45k salary entirely eaten by childcare

[Sofiewoo]

Granted salaries aren’t what they were only a handful of years ago but aibu to be shocked that my 45k salary is now entirely eaten by childcare and getting to work??
I figured if you are earning in the 20s you would assume that but not mid 40s!

I’m trying to weigh up whether to just take the next year and a half off instead of working for nothing. I know, pension, career blah blah but it’s mentally very difficult to juggle drop offs, work schedules and sickness but be no better off financially at the end of the month.

Did anyone else not realise it was a bad as this?

Women have also been told it’s our right to choose if we want to work full time or not, even after having children.

This is all well and good, but the problem is women have taken that option without considering that someone needs to be looking after the children, ideally someone significant who’s related to them. In most cases, the dad isn’t willing to take a career break either.

I appreciate it’s a different world now with high nursery fees but I really think we have to question this idea that you should be able to have children without it impacting one of the couple’s careers. To have a happy, thriving family I believe one of you needs to take the hit. Doesn’t have to be the woman but it does need to be one of you. Your disposable income might suffer but that’s life.

Men AND women are driving themselves into the ground working and dealing with kids/house to maintain a certain lifestyle. No wonder there’s such high levels of burnout and anxiety/stress. Meanwhile, kids are sent off to nursery full time from an early age and parents aren’t there for them in the important secondary school years either.

It’s a recipe for a mental health epidemic.

Of course, but the point is- women by default never risk assess the situation. They dismiss the possibility of any of this ever happen to them. Mine are teens and I have seen way too many women who were living in bliss at home being screwed by their husband's. Or being in the situation of a husband not able to deal with the pressure of being the sole earner.
It happens and more often than you think
No man thinks they are missing out in their children's early years.
All they focus is in the reality of life.
This is about reality and not feelings. Feelings don't pay the bills when you are screwed. And this is a good lesson for the kids while growing up- not point to preach on independence. They need to see it.

I actually don't think the funded hours money should be paid to nurseries.

I think there should simply be a flat rate childcare voucher given to parents to use where they like. This would incentivise people to live in cheaper areas where that voucher would go further, reducing pressure on london. Employers would have to pay more to attract london staff because the voucher would not go as far there, so its a good way to encourage investment outside london.

Nurseries would not be able to muck about with their hourly structures to force parents to subsidise those using funded hours. There would be an incentive to use your funding in a cost efficient setting like a childminder, where your voucher is likely to buy you more hours.

Oh yes it’s because people want more stuff, not because the cost of housing and childcare skyrocketed.

You paid £3.50 an hour, could do so via salary sacrifice, and could work 20 hours a week.

I pay £100 a day (so 3x the cost) and the house I own is worth about 3x what it would have cost 15 years ago so you can imagine the mortgage.

Childcare positions pay £45k a year do they?

Here I was thinking that it was one of the most chronically underpaid positions

A decade ago, I had one in full time nursery and one in school wraparound care and yes, once I paid for petrol, I was working in a professional job for just over £100 a week. I kept going because as others have said, it's a short period of time and I didn't want my career to stall.

@girlswillbegirls Of course, but the point is- women by default never risk assess the situation.

This is incredibly patronising.

There are a few very emotive posts about children ideally needing a relative to look after them all the time, and a parent needing to be around throughout all the school years, how failure to provide this is causing a mental health epidemic etc - but this is purely opinion, not based on evidence. (If anything, there seems to be a fair bit of evidence that current mental health issues in young people are linked to the lockdowns, when parents were around more and children unlikely to be in childcare unless mum and dad were both essential workers!)

there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a parent giving up work and being home if that’s what both parents want. But that’s the key thing: if the parents want it, for their individual family. There is no evidence it will result in better outcomes for children.

there will always be some parents who want to stop working and stay at home. Fine. There will always be parents who want to continue working. Also fine.

Remember, a lot of us are at the tail end of our work life and have been through all this. WOHM aren’t a new phenomenon- my kids were in nursery 30 years ago (and yes, costing all my salary!) Those kids are now happy, well adjusted adults who did well at school and university and believe it or not have great relationships with dh and me. No doubt they would have done equally well if one of us had stayed at home too. It’s not a binary thing that one choice is ‘bad’ and one is ‘good.’

I had a colleague who worked at a loss for a couple of years as she loved the job and knew it would be snapped up if she left. What you have to remember with childcare nothings forever things soon change.

No man thinks they are missing out in their children's early years.

This is absolutely not true and a terrible stereotype.

I've no idea why you are being got at so much @Sofiewoo .

You are absolutely right that on your salary, and with two children, it shouldn't totally wipe out everything you earn. I was so thrilled when they announced the changes to free hours as I hoped it would start to make a real difference to women.

And normally I say "think of the pension" but that's when there's at least a little bit of money left over.

That said, what DH and I did was both work compressed hours to make me working make sense (and that was 10 years ago). So he worked 4 days a week compressed hours and I worked 4 days a week compressed hours so we both had a full time salary but the children were only in nursery 3 days.

The other thing to think about is career progression. If career progression isn't something you are interested in a career break may make more sense. For me, it was worth keeping working because I climbed the career ladder during those years and all of a sudden they hit school age and childcare costs plummeted and my salary went up quite considerably

Used to work in childcare (different settings) and vowed never to send my children there when I had kids of my own. Had kids, became a SAHM. I’d rather not have a pot to piss in than send my kids to be looked after by anybody else.

I know I’m not meant to say that because not everyone has the choice to be a SAHM and not everyone wants to be.

but we are seeing the effects of babies placed into childcare before 1 years old and spending more time with staff than they are their parents. Parents are picking their babies/toddlers up from childcare to take home basically to put to bed after an hour 5 days a week. All you have to do is read up the importance of attachment in the first five but mainly 3 years and how being placed in childcare affects this.

Ah yes the ‘I used to work in childcare and I know how shit it is’….
But naturally no evidence … 😂

Haven’t read all the comments so someone might have already suggested this but could you ask your employer for a sabbatical for a year so that you can at least come back to the same job later? Someone I know with two young children has recently done this. Obviously the pension took a hit but it was really reassuring for her to know she had a job at end of it.

Being poor and in poverty is worse for the kids than being in nursery.

Your post is not about reality, it’s about your opinion. I’ve seen marriages break up for a multitude of reasons and men and women shaft each other for a multitude of reasons. The fact is, children are vulnerable and, as a result, parents are in a vulnerable position. Everyone risk assesses. Different people take different risks. Whether you like it or not, it is not a simple calculation, as there are financial, psychological, emotional and practical calculations involved and these differ for everyone.

I couldn't disagree more.

I could never have given my kids the skills, fun and development being at home with them. I would have probably also gone down a very very dark mental health hole being stuck at home for 9 years with just an under 5 for company.

We live in a rural area, there is bugger all to do except 1 church playgroup a week and I regularly turned up for a cuppa and slice of toast with a sleeping child in a pram just to have some company when I was on mat leave.

They still regularly see their nursery friends, a decade later and actually hug the staff when we see them out and about. We recently visited one who now lives in Europe when we were on holiday.

I seem to now see the opposite from the kids who were kept home during lockdown.

You realise this reflects badly on you?

Because I volunteer to help with children at a holiday club and I would never say that I wouldn't happily leave my children with me and the people I work with. We take huge pride in how we care for the children

@mydogfarts(btwso does mine!)
that post is probably fabricated: these threads always attract a few people who claim they used to be childcare workers and they vowed never to leave their own kids in childcare because it’s so shit! They don’t seem to have the joined up thinking that if it were true, it makes them look terrible.

My kids went to a fabulous nursery - cost an arm and a leg but I wouldn’t put a price on their wellbeing. If what 3pancakesplz says is true, it just shows how bloody useless she was at her job and theyre better off without her looking after children

Then it alsos says that a fair number of nurseries offer less than ideal situations for children, and parents have little to no control over the employees working in them.

Many parents have little to no choice on where their children end up being looked after, for practical and financial reasons. Telling all women what they must do, as though all women have fabulous choices, is selling a myth. Some families are simply weighing up different harms, not choosing different advantages.

Can we just check that your nursery is charging you properly? By my maths, you're being massively overcharged!

Assuming both DC are in nursery for 45 hours per week each, that's at total of 90 hours per week to pay, and you've indicated that nursery charges £8.50p/h. That's 90 hours at £8.50 = £765 per week. Funding is 15+30 hours at £8.50 = 45 hours funded, so half the bill is funded, £382.50 - but your nursery is charging you £545...

I'm aware funding is term-time only, so your £382.50 only covers 38 weeks, = £14,535pa.

The other 10 weeks would be at full cost to you, so £765x10 = £7,650

I assume you and DH have at least 4 weeks holiday/nursery close so have worked out costs for 48 weeks.

Total care cost = £22,185, LESS £4,000 tax free childcare = £18,185.

If these calcs don't work, is it because I'm out of the loop in childcare costs (used it when DC were younger, monitored every penny), or because your nursery isn't applying costs correctly, perhaps?

I don’t know why You’re quoting me because rhaven’t told all women what they must do. Quite the opposite: I’ve said several times, if a parent wants to stay at home, that’s fine, no one else’s business, it’s entirely up to those two parents if they want that. it doesn’t mean it’s ‘better’ for children to have a parent home. It just means it’s that choice for that family.

Why go to work full time and have little children that you never see and are cared for by barely trained kids? Not fair on anyone. Your work will always be there. Their childhoods will be gone in the blink of an eye! I was a lawyer for 42 years, having time off to care for my kids when they were small did not affect my career or my pension in the least. But it meant I could look after the babies I chose to bring into the world and who needed a stable attachment figure.

@chipstickmammy:
I could never have given my kids the skills, fun and development being at home with them. I would have probably also gone down a very very dark mental health hole being stuck at home for 9 years with just an under 5 for company.
We live in a rural area, there is bugger all to do except 1 church playgroup a week and I regularly turned up for a cuppa and slice of toast with a sleeping child in a pram just to have some company when I was on mat leave.
They still regularly see their nursery friends, a decade later and actually hug the staff when we see them out and about. We recently visited one who now lives in Europe when we were on holiday.

That’s a really honest, lovely post.

for some people, the connections and mental stimulation from work is really important and they would find it hard to thrive without it. It’s a different kind of stimulation than being at home with children.

it’s also true that for many other women, they could quite happily stay at home with young children and wouldn’t find it difficult, but they make a choice to combine parenting with working.

as said before many times: what matters is raising happy well adjusted children into happy well adjusted adults. That can be done by parents who work and parents who don’t.

I’d have been a depressed bitter wreck if I’d stayed at home full time. Balance, balance…surely we’ve got to the point as a society where you make a plan to do what works best for you and your family?