AIBU to think one adult should be able to support a family with a full time job?

[Kendodd]

Talking about a normal size family, two/three children. Not talking about riches either, just an ordinary place to live and everyone well fed and clothed, all needs covered without state benefits. Any full time job as well, not just some fancy high paid thing.
I know for lots of people working really hard in full time jobs supporting their family just isn't possible on the money.

YANBU - they should be able to support a family.
YABU - they shouldn't be able to have a home and children on an unskilled job.

@MauveMagnolia

My house cost £6000 in 1970. It was bought by a male teacher and his housewife, wife. A male teacher earned about £1600 (women earned less)

It was sold in 2006 for £570,000. A teacher earned £29,500

Today it is a million. A teacher earns £35,000

One of the by products of most families having 2 working adults is house price inflation.

Only partly is it due to dual income households. House price inflation is VERY area-dependent, the same money buys a lot more in cheaper areas and prices have risen less steeply (and in some areas not at all - friends' flat in Nottingham scarcely rose in price at all in ten years and some prices in that area actually fell for a few years running).

You can’t buy an old car now, the huge associated costs/green taxes make it nigh on impossible

Nonsense 😂

You think a phone and a car isn’t essential for most people?

No, but a £75 a month contract phone and a £400 pm PCP deal are not, and plenty of people have these despite not being able to afford them.

Rather than one person work and one person not why don't we aspire to all people working fewer hours? That's potentially good for all of society.

I don't think a sahp dynamic is particularly healthy when compared to an alternative of both parents caring and earning.

We live in an okay part of a larger - niceish area. 2 adults and 2 kids. DH works FT as a general manager for a well known electrical store on an ok wage (28k ish).

I resigned after my mat leave when baby 2 was turning 1.

We currently receive around £600-900 a month in universal credit and would not be able to feed our kids without it. (If I went back to work I’d be working to pay nursery fees as were not entitled to any free hours!)

Our rent is £950 a month for a normal sized 3 bed semi and we need 2 cars as school is 20 min drive away.

System is broken. We’ll never afford to buy and I can’t afford to work til we get some nursery funding.

Rather than one person work and one person not why don't we aspire to all people working fewer hours? That's potentially good for all of society.

I don't think a sahp dynamic is particularly healthy when compared to an alternative of both parents caring and earning.
Good point. Women would keep more financial independence and it would also elevate the status of domestic and family duties because for some reason when men do something it's valuable.

My DPs bought their house in the 1980s.my Dad had a v average wage, they had 1 car and my mum was a SAHM. Today semi detached houses in the same road (london suburbia - not particularly exclusive or sought after area) are £600k +
That's 20 x the average wage - no amount of skimping on tech, cutting out coffees or giving up smashed avocado is going to change that.

@Stanleyville

Rather than one person work and one person not why don't we aspire to all people working fewer hours? That's potentially good for all of society.

I don't think a sahp dynamic is particularly healthy when compared to an alternative of both parents caring and earning.

Not everyone is capable of working. Some couples consist of one partner working full time because the other has an illness/disability.

@19lottie82
You do realise that so few poor people actually do that don’t you?

I agree with you OP - as a lifelong female 'rights' protagonist who spent many, possibly wasted, decades doing equality rather than theorizing or running to HR with my latest 'grief'.

It used to be the norm for years that a 'man' could support his family as long as he stayed 'in work'; if the lady of the house earned a bit of'pin money' that was good too.

Whilst not ideal if you're a woman, seems that scenario is virtually non-existent now, so either both mother and father run themselves ragged paying the household bills or the father might still have the mindset that all things domestic are woman's responsibility, so she's run even more ragged than ever....progress eh...

@Kendodd

Talking about a normal size family, two/three children. Not talking about riches either, just an ordinary place to live and everyone well fed and clothed, all needs covered without state benefits. Any full time job as well, not just some fancy high paid thing. I know for lots of people working really hard in full time jobs supporting their family just isn't possible on the money.

YANBU - they should be able to support a family.
YABU - they shouldn't be able to have a home and children on an unskilled job.

It used to be perfectly possible a few decades ago when there were millions of council houses, and most people rented at a reasonable price.

Can't think what went wrong there...

@SapphosRock

YANBU but unfortunately YANB realistic.

If the family lives in the south rent for a 3 bed house will be at least £1,500 per month + bills. Food, clothes etc for a family of four at least another £500. Then there are holidays, school trips, birthday presents, petrol, MOTs, fixing broken washing machines etc etc.

The single adult would have to earn at least £40k for the family to scrape by, more like £60k+ for the family to live comfortably.

In London, add 20k to that at least to not be stressed about money - and that’s without childcare costs, private schools etc

Family I know on 60k in a modest area are ALWAYS stressed about money despite managing it well: 1 car, camping holidays, no debt, v few frills

I think people underestimate how expensive housing in London is, and how salaries for most really don’t cover the gap. In my field, salaries have stayed the same for last ten years or so, while cost of living & housing esp relentlessly move up!

Also very much agree with stanley - let's say 2 people working 25hrs each = a F/T job with a bit of overtime and 2 happier, less stressed people.

And I say that as a long-term single parent - it might not apply to me but I'm happy to support the idea for 2-arent families, which is the norm after all.

Should- yeah, sure. In an ideal world.

Can- ha! Nope. DH earns over £50k and all we could afford with him as the sole earner in the south east was a small 2 bedroom flat. I’m now re-training for a career change because we’re soon to be a family of 4 and there’s no way we’ll be able to afford a decent sized home with me as a SAHM.

@Howshouldibehave

In the 1970s maybe but not any more!

It’s pointless saying that ‘should’ happen when for the majority it doesn’t and won’t ever.

I was a young mum in the 70s with a mortgage on 15% I think and we couldn't live on one wage. We had two wages and still didn't have a car or a phone, if we were lucky we had a holiday for a week in a relatives caravan.

I think that minimum wage is exactly that, the minimum.

I think that every able adult should expect to work full time, and take responsibility to support themselves, and pay towards their dependants.

I think that if you want more than the minimum of food/clothes/roof over your head, then you should work up from earning minimum wage.

I think two people, both hard working, 5+ years into their careers, with the associated payrises that come from 5 years of hard graft and promotions/taking on additional responsibilities should be able to afford to support a family. In my experience, they can, often with one able to go part time for a few years.

@Shelddd

I like how many people are still saying its lifestyle when I literally post a chart showing housing is 2x compared to income what it was when your parents and grandparents bought their house.

It's not lifestyle!!! housing is twice as expensive compared to income now. That's why you need 2 incomes...

What about mortgage repayments? It isn't just the price of the house, which obviously varies tremendously round the country, it is also interest rates. Back in the 70s and 80s we couldn't imagine the sort of rates you can get on a mortgage now.

Then there is pay and take home pay. Income tax was higher back then so the headline pay might be x times higher now but due to lower tax it will actually be more.

It is very complicated to compare.

@Kendodd

I don't think it's possible anymore.

I know it's not possible.
The question is whether it should be possible or whether we are ok with it not being possible.

it should be possible , it once was and should be again , , there are a lot of mums who are forced to work ,but would really like to stay at home with their children when they are little ,but cant , our goverment wants mothers to work . theres no incentive for them to stay at home currently so until enough parents feel strongly enough to lobby for change things will stay as they are

It used to happen in the past.

Unfortunately living standards have fallen significantly. Houses that could be bought with one basic salary, now aren't affordable despite two good salaries.
We've just been brainwashed with the idea that we just aren't working hard enough. That it is normal to have to borrow hundreds of thousands/ mortgage lengths are increasing. The standard used to be 25 years now you can get mortgages for over 35 years.

Every year inflation is stealing money from your pockets, the banks are printing money- willy-nilly. Of course they dont want to pay you any interest on your cash- they can just print as much as they need.

The money you have becomes more worthless every year- yet people vote for more of the same, I really dont understand it.

It was the Thatcher government in the 1980s who started the house buying expectation. The rationale was that home owners were more likely to vote Conservative, I think.

Up until then people like me didn’t expect to become property owners. Rentals could be shit and I certainly lived in some bad places (grotty shared bathrooms, damp, gas and electricity on meters that needed perpetual feeding with coins, landlords who were extremely dodgy and would send the ‘boys’ round to collect the rent in cash).

I suppose the difference between now and then is that, then, council and housing association properties were more plentiful, and at least with those, the rent was controlled.

I think two people, both hard working, 5+ years into their careers, with the associated payrises that come from 5 years of hard graft and promotions/taking on additional responsibilities should be able to afford to support a family. In my experience, they can, often with one able to go part time for a few years.

Some jobs offer very little progression even if you have worked hard in them for years.

Someone upthread was talking about phone costs etc and I always find these threads drop to that, trying to find way to cut entertainment or food, when it's actually rent/mortgage, health insurance, cost of electricity, heating, going to the doctor, getting a plumber in ... these are the things that break you. When we were bottom of the barrel everyone was suggesting switching providers etc. We were pay as you go on phone (twenty euro each a month) and had netflix and then you got the inevitable 'do you shop in aldi?' Um, yes! Because dh was on a decent wage they assumed we were pumping hundreds into something we just hadn't copped onto but most people nowadays are savvy, the problem is the actual cost of living, the fact that (in Ireland anyway) if you don't have things like health insurance your family is effed and the cost to heat your home. You can totally live on one wage but no frills, no savings, saying that, look, you do what you have to, we couldn't afford for me to work with childcare and the commute. I always recommend to my friends to try to cling onto their jobs!

I don’t think that women should expect to opt out of income-generating work when they have children.

And almost certainly that means a return to the expectation that the woman's place is in the home. No thanks.

Who said it had to be the woman "opting out"? There's nothing to say it can't be a man staying at home and looking after the kids.

Nice idea, but as well as house prices making this difficult or impossible, you're comparing with a time where lifestyles were very basic compared with today.

Few children had their own bedroom, most families had no car or possibly one old car, eating out was very rare, far fewer treats and expensive days out like theme parks, no technology, almost no-one went abroad on holiday, far fewer clothes etc etc.

When was this? I was born in the 80s in London & loads of my peers had one parent working, holidays abroad became accessible with cheap airlines, things like mcdonald's & pizza hut were popular etc

Today it is a million. A teacher earns £35,000

One of the by products of most families having 2 working adults is house price inflation.

It's not just that though because 2 working adults struggle to afford property

YABU.

The assumption that until recently most women stayed at home is quite frankly incorrect for a lot of women. For generations, my female ancestors have worked out of necessity - be it in nursing, factories or on farms.

The first generation of my family who had the choice to work or not was my mum who is 60. For many working class families, this has always been the reality.