To not go back to full time work

[Karma1387]

Just looking for some advise on if I would be silly/unreasonable to not return to full time work post kids.

For a bit of background I currently have a toddler and due baby number 2 soon. I left my retail management job after finishing maternity leave with DC 1 and I have just worked 2 days a week as a shop assistant for the last year and now currently on maternity leave before DC2 comes in a few months.

My partner earns around 50k although this may decrease slightly in the next 2 years as we are moving areas and he may come off nights.

I have no desire to go back to a management career as I don't want to lose out on the time with my kids or the stress. I looked at what I would earn full time minimum wage in a full time job (as well as pension contributions) which would be a bring home of around 19500 and £75 a month into my pension.

However the cost of wrap around childcare (if we only had 2 children) as well as holiday clubs would cost around £10500 (based on current costs who knows in 2-4 years when kids start school.

Personally as someone who doesn't want to move up the career ladder would I be better off just staying as a basic shop worker 2 days a week and having more time with my kids?

This isn’t something you can decide unilaterally or based on a mums net forum.

You really should be discussing this with your partner as choosing to leave your career and do a part time dead end minimum wage job so you can spend extra time with the kids should be a joint decision.

What if he wants more time with the kids? What if he can’t handle the stress of being the breadwinner with the career that has to progress so he can keep up with living costs and child costs? Kids get more expensive the older they get. You can’t just go after what you want without at least discussing with him what he wants too.

The fact you are not married means too that you have zero financial protection in the event of divorce other than CMS or in the event of his death or disability.
You will also have little to no chance of restarting the career you are walking away from. You will lose your opportunity to invest in a private pension, significantly reducing your living standard in old age.

Why? Retail workers still get days off every week. The days he is off during the week he can do the school runs, play with them in the afternoon, do breakfast and dinner and take them to the park. Help with homework. Be on the school PTO. The kids then get mum time on the traditional weekends.

Why 5 days a week? Wouldn’t it be 3 days a week? Your DH has to get 2 days off a week during M-F if he’s working weekends.

My partner is hoping to change to days by the time my eldest starts school (3 years time) so he would hopefully be able to have 1 weekend day so he could possibly do 1 day so it would be 4 days which is still sad in my opinion when I could be there and they wouldnt have to go at all.

Wraparound care isn’t sad at all.
It sounds more fair that you have 1 family day, 1 daddy day and 1 mummy day every week for the kids.
In this economic climate it’s better to have two working adults than one. It’s more secure for raising children

We have had a discussion as a pair and he is willing to support me if I think its the financially sensible decision for me. He also understands how important the time with the kids is to me.

I have already left my actual career after I finished maternity leave. We had discussed me retraining into something like accountancy but I decided I didn't want the stress doing a job I didn't enjoy and missing out on time with the kids.

Of course if my partner decided he no longer wanted his career I wouldnt have a option but to go get a job. At the moment I have a option and that makes it difficult as with the option I would prefer to be with my kids than working a job i'm not really interested in.

No it isn’t an entry level job but I work for a local authority and most desk based staff are on the same arrangement re flexible hours and ability to WFH.

I choose to work from the kitchen table and just have to let DH know not to let the kids scramble in when on a meeting but we also have a desk upstairs where I can go if needed.

I’ve just caught up on the thread and just wanted to say that there is nothing wrong with wanting to maximise your time with your children and you are not wrong at all for looking for ways to make that work for your family.

Someone down thread said something about research showing SAHM are not better for kids but I’m sure that research exists showing the opposite. I understood that before the age of three being looked after mainly by a primary care giver was best for children. Now, what is best for a child might not always work for a family, or be best all round. Everyone is only doing the best they can for their kids!

If you’ve done the calculations and you think that it works for your family then do it, but be aware of the risks and mitigate them as best you can. Also bear in mind that one day these children will be adults with lives of their own, and you will want some semblance of your own life there to keep you busy and fulfilled.

I'm sure having 2 incomes is prefered but I wouldn't want a job which involves stress or the risk of not being able to switch off after work which means likely minimum wage in which case after childcare eats the extra earnings anyway financially we are better off me just working my 2 retail shifts. At least we don't have to worry about kids being sick etc.

Go and do a civil partnership before you drop work. If he won't so that, don't drop the work. What if he leaves before 2027?

As the house is in your name there is less rush to get married. Except I guess you can't pay the mortgage without him
Do you have life insurance so he could pay the bills and reduce his hours to care for your children should something happen to you?

I understand more why you want to do so much for your DC when you DP doesn't make time for any of you and chooses to work instead every weekend.

When he's home is he a hands on dad? Doing bath, bed, stories, chores?

I dropped my career after I finished maternity with my 1st in 2024. I couldnt do the hours with a child and we moved areas so didn't have a choice.

We can get booked in at the registry office from May so we can sort something for the summer once I have had DC2.

Do whatever you want and whatever suits your family! Everyone's different and people will have an opinion on anything!

We both have life insurance to cover the other incase something happened.

I do everything with my DC and the cooking, cleaning etc. Apart from bath time which he does at the moment as I cant bend over the bath.

My partner currently works nights and also has a sleep condition so he usually gets home in the morning sometimes spend 30 mins with us and then it varies sometimes hes up at 6 and will spend a bit of time with us and bath time every other day but I do bedtime. Sometimes he doesnt wake until 8 as he hasnt slept well so he just does a quick bath.

I don't begrudge my partner not getting a lot of time with us. He tries to be present when he is awake and with us and he works hard which means I have the option to only work 2 days as a shop assistant.

On his 1 day off he takes DC for his swimming lesson.

No. It was in another thread earlier this week with a similar subject. An early years lecturer/Prof quoted numerous articles undertaken by researchers. Some pre-covid about kids being socialised in general and others showing how this was really exposed in covid when kids were forced to be confined to family only activity. It's not rocket science is it - kids are bound to be better adapted to society if they are taught to share, (whether that be time, attention, toys, food etc) and be part of a community (which we all are in life as we grow up) from a young age.

Just to say bravo for doing some basic PT work and then prioritising time with your young children(ren). It's not a popular view to do what you are doing but imo it is best for the children..... I was a SAHM and it was the best.
Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy and your wedding!!

OP these posts are very short sighted.

You keep talking about what would be the case on minimum wage but the entire point is that you don’t always have to be on minimum wage. You could use this time to study for a career with more flexible hours in which you could progress your pay once your children start school. You could do work experience/ voluntary roles in that field while they are at nursery. You need to think about the future and how you will provide for your children and yourself later in life. Life is precarious and many things can go wrong with jobs, health, etc. It’s not just about being married or not.

All of your thinking seems to be about the short term and how nice it would be to have more time at home. Undoubtedly most people would love to do that but there’s a very good reason people don’t. You don’t seem to have put
thought into the future and how things will be 10 or 20 years down the line if you take each route. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the baby stage of parenting and have tunnel vision on that. Hardly anybody wants to be away from their children when they are small. But you need to look at the big picture. Opting out for several years or even 14 years per some of your posts will affect you many years from now because you wouldn’t be starting from the same place or have the same opportunities to try to do something new in your mid-40s as at 28.

Your posts all give the impression that while you supposedly have asked for opinions you’ve already made up your mind because you’re arguing against all of the warnings that posters have provided and dismissing them, not really thinking about the long term implications at all. It seems like you were more looking for validation of what you’d already decdied to do, and didn’t want to hear the reasons why people have made different choices, or were later so relieved that they made different choices to what you’re proposing, or from those who wish they had done so, so have tried to warn you.

What you are proposing to do is a huge gamble and will affect your life significantly whether you and your boyfriend stay together or not. Selling your house and using the equity to buy jointly and giving up work without being marrying would be madness as others have said but even marrying him and givng up work completely, potentially until your children finish school per your posts, might seem like a “less stressful” option (and probably would be in some ways) but that does not mean it is the best or most wise option. I think you really need to think through the long-term outcomes and scenarios and even the best case ones doing what you’re proposing, without a husband who is a very high earner, make your proposals very risky indeed for both you and your children, married or not.

Thank you for such a long reply.

I think too a degree I know what I want there is just the small niggly doubts which made me make the post which became more about the marriage than actually about the work.

I'm not really sure what I would study or work towards which would offer me the sort of flexabilty I would want to not have to put the kids into holiday clubs or after school clubs. I guess not knowing that there is a realistic option for what I would want to do/could do makes it harder to look towards it or know what to aim for.

This is why you use this time now to retrain and fain experience in something else that’s more conducive to family life so that you have more flexibility by then and aren’t looking for an entry level job, and don’t throw your hands up in the air and declare it’s “impossible” because people aren’t offering you totally flexible hours from home with no experience or qualifications when reentering the job market after a long gap. It’s like you’re deliberately setting yourself up to fail so you can declare it impossible.

You keep saying it’s “not worth it” because a lot of earnings right now would go on childcare. That’s the case for everyone with young children. You’re getting free childcare when you don’t even need it, funded by those who do work. But later, those people who took the hit and kept going later can have jobs that aren’t minimum wage, have flexibility, and also have more money and a decent pensions and some financial security in case they get ill or lose their job or are bereaved or get divorced etc. You really need to look beyond weighing up the income and outgoing now and understand how these choices will impact you in 10, 20, 30 years. Understand compounding in pensions. Understanding compounding in salary rises and the scope for promotions and career progression. You seem to think all jobs are like retail because as you say that’s all you’ve ever done, so you have said you think management/ more senior roles mean no flexibility but that’s often the opposite of the case in most sectors.

I am all for women making their own choices but these should be well-informed choices understanding the risks and consequences properly and based on your posts I’m not convinced at all that you do. It’s not all about marriage; often that’s of little use for various reasons. It’s about knowing you have the capability to be financially self-sufficient and this is extremely important or you may well find yourself in circumstances you really did not anticipate in future decades.

There are many jobs that can be done on a flexible basis. Everything from trades (I know a locksmith and electrician who just do callouts at certain hours) to mobile hairdressing through to therapists who pick certain hours for their private clinics, people who run clubs for children on evenings/ holiday dates that they pick as well as many, many professional or office roles that have flexibility. I think a careers asvisor might be worth speaking to about how you could use this time to be with your children but also retrain for the future so you have options and work experience ready to build something for yourself above minimum wage when they are older.

I hope that doesn’t seem harsh. I don’t mean to be. I just think you really need to think through the long term things before making these choices. You do have options to have lots of time with your children AND build a future for yourself. You don’t have to choose one or the other just because your previous career wasn’t compatible with family life, with two of you doing it. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice everything and be on minimum wage forever or not work at all. You’re young enough to start something new where you know there are options to work to your own schedule in a few years’ time once you have retrained.

Having ended up a lone parent (despite being married) I can’t tell you how glad I am that I clung on to my career. If I hadn’t, despite being married, we’d be living in poverty. Think about the future for you and your children. Putting all your eggs in one basket is not a good idea, no matter how well-woven it seems to be.

I get free childcare because i do work. I wouldn't be entitled to it if i didn't. I have worked lots of other jobs besides retail just never stuck at them as I didnt like office jobs when I was younger.

I will continue to work my 2 days a week as it keeps my foot in at least working but I'm not sure if anything else would give me the flexabilty I want whilst the kids are at nursery or primary school.

As I said before the issue is what I retrain in whilst I'm not working full time. Its not easy to plan what to retrain in if you dont know who will offer to level of flexibility I want and I dont really want to waste money on retraining if I then can't find something in that sector to suit.

That’s really sad their dad won’t prioritise time with them over work. I can see why you want to do this now. My husband would move heaven and earth to ensure his job means he can spend time with the children (we both work full time), he made sure he took shared parental leave and that time was so valuable. I think it’s really important to have strong parental role models that show the children that they are loved and both parents take an equal and respectful approach to work and quality time with their children.

I don't blame him at all for wanting his job. A change would likely involve him having to retrain and take a huge paycut. I knew him changing his job was never on the cards prior to having our first DC. I would never expect him to give up on something he wants to do. I was the one more keen for kids so I always expected to be the main parent.

He tries to make sure to have time with him when he can and when we are a bit more financially stable he will look to use some unpaid parental leave to spend a bit more time with them.

Do you think the benefit system will continue to be so generous if Farage gets in? I don't mean to be fatalistic but it's a bit of a gamble don't you think?

I think it might (not an expert) if things go wrong. Who's house? Who pays the mortgage? Are you on the deeds? What about your pension? Life assurance? Mortgage insurance? Where would you stand financially if he left you-sort of thing. Sounds very downbeat I know but vital stuff. Please get good advice.