To hate how mums always have to sacrifice their career...

[rumun88]

I have 2 kids .. one 18 month old and a 6 year old. I work in a cafe for an estate, one week day and one weekend day and there's no flexibility in that I have to do a weekend day.

I've been offered a job as a GP receptionist and I would love to take it. But it's only £10.42 an hour and with it being weekdays we would need to pay childcare. Basically with the summer hols coming up, childcare for both kids would cost more than my wage. DH will cover it, but part of me is thinking what's the point when it means I'm not bringing any money to the pot technically. I'd also have to have both kids in different childcare settings which are opposite side of town by 7.30am. In my current job he works from home the 1 week day and is home the weekend day so no childcare.

So I have the choice, take the new job and get my weekends back but don't exactly earn, keep my current job and work every single weekend.. or be a SAHM.

Please help. I could cry! I was a dental nurse before kids and again childcare was an issue. We have no family support.

What would you do?

Because most of the time they don’t. The mum being at home means they can work longer, stay out for drinks, etc. no need to rush back for bath or bedtime, no need to worry about making sports day if they have a meeting, no need to stay home
with a poorly child. Mum’s there to do that. Which incidentally encourages presenteeism at workplaces and disadvantages women who work. So those sahms enabling that behaviour aren’t just perpetuating gender stereotypes on their home, but are making it more difficult for women who choose to work to progress.

This is an amazing outcome, I was about to ask whether you could look for other dentists in the area! Congratulations and good luck in your new job.

@rumun88

Brilliant OP!

Reading this makes me feels like I’m in India. This is a first world country, yet women are related to as cooks, cleaner and laundry. Quite sad.

Paying for childcare argument doesn’t work when majority of SAHM have high earners and see “no point to work”.

If you’re content facilitating a man’s life and being funded, then that’s on you. Just don’t expect the state to fund your lifestyle when he inevitably stops to.

And the childcare argument won’t work next year onwards as 9 month children will get 15 hours free than 30 hours following year. What’s your excuse not to work then?

For me, there’s more to me than a mummy and I want a seat at the table. I’m not facilitating a mans career.

This is exactly what I’m saying. I’m the only girl in my direct team at work of 6.

I’m not an unpaid servant, I’m not doing cooking cleaning and laundry taking care of a man. I’m also not just a mummy.

I want my seat at the table.
I want my own career.
I want my own financial stability.
I want socialisation.

Conveniently, these same women forget how hard it is for a man to leave and redirect his salary into a new account. Boom, she’s stuffed.

With hybrid working, none of these arguments fly. I’m home 3 days a week at the bare minimum.

Exactly! SAHM also tend to forget how easy it is to redirect salary to a new account.

@anonymousxoxo I worked 14 hrs a week when mine were small so pocket money basically. I still had respect from my husband, I still "had a seat st the table". I wasn't an unpaid cleaner, laundry assistant etc but it worked well for us for me to give up my full time job and work evenings due to childcare. My dh does his share of cooking and cleaning and life administration.

Some people want to be at home with their children, some people want to go to work. We all have an important place in this world.

Have respect for people no matter the path they choose. Please don't try and demean people= families who choose to have a parent at home.

@Nordicrain

So those sahms enabling that behaviour aren’t just perpetuating gender stereotypes on their home, but are making it more difficult for women who choose to work to progress.

This is bang on. There’s a big social cost to having a default setup where a SAHM “facilitates” a man’s career.

In a setup with a breadwinner and a FT SAHP there are no restrictions on the demands made of the working spouse’s time. There’s always someone (a woman) on hand to deal with the kids and it never occurs to the working partner that they can’t do things at work (networking drinks/playing golf/whatever) which technically are not in the job description but which hugely help them advance.

The impact of this is to massively skew the playing field against a working mother who has to consider childcare before agreeing to do anything outside of office hours.

I’ve been on the receiving end of this for years in my company and it’s massively discriminatory: men end up powering up the ranks at work regardless of their competence purely because they are able to do stuff without the 3D chess of juggling childcare. You get a lot of snide remarks from footloose blokes about making necessary and reasonable adjustments in order to allow you to work. But the blokes never have to worry about this because their SAHM takes care of all that. It’s a huge unfair advantage which holds a lot of ambitious and competent women back.

That doesn’t mean that women owe it to each other to work if it doesn’t suit their lives. Obviously women need to prioritise their families and if not working suits them, fair enough.

But it does make me cringe when people say their decision not to work has “supported my DH’s career”. Of course it has: it’s giving them the opportunity to work in a frictionless way which almost no working mothers can. It’s helping to reinforce a massive advantage men have in the workplace and holding women like me who have to work to support our kids back.

It would help us all if we as a society were more willing to acknowledge the massive handicap this creates between the sexes at work and if employers engaged with the impact this had on the equality they say they cherish.

Again, you were a part timer working 14 hours. You didn’t have a seat at the table. You were barely at the table. It always works well for women to go part time, have the mummy track and their dh to work full time? Why couldn’t he go part time? If he left you, how would you get a mortgage/pay the rent of bills? You don’t seem to understand what a precarious situation you have put yourself in. And, that’s why women need to learn about financial independence. How would you pay the bills with “pocket money”? How would you walk into a well paid job after years at being home?

Great update OP!

Fascinated as always by the people who think working parents aren’t raising their children……you seriously think your husband doesn’t raise his children? The person who is the reason they eat? Have you told him that?

The contempt in which these women hold their partners is incredible.

You’re financial dependent on him. You have no financial independence. If he stopped working/left you, you’re stuffed. You’d be homeless and relying on the state (people like me) to fund your lifestyle because you want to “be at home”.

Yup, it’s also fascinating how women always are the one to go part time to protect the man’s big career. He can’t go part time no way, I’ll just become financially dependent on him then the state.

After all the years I stayed at home working in minimum wage jobs I now have a career where I earn more than dh. So being a SAHM hasn't hindered me.

I went back to college, retrained and totally enjoy my work. I wouldn't ever have don't this if I had continued to work in my previous job before having children.

We all do what we need to do in our lives.

My neighbour is a SAHD. Financially it worked better for him to be at home.

It does happen.

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

All of this!!

It always makes sense for the women to go part time too 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Excuses are running out with hybrid/remote working then 9 months free childcare (15 hours then 30 hours).

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3082251-Men-whose-lives-are-facilitated-by-women-how-did-this-happen

Worth having a read of this ^

And this

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/2549617-Why-is-it-always-the-woman-who-goes-part-time

Think about which is the better pension too.

This isn’t the flex you think it is, no one should be a SAHP. It’s precarious and financially vulnerable

Fantastic

@anonymousxoxo

Excuses are running out with hybrid/remote working then 9 months free childcare (15 hours then 30 hours).

Exactly. That’s partly why it’s so irritating hearing people go on about the importance of being in the office all the time.

Theres definitely a place for collaboration and face to face interaction at work and I understand that purely remote isn’t ideal but I am convinced a lot of this as backlash from blokes who are affronted that workplaces are finally more responsive to the needs of working parents. They don’t like the idea of women rewriting male rules.

I work 8-4 (pretty much school hours), can log of at 4 latest 5. I do drop off and pick ups at minimum 3 days a week. Then, dh does the other 2 as I have to go office. I’ve never been office more than 2 a days a week, some weeks can be 1 day or 0 depending on bad weather.

Yeah, exactly! Men don’t want to do childcare/housework as they see it beneath them and as a women task. My company are lovely and quite great, I’m the only girl in a team of 6 and I have good flexibility. But so does everyone else and most don’t even have kids.

Few of my colleagues (male also) do drop and pick ups - excuses are definitely running out….

But, even hybrid is okay - it’s best if both worlds? 1/2 days office then rest wfh? That’s 5 days at home pretty much!

You get to have good salary, progression, pension and solicitation meanwhile at the same time do drop off and picks up also?

I wouldn’t like to be fully remote as I find it little boring, I like my colleagues too and enjoy the work.

"You’re financial dependent on him. You have no financial independence. If he stopped working/left you, you’re stuffed. You’d be homeless and relying on the state (people like me) to fund your lifestyle because you want to “be at home”."

How do you know this exactly? Who are you talking to? You have literally zero idea. Have you done a national survey? Who are you to declare his things work in other peoples marriages and who would be homeless? Just listen to yourself - it's a joke.

The fact you responded with that shows you naive and uneducated you really are.