Not wanting children when both self employed?

[oxiellie]

Me and DP are both self employed. He has been for several years and I suppose taking an average of his income over that time is reliable but it's also not, as some years he has done drastically more than others but not in an increasing order... so maybe taking the lowest?

I've been for the last couple of years.

We are obviously both fine and easily providing for ourselves with plenty left for a child but if things did go terrible all of a sudden, we can easily alter our life to fit, etc. we wouldn't be able to take back the child (obviously)

DP sees little problem and thinks it comes with perks. I think one of us should at least be in a fixed income employment.

What do you think? I realise it's a personal decision but would be interesting to know what the average decision would be

So get yourself a job if that’s what you want, and he won’t get a job.

Do you have savings? Would you have enough in savings to give yourselves buffer time to find employment if your usual work dried up?

Self employment may work more easily around childcare, so the self employed one might end up doing most of the parenting if the other got a regular job.

DH and I are both self employed. We made sure we had 4 months worth of bills in savings before we had DC

It’s not much different from when two parents are working in the same industry that might be subject to redundancies. Or two parents who are close to burn out. Given people often meet their significant others at work, it’s not a rare situation that you would have two teachers or two medical professionals or two people in the same industry.

If you don’t want children, that’s fine but I don’t think self employed is the reason not to. If anything both of you being self employed should give a lot more flexibility to manage childcare.

DH and I are both self-employed.

The only way we could manage having children would be to pay for full-time childcare even though there are days/weeks we wouldn't need it. Generally we both have constant work but DH has a gap between jobs coming up, and during the school holidays my income generally drops a fair bit too. But we plan for it and always put enough away in savings to cover the quieter periods.

The main concern would be that if one of us got sick and couldn't work for a long period of time, as we'd have the double whammy of no sick pay and having to pay for childcare, but that applies to employed parents who only get SSP too.

I think 'wanting children' doesn't come down to the things you're discussing. If you want them, you'd find a way to make it work. If you don't want them, you'd find a reason not to regardless. It's good to be practical and figure out a plan of how to divvy up/afford childcare and what you'd do if the self-employment went pears, but to rule out kids unless one of your is full-time employed, knowing that neither of you is going to do that, sounds like you don't want DC that much. Which is completely fine, ofc. Perhaps you do want them but are just incredibly practical and risk-averse, but at some point having a first DC becomes a leap of faith and you have to accept the chaos and unpredictability.

I’d be a little wary of money as you’ve said, but if you save enough for say 10 months/however long you want to take maternity then I can’t see the issue.
Or if you feel it’s too risky/you don’t make enough, get another job with a good maternity package, you could always leave and be self employed again in the future after having your child and taking mat leave.

so no I don’t think it’s a reason not to have children if you want them, and it can be easily changed, but I would try to have more savings behind me first perhaps.

As an extreme example, I have several friends in couples where they are both actors or in artistic freelance work which is notoriously unpredictable and risky, but they've had DC and made it work. It's not easy, but it is doable if you're both up for it and switched on about the practicalities and sacrifices.

Be very careful.
It could "somehow" default into you having to drop your work to take care of the children solo. Gradually as of course it would make sense etc etc.

Or worse if your DH ever had aspirations of stopping working - there's the odd case you see here where the DH took it upon himself to become SAHP, but unlike most SAHM he'd do no housework, cooking, cleaning, all remaining to be done by the mother after she's finished work.