To want to be a stay home mum?

[wanttostayathome]

So I've got about 6 months left of my maternity leave, and I already know for a fact I don't want to go back. I love being a mum and I want to take another year or two off to raise my baby before she starts school.

Financially, it would be tight and although probably doable we'd have much less disposable income. My DH thinks I should go back for the money and also to have some balance between mum life and the old me.

I however disagree. There's nothing more I want from my life than to raise my baby but I don't know how to approach this conversation with him, as I know my POV isn't the done thing and I should want to be able to juggle career and family.

So, AIBU?

I took over two years off with my two children - in part because nursery costs were more than my salary but like you, I knew I wanted to be home and I don't regret those early years with my kids for a second. I'm happy to be back working full time but those early days were important to me and I could afford to/not afford not to! So the decision was easy.

Oh and given ML in the U.K. is very generous now- a full year- she's hardly being chased back into work. She has the privilege of being the one with the right to a year's leave. The father can only take part of it if she chooses to transfer it to him. Honestly, this is the kind of thing women of my era would have chewed our arms off for.

And thinking back to my own childhood, (1960s) how wonderful it would have been if Maternity rights had been a thing back then. I think it's great for children to be raised seeing that both mothers and fathers can nurture and earn.

BettyCarver is talking an awful lot of sense!

We missed out on shared parental leave by 6 months. We would have loved to have shared that year.

I just don’t get how any couple can think separate finances are fair and equal when a child is involved.

Overwhelmingly the mother will end up earning less once she has a kid. Plus you can’t look at the mother and the child’s finances in isolation, they live in the same house eat the same food etc.

As a man, saying I want a nice family but to squirrel away my own stash of money knowing full well my wife will earn less for life and have a smaller pension is really shitty. It genuinely saddens me that some women think this is equality.

I just don’t get how any couple can think separate finances are fair and equal when a child is involved.

Overwhelmingly the mother will end up earning less once she has a kid. Plus you can’t look at the mother and the child’s finances in isolation, they live in the same house eat the same food etc.

As a man, saying I want a nice family but to squirrel away my own stash of money knowing full well my wife will earn less for life and have a smaller pension is really shitty. It genuinely saddens me that some women think this is equality.

Literally nobody has said this!!! Why make things up?

@SpinsForGin you must be a lot younger than me - sadly, shared parental leave was a long way off when I had my 3 babies. There wasn't even paternity leave I too would have loved shared leave. Ultimately becoming a parent wasn't about me; it was about our children, and maximising their time with dh would have been lovely for them.

@SpinsForGin

Pretty sure someone upthread was praising separate finances even when they have kids. If no one thinks this is a good idea then thank god - as it really screws the person doing the unpaid work. Plus it’s just mean spirited and tight tbh.

Ultimately becoming a parent wasn't about me; it was about our children, and maximising their time with dh would have been lovely for them.
It was the same for us. We were fortunate that DH was able to use annual leave to work 4 day weeks for the first 3 months which was nice.

[quote Babysharkdududududu]@SpinsForGin

Pretty sure someone upthread was praising separate finances even when they have kids. If no one thinks this is a good idea then thank god - as it really screws the person doing the unpaid work. Plus it’s just mean spirited and tight tbh.[/quote]
Nope. Nobody said that.

I said we pay a proportion of our salary into a joint account and the amount is based on how much we earn ( so the higher earner pays more) but I don't class that as fully separate finances. All bills and outgoings are covered from that account and we have equal spending money. It's just that the spending money sits in our individual accounts.

@Babysharkdududududu

I just don’t get how any couple can think separate finances are fair and equal when a child is involved.

Overwhelmingly the mother will end up earning less once she has a kid. Plus you can’t look at the mother and the child’s finances in isolation, they live in the same house eat the same food etc.

As a man, saying I want a nice family but to squirrel away my own stash of money knowing full well my wife will earn less for life and have a smaller pension is really shitty. It genuinely saddens me that some women think this is equality.

This is a bit of a digression, but this assumes that the man is always the higher or sole earner. Increasingly he is not.

I've always chosen to have separate finances even when I was married because I have always earned more than every partner I've had and frankly I trust myself to manage "family" money more than any man I have met.

Clearly in cases where there is a single breadwinner and a SAH partner then the concept of "family money" is critical.

But I wouldn't assume that separate finances are always simply about one partner wanting to "squirrel away" money. There are increasingly a complex range of ways couples structure their finances and pooling everything is not always automatically in the best interests of the children.

it's not anti SAHP to say one parent doesn't get to unilaterally change the goalposts and expect the other to become the sole working parent for the household.

Indeed, quite a few sahp have said this, including me.

I said we pay a proportion of our salary into a joint account and the amount is based on how much we earn ( so the higher earner pays more) but I don't class that as fully separate finances. All bills and outgoings are covered from that account and we have equal spending money. It's just that the spending money sits in our individual accounts.

Yep we do the same, transfer money for bills and savings proportionately and then have the same money left over but keep it in our accounts. I'm a saver and DH is a spender so works well for us; we both contribute fairly and can do what we like with the money we have in our accounts. Savings usually cover unexpected stuff but if not then we just talk about it and pay it, not a big deal.

You do what you think is in the interests of the child
And for many it means both parents working FT. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to give my kids the life they had when I separated from their dad.

I asked them when they were older teenagers if they wished I'd been a sahm and they were adamant that I'd done the right thing and we're grateful for the life they had because I did.

I think most parents who decide to be a sahp do it mainly because that's what they want for themselves.

As a man, saying I want a nice family but to squirrel away my own stash of money knowing full well my wife will earn less for life and have a smaller pension is really shitty. It genuinely saddens me that some women think this is equality
The only family I know who do that is when the wife is insisting working no more than 16 or 20h when the kids are older and don't need childcare any longer and the husband is keen for her to work FT or longer hours to have more family money but the wife refuses.

Any couple who see the money coming into the home as completely separate 'mine' and 'yours' is being ridiculous or at worst, abusive, imo. That's completely different to a couple choosing to organise their finances in various accounts.

Surely a partnership is about sharing. Which goes to the core of this whole strange thread. Neither partner gets to make unilateral decisions about any significant issues which impact on both people. The big life decisions I would say include: where to live, parenting, jobs. In a healthy, respectful relationship, why would anyone even want to ignore their partner's view on any of these things? And of course over time, people's feelings about things change- so a healthy relationship requires ongoing communication. It could be that one partner agree to become sole earner but later starts to suffer from stress and burn out. Does the other partner just say, tough, you've got to carry on in that role just because I say so? Of course the OP's husband should listen to her feelings, discuss them and take them seriously. It sounds like the OP is already heading towards the healthy outcome of considering pt work - perhaps a compromise on what she ideally wants of SAH, but a healthy decision in that it doesn't ride roughshod over her DH's view, which is that he doesn't want sole earning responsibility.

If one or both partners feel so strongly that they absolutely will not use any form of childcare and that one parent must be with the children all the time, the time to express that view is before conception! Its a perfectly valid view, but it's an inflexible one and it's only reasonable to make sure both parents are on board with it, and to decide which of them will give up their job, or ensure they both have the flexibility to completely work their jobs around each other. To decide after having the child that you absolutely don't want to use childcare or return to work and expect your partner to automatically default to this is so disrespectful.

To 'turn things around,' if my DH had announced after dd was born, 'I absolutely don't want to use childcare; I'll give up work and look after her,' I'd have said 'no way; I don't want the responsibility of being sole breadwinner.'
Of course I would have listened to him and discussed his feelings, which might then have led to me working full time, him part time, and having dd in nursery 2 or 3 days a week. But I absolutely would not have appreciated being pressured into a sole earner role just to meet his demands.

I think most parents who decide to be a sahp do it mainly because that's what they want for themselves.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's more than fine.

And it does seem to be the reason for the people on here who are so adamant that it shouldn't be a joint decision. There was a weak attempt to make it about "facilitating" the man's life (no, if it stresses him and he doesn't want it, he's not facilitated), or about all childcare being Dotheboys Hall (no, no evidence of this at all), so it did come down to "but the woman might be so anxious! She might really suffer if she can't stay home!" As if this doesn't apply equally to the other parent being forced into sole provision.

It's plain and obvious from those posts that the motivation is "because I want it for me". And that is fine! That's what most lifestyle choices are about.

But it's not enough when it imposes upon the other partner something that THEY do not want. It's a decision that affects everyone and therefore everyone involved has a veto. And "because I want it" isn't a good enough reason if the other equal partner doesn't.

Attempts to moralise and castigate about it to force the other partner into it are horribly manipulative and deeply uncaring.

@BettyCarver

Any couple who see the money coming into the home as completely separate 'mine' and 'yours' is being ridiculous or at worst, abusive, imo. That's completely different to a couple choosing to organise their finances in various accounts.

I chose to keep my finances separate when I was married precisely because I wanted to avoid abuse and make sure my money was being optimised for my child's benefit and not for my then husband to spunk it on hair-brained "business schemes".

Keeping some money separate was literally a life-saver for me and I think it can be a very pragmatic choice in families where both parties work. In my experience higher-earning or breadwinning mother is more likely to spend that money for the family than a higher-earning or breadwinning father. This is anecdotal obviously but you don't see a lot of breadwinning women dropping large sums of cash on mid-life crisis sports cars or golfing weekends.

It's very important obviously that when there's one breadwinner and a non-working partner that the non-working partner has equal access to money. But that doesn't mean its always in everyone's interests for all money to be pooled.

I have very recently had
This conversation with my
Partner, the thought of leaving my little boy to go back to work would make
Me burst in to tears whenever we discussed it (yes I have some Anxiety about leaving him which I am working on but that's a different story) to help the conversation I did a universal credit calculator to see if we would get any help, then I looked at average nursery prices in our area so we had exact
Figures to really be able to compare. Turned out after childcare I was going back for about £100 a month which with a few tweaks we realised we could do without. So before you discuss it again work out all the info first then explain your feelings xx

@thepeopleversuswork yes I can see in that situation it could be to the children's benefit if things turn sour.

I believe in most situations though, a partnership should be based on seeing finances as shared, even if the practicalities of that mean using several bank accounts

I’m totally with you as I wish I had stayed at home longer with both my kids. They are 13 and 17 now, young men with their own lives and it was only yesterday they were cheeky kids who could sit on my knee for a hug. It still makes me angry how people expect mums to work and not miss the most important and non replaceable part of our kids lives. I’ve done it and wish so damn hard I didn’t. If you can stay at home until your child is in school, then do it. If you also want to compromise, then go part time. But above all, do what YOU think is best for you and your baby and your family.

Oh yawn not this again. You don't 'miss' your children's lives just because they aren't with you every second of every waking hour. If you genuinely think that way, how on earth do you reconcile your husband missing out on raising his children every time he sets off for work?

Raising children is much more than the sum of how many nappies you've changed in a week, or whether you're the only person who's made lunch for your child, or played hide and seek with them, or read them a story. Children have a special bond with their parents. They might have a good time at nursery or with a child minder too, but parents that's not an 'instead of' it's an 'as well as.' And if you don't want your child ever using child care, that's fine too. It's not about either way being better.

At the end of the day, are your children happy and well adjusted? Have they grown into happy, successful adults who have a good relationship with you and with others? If so, well done, you've been a great parent. Whether you've combined parenting with working or not.

@LoverOfAllThingsPurple

It still makes me angry how people expect mums to work and not miss the most important and non replaceable part of our kids lives.

Where to start with this:

a) So its OK to "expect" dads to work (and apparently as with this case to support an entire family single-handed on one salary) but not mums? Why? Who determined that mums are biologically more important than dads?
b) Why does working mean you miss "the most important and non-replaceable part" of your kids lives? Are you aware that working parents also see their kids? You do know that even with FT working parents the kids spent far more time with them than they do with their childminders?
c) Who "expects" mums to work?
d) Why is it so important for a mum to be on hand around the clock for a child but not a dad?
e) Who decided that the pre-school years are the most important part of your kids lives?
f) Your kids are away from you for 6+ hours a day once they go to school. Is that also taking away from the "most important and non-replaceable part" of their lives? Should they also be kept off school?

OP could you see about getting a job where you can work from home, and still be with DD? I know it would be hard, but it could be a good middle ground?

I haven’t read the rest of the thread since I last posted because I lost the plot at men who aren’t sole breadwinners being limp lettuces, but as the child of a mum who stayed at home until I was at primary school, I can’t remember it. Any of it. I’m sure it was lovely, I certainly started school ready and able to do so, but I can’t remember it. That’s what my parents (jointly!) felt was the best thing to do but it made zero difference to me.