To leave my job and become a SAHM? Stupid move ????

[Summerstarsarepink]

The nursery fees have risen . They now are or more than way my wages .

DH and I are constantly tired from Full time work and running around dropping off and collecting and then sorting dinner / running the house .

Children are 8 months and 19 months.
I feel exhausted. Plus I don’t enjoy my job.

Yes in the future we will be eligible for free funding but for the next year it is going to be very expensive.

I’m wondering if I should take the baby out of nursery ( 8 months) . Then Change my son from full Time to three mornings ( when he is 2 he will be eligible for some funding. Which will cover this )

Then - just have a few years with the children. Enjoy them. Enjoy being at home . Not run around like a blue arse fly constantly stressed from work .

I’ve always worried if I stop my career it will be a huge mistake but to be honest I’m just worried I’ll miss my children grow up and my career will always be there ! I say career - I am teacher and I hate it !!!!
I’d like to retrain but once the children are older I think I will be able to do this.

DH just wants me to be happy. Nursery costs more than my wage. AIBU to just take. Few years out and enjoy my children ?

Side note - I by no way think being a SAHM is easy !

Yanbu. It sounds like a wonderful plan that will benefit both you and the kids. And you'll easily be able to get back into teaching again afterwards if you want. Go for it and enjoy!

Precisely. Not ‘naive’ at all.

I do think as @Brefugee says there's a very important distinction between giving up work for 2-3 years and giving up work for a decade or more. When you have very young children and are paying nosebleed prices for childcare and you rarely have quality time with them in the week it can be brutal. I can understand why anyone who can afford not to have to do it might choose not to. Particularly if you're in teaching or a career where you have a reasonable degree of confidence in being able to get back on the ramp.

But doing it without any kind of escape plan does seem very odd to me. However solid your marriage is and however well paid your husband is, putting all your eggs into that basket is like playing Russian Roulette. And if your marriage does survive and you return to work, you will almost certainly find your career has been compromised and you will over time feel diminished by the lack of financial agency.

Step off the wheel for a couple of years if you can afford it, OP, by all means, but don't do it without a plan.

I quit my job to be a sahm. I love it and wouldn't have lost that time with DC for anything.

There seems to be an awful lot of catastrophising on this thread! People have an amazing capacity to adapt to changes in circumstances. And if OPs salary is less than childcare costs, how would it benefit her to keep going on the off-chance she and husband her husband up?

You sound like you want to do to. I don't think you'll regret it. When they're old enough to understand they'll be so grateful.

If you are financially able to do it for as long as you want / need to then you are in a privileged minority. So just do what you want. Trust your instinct.

It won't be easy and you might doubt yourself and your decision at times. This time when they're so little doesn't actually last very long! Though it can feel like it does sometimes.

You might get quite a few low key passive aggressive comments from friends or acquaintances who are likely just jealous basically.

You've got many many more years of work ahead of you once the kids are a bit older!

Sensible advice, along with claiming child benefit to keep your pension credits even if you are not entitled to any money. Also look at the pension scheme to see what effect taking a break will have in terms of being able to join the same scheme.

This is a good point!

If OP takes home £2k and her DH takes home double, if they both went to working 0.7 they'd be better off than just DH working.

By my reckoning about £500 per month better off in total take home pay than with just him working, AND not losing child benefit on top of that, so considerably more again, which is more than enough to cover a day of child care for the gap where both are working.

Even at 0.6 they'd be better off by at least the CB than just OP giving up work.

Work is balls. Enjoy your kids when they are little... they grow so fast.

Speak for yourself! My work isn't balls. I'd hate not to work.

Not directly relevant to the OP's post (and I don't have a particular dog in that fight) but it does irritate me when people on here are so negative about work as a general concept and imply that people who like their jobs are boring or lacking in imagination.

It seems to have become more fashionable in recent years for people to suggest that there's something dysfunctional about enjoying your job.

Firstly its a wild over-generalisation: there are as many kinds of jobs as there are people. You might love being a fish farmer and hate working in an office. Or love being Chairman of the Board and hate the idea of performing arts. It seems so odd and arbitrary that people would describe it all as "balls" without any qualification of what's involved.

Secondly it's very very gendered. Would people who say work is "balls" and why don't you quit to a husband or partner whose job keeps a roof over their heads and feeds their children? No, thought not.

Secondly it's very very gendered. Would people who say work is "balls" and why don't you quit to a husband or partner whose job keeps a roof over their heads and feeds their children? No, thought not

yep. Why is it only women who need to be with their kids and not miss out? Why is it only women’s work that is “balls”, and somehow men’s jobs aren’t?

I’m the higher earner and bring in the majority of the household income.

if dh wanted to quit work simply because it was “balls”, and he wanted to spend more time with the kids? What about my time with the kids? Is it ok for me to sacrifice their younger years because dh thinks work is balls?

Go for it loved my time at home with the children.

Do it, absolutely. You have your qualifications and your experience, you can look to retrain in the future. For now, make the most of being at home with your babies. The eldest won't need nursery at all - so don't worry about keeping them there for social skills etc, they all get free hours when they're 3. I miss being a SAHM with small children, the fun of filling a day with baking, toys and just pootling around a park. It's a no brainer for me, your child benefit will continue to pay state pension contributions- and will continue to do so even if your husband earns over 60k, you just need to do a tax return for it.

Secondly it's very very gendered. Would people who say work is "balls" and why don't you quit to a husband or partner whose job keeps a roof over their heads and feeds their children? No, thought not.

If the husband had a job he didn’t like where he was earning half what his wife was, I don’t see why not. Especially if his job, far from keeping a roof or feeding the children has a negative effect on the family pot.

I struggled to balance everything for the first 4 years, constantly on the move, planning/arranging childcare, not eating properly, the guilt for not being around when I wanted to etc. I was absolutely exhausted and eventually, very dramatically and quite painfully I burnt out, quit my job and took 6 years away from my career, working a part time job that gave me the flexibility I wanted. A lot of people thought I’d gone mad, but I loved it, I would do it again, just sooner if I had the chance! 6 years later, I secured a job in the field I really wanted to focus on, I still only work 4 days, and I’ve never been happier. I needed this journey to get me here! I say go for it!

Do it . That is all! 💐

I would hope she would put more thought into it than listening to internet randoms saying "do it".

Exactly.

If I had husband who earned half of what I did and hated his job, and there was no financial benefit to the family income as a result of him working, then I would much prefer him to be at home with the children (instead of putting them in childcare) if that’s what he wanted.

Juggling full time work and all your wages going towards paying for childcare is crazy! You must be exhausted too 😳 I'd take a few years off to be with your children while they are so little. I've never regretted it.

Take time off and enjoy being with your kids, sign up for a course so you can do a career change and study part time

Haven't RTFT but I've read your responses. If you want to do it, then do it. I've got a 23mo and a 4yo and would love to be a SAHM or drop my hours further. I'm already part time (28 hours over 4 days) but I'm the breadwinner so I can't. They grow so fast, and it's so intense at this age. These things aren't binary, you hate your job so presumably would be looking to change jobs anyway. There's nothing to stop you being a SAHM now and looking for a new job or doing some tutoring if you change your mind in future. Yes it's going to affect your pension, but honestly how bad is 3 years out of the workforce over a working lifetime of 50ish years really going to be? You can get a new job if it turns out to be a mistake, you'll never get this time with your children back.

Odd, isn't it, that it's considered to be the entirety of the OP's wages that pay for childcare and none of the DH's.

I did it - was at home for 6 years. I’m in my fifties now and I’m probably going to have to work for a few years longer than my friends who always worked, just to build up my pension, but it was worth it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You never get these early years back, they are so precious, and it was definitely less stressful for us as a family to have one of us at home x

I did it and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. They’re only little once. You’ll never regret spending more time with your kids.
Just a couple of things to consider: ensure you’re claiming child benefit to get your NI credits for missed work years. If you can afford to pay a little into pension consider doing so. Think about break in service for teacher benefits.

The OP has explained that all finances are pooled and OP has control of them. They merely meant that nursery costs exceeded the OP’s income.