Stay at home parent looking forward to retirement

[Equalitystreets]

One partner is and has always been the sole breadwinner.

Other is a stay at home parent who as the children have gotten older has gradually had more free time during the day.

They always share the household chores equally.

When the children go to University, the stay at home parent has said they will be retiring and ‘they can’t wait’.

The partner with the job has at least another 15 years of work to do (and all their retirement funding will come from this partner’s investments, or investments set up in the stay at home parent’s name that were set up and funded by the working partner).

Is the stay at home partner being reasonable to declare their job is completed when the children are 18, even if the other partner has another 15 years of work to do?

Wealthy people are more likely to get into oxbridge - host of reasons from social expectations ( the jobs poeple around you do ) and social circle ( you talk the talk) , better schools, extra curricular activities,

being a sahp is the preserve of the well off

the smug “oh it’s because I was such a good mum and stayed home with the kids “ conveniently misses most if not all of the causal reasons why your kids end up at oxbridge and tries to guilt trip other mums who are trying to survive all at once

not nice

but certainly, you have a lot more scope to impact their education as a SAHP

If you mean they have more free time to spend personally tutoring and proofreading, sure.
I have impacted my own DCs education more by taking them out of their struggling local school, where one was bored and the other bullied, and putting them in private education, where they are both thriving. I could only do it because I work. So again, horses for courses.

Aah I am sorry to hear you didn’t feel supported with your desire to go to university, that must have been hard. Studying is hugely fulfilling both in its own right and to give you career options. I’m really pleased you went regardless. I hope they are proud of your many achievements now.

My own Mum did well in her A-Levels, but her parents basically refused to sign what she needed to attend uni because she wanted to marry my Dad young. They tried to emotionally blackmail her out of that marriage, so she was forced to choose between the marriage and uni, when she would have quite liked to do both. The older generations of my family were quite rude about ‘people with careers’, which I never understood as a child, and I can only guess came from insecurity/jealousy/unfulfilled ambitions.

My Mum sadly wasn’t supported in going to university, which I don’t agree with at all, but, to her credit, she has always supported me whatever I’ve been doing.

@OutandAboutMum1821 That's an example with schoolage children though, not where DC are at Uni.

People have different experiences though.

For example, I had a SAHM and it is one of the reasons why I'd never be a SAHM myself.

@Equalitystreetscan you clarify what exactly your partner will be retiring from?

The reality is I do all the things you do and I work, not FT but .7. DH did the morning drop off while I walked the dogs, and put the washing out which I did the night before so it was ready to go out first thing. Then I worked all morning, then in my lunch break I quickly cleaned the downstairs and the loo, hoovered downstairs and prepped dinner (I did upstairs the day before) then I went back to work, then I picked up DD, went home we did a bit of garden fun together before I took her to her activity, then while she was there I worked some more. Then we went home, went on a bike ride to the park for an hour or so, went home had tea, had a movie night as a family which we do every Friday night.

I don’t need any information sharing from SAHP’s or anyone else because I ensure I attend every single important school event and if I can’t because I have a meeting or something then DH does.

If you also read my post you’ll see that I can see the importance or necessity of being a SAHP when you have preschool children, I’ve been one myself but once in school it gets to the point where that role is not needed anymore.

And I didn't have a SAHM, I had a mother who always worked and was very passionate about her career. She's an inspiration to all her DC and we all made the same choice.

That sounds like an excellent choice for your children.

I generally don’t get the bitterness from some posters towards people who do things differently.

We could never afford private school, but I fully support you having that option and don’t begrudge you it at all. I’d absolutely do the same for mine if I had that money. I don’t, so would probably resort to home-educating if they had SEN or were bullied. I’d also try a different local school. But I feel zero bitterness towards you personally about that.

I value everybody having as full a range of options as possible.

I think if your parents have a bad marriage, regardless of who works or who doesn't, you will avoid that. I know what you mean @SouthLondonMum22 . But we can't project 'mum was miserable as a SAHM' or 'mum was miserable working' to draw rigid conclusions about SAHPs or working parents per se because it's obvious not everyone is like our own mothers!

Exactly.

One person will wish their mum (because it is always the poor mum with the expectation) was a SAHM
The next person like me had a SAHM growing up and really wish they hadn't
and the next person either had a working mother or a SAHM growing up and loved it so much, they made the same choice when they had children

I believe you, but from what you describe it read like you WFH? As you could get home tasks done in your lunch break?

I was a teacher, so that would have been impossible for me. I agree the role changes- currently considering my own options from Sept when my youngest starts school. I have learnt a lot from hearing how working parents DO fit everything in, as I never watched anybody doing that, and most likely will be doing it soon myself for the first time!

I am a huge supporter of anybody having the option to work from home some of the time/all of the time/having more control generally over their hours. That’s great!

I always say this on these threads.

if you can afford to be a sah, your spouse is happy with that, and earns enough to cover all household expenses and pay into your pension, and save enough so should you split you can both afford housing etc. crack on.

if you can’t afford that, you need to have a serious think about the long term risks of being so financially dependent.

if your dp also earns enough that they can choose when they retire or scale back without needing income from you, also crack on.

if you make the decision to stay at home but the income isn’t enough to support you both in older life and for the wohp to retire when they choose, you need to factor that in and be prepared to go back to work and support your family financially if needed, even if it’s only minimum wage to top up the family pensions.

we can argue about what’s “best” for ever. But bottom line is you need money to live on in old age or after separation/death/incapacity and if one salary doesn’t stretch, you can’t force someone to keep working to support you.

My mum did both. I remember her being home because I’d go home for lunch (not sure if that’s even done nowadays) and I also remember being a ‘latch key’ kid. I’ve been both as well, a working mum and a sahm. My personal preference if we’re talking purely on a hypothetical basis, is being at home. Maybe if I had a job I loved it would be different but I’ve had jobs to pay the bills, not careers to get fulfilment.

Before and after my first DC I was a University Lecturer, after DD1 I went back to .6 and would work two 12 hour days so that I could do all the family/house stuff in the other 3, DH worked FT in 4 long days. Then after DD2 I went to .5 and then a SAHP as DH job moved meaning he then had to commute and stay away during the week. Once DD2 started school I started back at work WFH with occasional evenings and have increased my hours year on year the less DC’s do not need me. I feel it’s about evolving. But I throughly understand the feelings of the SAHP as everything feels so consuming, it’s only afterwards and when you are out of it that you realise that it’s not. I do realise I am lucky with my current job but the reality is that I left my career because it didn’t work for our family to get a job that did. I do however plan once DD2 is in secondary to go back FT and that will probably include teaching.

The thread has veered off course as usual. I still believe that OPs partner is unreasonable. They agreed that the partner will be a SAHM. Once kids have grown and left home, the SAHM role is, as another poster put it, redundant. And I really don't agree that this is the hardest job in the world (with school age kids) and therefore SAHMs deserve never to work again - when they expect someone else to pay for it.

Or like me who would have liked equal time with both parents as a child.

i’d have liked my dad to dial back on his hours and been around more (and not stressed himself into an early grave).

I would rather have had both of them working and at home more instead of one at home doing all the child rearing and one always at work.

sometimes I think a sahp can adversely affect the wohp relationship with the child/ren. As while it means they don’t need to worry about child sickness and school holidays etc, it also means they don’t spend that time with the child either.

then when the relationship splits the children and sah aren’t used to wohp being a caregiver, the trust isn’t there, woh isn’t used to the demands on their time, and we end up with women on their own struggling.

personally I don’t think we consider options such as both parents working part time, so there’s still a parent at home full time, enough.

My DH pays standard tax, but plenty relative to his annual salary given he has been underpaid by the government generally for the past 15 years. They get a pretty good deal out of him, he’s an excellent teacher and role model to children who really struggle.

I know lots of families with a SAHP through my children’s school who do earn less than us and can just about do it.

This all goes way deeper for me. Why, when we live in one of the richest economies in the world, is anybody struggling financially? It is hugely problematic for anybody that mortgage rates, rent, food, petrol, bills, etc keep on rising.

I feel really sorry for anybody who would like to be at home more when their children are young/older and struggling with something, and can’t afford to. That’s not my fault personally though. Our household would happily pay more tax to give others that opportunity, especially a single parent who is doing the job of 2 people.

So we both had working mums passionate about their work but a different outcome. You followed her path while I decided that if I do have children I will be present for them. If my work would have felt more important than having children I just wouldn't have had them. It's not an obligation. Some people just do it because they think they have to but find no joy in actually spending time with them and outsource everything to other people.

I don't think society is currently set up very well for both parents working part time but if that could change, I'd be absolutely open to it. Part time in far too many industries means missing out on career progression and promotions and then it also obviously depends on if they can afford both taking a pay cut.

I feel like DH and I have a good balance despite both working full time because we can both be flexible such as WFH and manage our own diary's to a certain extent. This means that we can flex around each other and one of us is almost always available to pick up DC's from nursery early and spend some quality time with them.

Don't you mean mothers? Because you don't seem to be judging your father in the same way for working. Do you think he shouldn't have had children because his work was apparently more important?

Why do women have to choose when men can have a career and a family without half as much judgement?

You don’t ‘retire’ from being a SAHP. It’s not a job (regardless of what MN thinks).

Because our bodies produce them. So we have the ultimate power in deciding whether to have children or not.

ooh goody we haven't had the 'why did you even have children if you don't want to raise them??' for a few pages. Yes, I had them to outsource all parenting to day orphanages.

What I meant was: If you are passionate about your work and want to spend lot of time on it (not talking about "normal" working hours to put food on the table) then why burden yourself with kids that you don't have any interest in except for showing off every now and then. I worked as a nanny when younger for wealthy families where the parents just had no interest whatsoever in their offspring. It was just a status symbol, a box to tick: 2 or 3 children and we're good.