To ask if you work or are a SAHP..

[DontBeTight]

Just that really, those of you who have children under school age. Do you work, or do you stay at home? Or work part time? My youngest won't start school until 2026 so I'm considering giving up work and having the rest of the time full time at home with her as my income makes very little difference to the household.

Those who stay at home, do you enjoy it?

@gemma19846 I cannot bring myself to worry about pensions.

My mother was dying from cancer at my age (44) and my dad ended up in a care home, having to sell his house and when that money went on fees, the council took over and do you know how much of the pensions that he’d scrimped and saved into he got to keep? £23.50 a week. And no, he received no better care because he had money to pay for it. Unless you are a multi millionaire, you end up in the same place as someone who’s never saved a bean, being looked after to a basic level.

With the genetics I have (and I am under a genetics team), it will be a miracle if I live long enough to worry about a pension.

I can’t live on what ifs. I am going to enjoy my life and for me, that means being with my children every second I can. That’s all that matters to me. Other people can do what they like.

My husband very luckily fell into a career via a temp job where he was the last year they got final salary pensions. It’s an industry where it’s a job for life.

He doesn’t see me being financially dependent on him. he sees it all as our money, mine and his, everything in one pot which we both have equal access to, although, in leaner times he prioritised me and the children and went without. He wouldn’t see it as me living off his pension. He’s not like that. We’ve been a team for a hell of a long time now.

yes he could leave me. Again, that’s out of my control. I am not going to live my life worrying about a tomorrow that isn’t guaranteed.

@Ouchmyarse But however you dress it up, you ARE fully financially dependent on him.

So? Who actually cares if I am? I was explaining his attitude towards it.

The only people that matters to is me and my husband. We are happy with it. If god forbid, he were to die or be unable to work tomorrow we have protections in place for that.

Why should I care about what other people think about it? If you don’t want to be financially dependent on someone else, don’t be then. I don’t get the preoccupation with other peoples lives.

The thing is, with 3 children on your income you would be up shit creek if your bloke left. You would struggle with rent and bills and need top up benefits until you got a much better paying job.

@Ouchmyarse would also be up shit creek if her husband left, until she got a well enough paying job to support herself, and would likely need some benefits before that.

But there is no saying that @Ouchmyarse would be any worse of than you in that situation- she might own property, she might only have one child, she might have helpful family, she might have more savings or years of experience or niche skills which mean it isn’t that difficult to get a job. She might not have a credit card or an overdraft etc.

Private renting with 3 young children and earning £1,000 a month means that you may well be in a more precarious financial position than many sahms.

You can't really live your life in constant fear of something happening to your spouse (death, serious illness, unexpected disability) or that your spouse might leave you.
Marriage is about combining two lives and for that you must have trust. If you are marrying someone you have to have that trust otherwise what's the point?
People who feel they "must" work because of "what if...." - it must be a fairly stressful life to be worrying about that all the time.

I have three kids, 4, 2 and 6m. I stayed at home with the elder 2, but went back to work not long after DS was born last summer. It’s a really hard one because my income only just covers the cost of childcare for 2yo and 6mo, but I felt really unfulfilled at home after so long and started going a bit loopy just playing with the kids all day.

I felt as if I wasn’t really contributing and we started to struggle financially so I went back to work. Now the mum guilt eats me up for not being at home with DS like I was for DDs!

I’d say I have more purpose now I’m back at work and relationship with DP is better as we have our own things to talk about instead of it just being ‘I played with the kids all day and did the washing’ when he asked how my day was. I don’t think you’ll know until you try. Being a SAHP works for some, but not for others.

You're dependant on your husband too!

When my mum left my Dad she was left in the shit financially even though she had a good job. One of my family friends has just divorced his wife who has been a SAHM for 15 years and she got the house in the settlement (mortgage free) plus something like 2.5k a month in spousal maintenance, plus child maintenance, plus some of his pension. She was WAY better off financially than my mum with a career was.

When I had DC1, I was convinced no-one else could possibly look after him and I was going to be a SAHM throughout his childhood. However, I disliked being dependent on DH financially and was bored, so I took on a couple of part time jobs that I coulf fit around the baby and DH's working hours.

Despite eing besotted with DC1, as time went on I felt sort of diminished as opposed to being DH's equal. He was going out doing interesting work, and was very busy. It made sense for me to take responsibility for most of the housework, though it never came particularly naturally to me, and DH was also delegating all the home admin around paying bills, organising repair jobs etc, and he was getting into a nice comfortable habit of issuing instructions and leaving all these things to me. It made sense, but it made me feel as if I was the housekeeper/maidservant.

Ultimately for financial reasons it became unsustainable anyway and I had to go back to work part time. Initially I applied for a clerical job in a local hospital because I reckoned I wanted regular hours and it offered a creche. They were interested but took so long to go through the interview and recruitment process that I started looking for jobs in my former profession, and secured an offer that was much better paid, so I went for that. I've stayed in that profession through two more pregnancies and, though it's been pretty stressful and childminding was often a major juggling job, I didn't regret it. Instantly I felt that I was myself again, my self-respect returned and I felt more fulfilled.

I don't imagine it would be the same for everyone but I suppose the lesson is that no-one should assume the grass is greener as a SAHP. For OP, it seems to me that it would make much more sense to take a little time to build on her qualifications so that she can move to a job she enjoys and that is properly rewarded, and maybe consider doing that on a part time basis.

'relationship with DP is better as we have our own things to talk about instead of it just being ‘I played with the kids all day'

I know. In any normal respectable home there should be real, proper things to talk about like -

...reached out to Mike and Sue to suggest deep-dive into core competencies. Drilled down on deliverables, keen to move the needle. Brief segueway into strategies to break down silos. Just running ideas up the flagpole - Mike said let's circle back on that when he has bandwidth to pivot and identify low hanging fruit. Sue said it's above her pay grade. I said, ‘take it offline, put a pin in it and run the numbers.’ Game changer. Hard stop at 1pm for Pret A Manger. '

So much more fascinating than Tumble Tots.

@indigoskies 😂
Most jobs are really only interesting to others who do those jobs.
Even a spouse won't find it that exciting.
Although my husband's job had a visit from a sausage dog yesterday and I admit I enjoyed seeing all 3 gazillion photos of the dog.

I’ve stayed out of this thread because it’s degenerated into the predictable knee jerk slanging match and I find them exhausting and counterproductive.

And for the record I do not believe staying at home with kids is boring or makes people stupid or dull.

But it does piss me off beyond belief when people characterise all jobs as being playgrounds for anal corporate bores and all people who have jobs as tiresome solipsistic automatons.

You do realise, right, that the vast majority of people who work don’t work in corporate offices and spout corporate jargon? Particularly the female workers, a large number of whom work in the NHS, teaching, academia or caring professions? There’s a vast panoply of jobs people can do in a vast range of industries.

I do think people owe it to SAHMs not to stereotype them as brainless but it cuts both ways. Just because you work doesn’t mean you can’t be normal or speak English and please stop with the reductive stereotypes about people who work too.

This is what I was talking about the other day.

Me and dh have loads to chat about even though I don’t work. He doesn’t discuss work at home (unless he’s pissed off at someone and wants to vent).

I don’t sit and tell him about playing with the children.

We have loads of shared interests, we like to joke about the same daft stuff. We talk about what we would like to do to the house next and stuff like that, laugh at things on the internet together, talk about something we’ve read that day or heard on the radio.

The idea that you would have nothing to talk about because you didn’t go to work is crazy.

I was joking @Thepeopleversuswork (well, mostly 😉). That stereotype is as daft as saying all SAHMs have to talk about is PlayDoh.

I stayed at home with mine, wouldn't have done anything else. Made lots of friends and studied for a degree, then a masters, then a doctorate.

@indigoskiesI miss playing with Playdoh.
I think we still have some but whether it's still usable 🤔
My favourite was the hairdresser set with the spinning seat and then you cut their "hair".
Hours of fun.
Playdoh was originally a made as a wall cleaner don't you know 😂😂😂

This is true. I am interested in my wife’s work but that’s because she’s in the same field as me- so I get to do the interesting discussions without having to do the annoying actual work bit. She is doing a postgrad/post qualification course type thing at the moment so I’m enjoying doing research and reading for her… it would not be so interesting to me if she worked in admin or accounting or something.

It isn't a constant fear or constant stress. It's a relief that should the worse happen, I'll be fine financially because I'm not solely relying on someone else.

It's just like always wearing a seatbelt in the car, I'm not constantly worrying about the car crashing but should something go wrong, I'm protected.

@SouthLondonMum22 the thing is for the sake of my mental health I had to leave my job and put my trust in my husband (then partner) to take care of me mentally and financially.
Being "protected" through a job will only protect you if the job isn't making your life miserable.
The whole "must be independent, must have own money" etc thing doesn't work for everyone.
If that makes sense ....

As your lives grow together @SouthLondonMum22, you'll be less reliant on income regardless. You'll have joint assets etc that are more significant than who earns what. You will build up a certain lifestyle together and that becomes self-perpetuating. (Unless you are one of those couples who have totally separate finances and that kind of thing)?

Our only joint asset is our house. Bank accounts etc are separate.

I can understand that.

Genuinely...how? When I SAH I had less autonomy than at any point in my life. The 'work' was easy in that it didn't tax me mentally (which caused me to be very bored) but hard in that all my time was at the mercy of my DC demands. I have never been unfortunate enough to have a paid role where I didn't have at least some choice in what I did and when, to take breaks, to be on my own, or not, as I chose. How can anyone do whatever they want all the time while caring for children?

@SouthLondonMum22 - that probably explains why you can't understand families with a SAHP. SAHP families have a totally different mentality and you're just not thinking as separate financial entities, regardless of who earns what.

I’m not sure one can be a ‘solipsistic automaton’, I’d have thought that was a contradiction in terms.

@SouthLondonMum22 this is what I meant by individual perception of risk.

I look at a car, I know statistically it’s a very dangerous way to travel, so I mitigate that risk in a way that feels proportional to me- I wear a seatbelt, I don’t speed or use a phone or smoke while I’m driving. However I don’t go as far as not driving at all, and walking when I don’t want to, because it would be massively inconvenient to me and I feel it would be disproportionate.

Work is the same. Not working carries risks, so I mitigate those by having private pensions, my own home I can’t be turfed out of, savings, life insurance and critically by choosing my partner very carefully- but I don’t go as far as working when I don’t want to because it would be massively inconvenient to me and I feel it would be disproportionate.

You have 1 job (as far as I can tell), you feel this is a necessary safeguard against adversity if you get divorced. Fair enough. But your perception of that risk doesn’t go as far as “what if my bloke fucks off and I get sacked as well? I’d better get a second job in case those two very possible events occur”.