills from being in a busy city nursery where kids and staff changed frequently.

I went back to work part time and when DS went to school I was able to negotiate an increase in my hours so I now work 2/3 of full time hours. This helps for us to pay for extras. I also see the SAHP whose children are more independent now struggling - there isn't the group of people around to meet for lunch etc any more. a few have confided to me that they would like to go back to work but are finding it difficult to get back into the job market after a gap and because they don't want full time hours.

You are still your DS' mum - going out to work won't affect your relationship. I suspect it will make it stronger. My DS has learned so much from me being a working mum - how important it is that we work together to keep our house clean / nice, how women don't just stay home and raise babies, how I need to work to be able to afford nice things, how I have to deal with multiple demands on my time and priorities .... I could go on

Really? I don't know anyone who says it out loud, but the vast majority of my female friends do far more housework, cooking, childcare and general domestic labour than their male partners. So it feels like a message that's still very much ingrained

If your an idiot, yes, it will be ingrained.
Even as a sahm my dh does more than me, on all counts, i'd say.
Some women need to raise their bar tbh.
Parents today need to ensure they are raising the next generation to think differently.

@Needanewhat

To me "having it all" means you are working in a job you enjoy that is well paid and flexible enough to allow you to never feel you are missing out on any time whatsoever with your children, and you never feel like you are torn between the world of work and the world of children.

If people on this thread feel they have both, fair play to you!

I absolutely do.

@HadaVerde

I haven’t rtft only the OPs posts so apologies if this has been covered.

If it’s literally £350 a month after childcare costs then You could do a couple of evening shifts at Sainsbury’s or similar each week and earn that much. Your Husband could cover the childcare while you work as you do while he does.

It s not about the net of net income minus childcare. How much is going into national insurance and pension contributions?

If its 1000 a month pay taje home then gross us
bit more then employer us paying xx amount into pension.And NI is paid. So it is not about making up 350 in cash alone in the long term.

It doesn't sound like dh is highly earner so op will need her pension too
Think bigger and longer term .
Also think maternity pay for next child.
90 % of 1000 is lot more than 3 cash shifts you cannot do on mat leave in that first month or so

And I do hear what you're saying. The future with rent or mortgage for my DS frightens me.

I got divorced from my 1st husband 20 years ago. I was earning £23K a year so a good wage for then. I bought my 2 bed (well, 1.5 bed really as the 2nd bedroom could just about get a single bed in it!). It cost £73K and I got a 3 times my salary mortgage and put £4K down as a deposit (so about 5%).

When my DH and I were expecting DS, 15 years ago I sold the flat. I got £149K for it. So in 5 - 6 years it had doubled in price. I left my then job on £35K or thereabouts. I wouldn't have been able to afford my own flat with a 3 times salary mortgage as I couldn't have found £44K as a deposit!

Around here at the moment a 2 bed house - which is what me and exH started our married life in at the age of 21 - costs over £200K. We got a 2.5 times joint salary 100% mortgage to buy our first house. If I did that now we would have had be earning £40K each. At 21 that would be very unlikely. Not impossible, but less likely than our medium salaries when we were that age.

@barelycoping1

I think women have more freedom and choices now, I would have hated to be told I wasn't allowed to work anymore just because I had children (eg, some banks, civil service etc. in the 70s).

I would hate that too. But I still don't feel women have a choice now over raising the kids/work - it's just swung the other way!

Course they do, they have children with an actual partner.

StatutoryMaternity Pay( SMP ) ispaidfor up to 39 weeks. You get: 90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) for the first 6 weeks. £151.97or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks

So a big bonus of six weeks at 90 per cent of 1000 or whatever it is

I don’t really agree, if you can afford nursery fees, perhaps you could have planned in advance to be able to stay at home? The money was there previously? It’s about priorities, what does that 350 quid actually go towards? Not saying that your child isn’t a priority,it’s just reframing it. Kids don’t need what we think they do. For what it’s worth a work part time my boys go 3 days a week and then have 4 days effectively at home 😊

Agree with the ridiculous cost of living however for me personally I would hate to be a SAHM particularly without the trappings of modern life.

@thepeopleversuswork I agree we should not be pitching against each other as women. Being a SAHM has been much better for my second child however my first child thrived in nursery, and anyway I didn’t have a choice. However when I do complain about my lack of financial security women friends tell me to ‘go get a job’. Rather than ‘kick your husband up the arse to financially provide better’. Really SAHMs and working mum’s are almost always having to do way more than their fair share, it’s not just within marriage, it’s in society and at work too - it is still very much a system that doesn’t value women as mothers - in work or out.

Very, very rarely, a woman has a stay at home husband who does everything including housework and managing, and their work is very family friendly - or they are properly valued and provided for if a SAHM by their spouse. Mostly that isn’t the case.

To me "having it all" means you are working in a job you enjoy that is well paid and flexible enough to allow you to never feel you are missing out on any time whatsoever with your children, and you never feel like you are torn between the world of work and the world of children.

I hate the having it all concept but I'm very lucky to work p/t with flexi & almost tto so I feel I have a great balance.

Also if you planning a second child you may not get much if not working

If you have not paid enough Class 2 National Insurance to get the full rate (£151.97 a week), you’ll get £27 a week for 39 weeks

So maternity pay for your next child is worth working for

You are still your DS' mum - going out to work won't affect your relationship. I suspect it will make it stronger. My DS has learned so much from me being a working mum - how important it is that we work together to keep our house clean / nice, how women don't just stay home and raise babies, how I need to work to be able to afford nice things, how I have to deal with multiple demands on my time and priorities .... I could go on

This is also a really good point. It's not only about providing a role model for children. It's also about encouraging your children o to be aware that there is more to you as a mother than just being someone who services all the family's needs. And, as a part of that, that there is (hopefully) a father involved who plays a part in that.

I don't think that being a SAHM is an intrinsically bad example to a child: in fact when children are small I think it may be a net benfit. But a mother who is purely a facilitator of others' needs is not a great long-term example and usually not great, ultimately, for the sense of self-esteem and resilience of the children.

Clearly there's a big difference between being a SAHM to small children and teens.

My mum was basically a FT SAHM after we were born. It was great when we were tiny. Once we'd gone to school it wasn't quite so great: there was this constant underlying tension associated with her very tangible lack of fulfilment and resentment that she wasn't economically useful and had nothing to do beyond stuff in the house. That may have been partly her personality. But over the duration of the time children live at home their needs change a lot. When they are very small I think there is an argument for having a mother who is entirely devoted to them. By the time they are teens and young adults I think a mother who has experience in the workforce and horizons outside the family and a small group of immediate friends is much more useful.

@Wroxie

If it makes you feel any better, there are plenty of reasons why spending time in group child care is better for kids than being alone with one parent all the time, and it will be better for your child to see you as a person in your own right rather than someone who lives only for them.

But that discounts baby / toddler groups a SAHM would go to, play dates, , preschool - there’s LOTS of group time. You don’t have to go to paid child care to experience group care, it happens naturally, pandemics notwithstanding.

I felt exactly the same as the OP. I cried every Sunday night because I hated leaving my precious child with someone else next day and throughout the week. It was a physical ache, heartache. I adored being with her.

What I did was to become a registered childminder and this eventually allowed me to stay at home with my child and at the same time to earn an income. It’s expensive to work, in transport costs, working clothes, guilt presents (I was always in Mothercare at the time, missing my baby) as well as childcare costs itself. I found to my surprise that I was good at this job and enjoyed it and the children had each other as well as group social activities. This led to a complete change in career and a great and well- balanced life, for me.

Someone has already mentioned becoming a childminder OP, why should you have to ignore the force of these feelings? You long to be at home with your child while needing to earn an income. So did I. Childminding was a perfect solution. @barelycoping1 Maybe it will be for you too?

It is multifaceted, of course.

But I would hope that if this is a commonly studied topic in your field, you’d be able to recognise that you not having witnessed these discussions between men doesn’t mean they don’t occur. Nor does it mean that it isn’t a consideration for individual men who may or may not feel able to share that openly where researchers can pick up on it.

As I’ve said, I have lived professional experience of those discussions with plenty of men (and I don’t work exclusively with men, on balance I see many more women).

Your initial comment about how you research this for a living and have never come across men asking whether they can have it all just came across to me like you were implying that it doesn’t happen, apologies if that’s not what you meant. Clearly, some men do feel this pressure, not all (not all women do either).

I think we're talking about two different things here.
I'm not saying that men don't feel under pressure ( the pressure of being the family breadwinner is absolutely real) and I'm not saying men don't feel the pressure of having to juggle family life alongside work life.

What I'm saying is that men aren't judged on their choices in the same way women are.
Men are not criticised for working when they have children or for using childcare. Men aren't told that someone else is raising their child and they aren't told that trying to 'have it' all is why they're tired, unhappy etc etc..........

I'm not saying men don't have pressures and issues but they are different pressures and issues.

I think the best time was the early to mid 90s

DH is older than me, he was with his first DW 1993-2004ish?. They bought a decent house for £20,000 in '95 with a £1000 deposit that his parents gifted them. He was only a warehouse worker but exw was able to stay at home with their kids till youngest was 10. He has said they also got a decent amount of tax credits and in those days there was no pressure for the sahp to seek work and they afforded holidays, two cars etc

We've been together since 2008 we've got 3 children and I've never not worked even though he earns way more now. We get no benefits whatsoever. As much as I'd have loved to have been at home when kids were tiny the Cost of living is just far too high now and our mortgage needs two earners.

You see, I see this as the reason for so many divorces.
Nowhere in this scenario is the mention of a partner, spend your time on kids and work and your partner will look for intimacy somewhere else. Neither have much time on either kids or spousal relationships.
I think we've gone backwards tbh, and if this is modern living I'm glad to be old fashioned with a life

If you only make £350 a month I would juggle my way of life. You could take an evening job a couple of nights a week or a Saturday job? I did both when mine were young so that I could mostly be at home with them.

I also think it's unfair how wages haven't increased in line with rent and mortgage costs. This is the main reason why both parents have to work now

The sky high price of houses is ridiculous. they need to come down and I say that as a home owner

I don't believe "society" tells us that, at all. Not any more. I don't know anyone under the age of 70 who thinks housework and childcare is just for women.

Then how do you explain the fact that women disproportionately took on the bulk of childcare and home-schooling during the last 14 months? Even when they were also working.......