To say it isn't worth working full time with young kids unless you earn very well?

[Karma1387]

I have done a few posts recently and on a couple its come up frequently how insane it is to give up work/pension etc when having children which made me really think am I being unreasonable and should I try to go back to full time work after DC2 maternity leave.

I went through finances today to look into my partner taking a paycut due to wanting to get him off nights for his health and then looked at how much better/ worse off we would be if I then went and found a full time job.

I was honestly shocked how much worse off we would be with him taking a paycut to come off nights and me finding a full time job and putting the kids into childcare. We would be about £750 short each month. We do have a bit of debt which would mean we were only £250 short but I can't understand where the logic/motivation is to go back to full time work whilst kids are young if you are worse off or break even.

I would need to earn 40k in order to break even. For people who aren't in high earning professions I just can't understand how they afford to work full time and put kids into childcare. Even when the kids hit school age with before and after school care plus school holidays we would only be a little over breaking even if I worked full time!

I understand people talk about pensions but on a 24k salary (assuming you didn't work your way up) the pension at 67 would only be 5k a year. So what is the point really?

AIBU to say it really isn't worth working full time with kids (that require childcare) unless you are earning a very good salary?

Wow triple that's amazing! But if you were working at a loss and say going into £250-£500 a month debt for say 5 years of childcare would you have a different opinion?

A fellow teaching colleague freely admitted that her salary largely went on paying for childcare to begin with, but didn't want to be "out of the loop" for longer than she had to be. Her long-term goal was a headship, which she achieved.

OP wouldn’t you get 30 funded hours plus 20% tax free childcare?

Admittedly mine only goes 3 days a week but my bill is now less than £100pm down from about £500.

After our first, DH and I were due to go 4 days each but didn’t for various reasons. Would this be an option for you?

Theres only 1 way of climbing the career and income ladder and that’s by actually working your way up.

If you have a career hopefully you will have a higher earning potential than 24K? Or progression in earnings.

would your family beed state benefits if you were to drop your hours?

I think it depends on your starting place. There's nothing wrong with postponing your career for 3-4 years if you were never earning much or not in your preferred industry. If you are in an industry that essentially requires you to start from scratch or restrain you will have different things to consider. It's quite possible to build a career in 5-10 years post kids. Sure you may earn less in the long run (or you may not!). I'm spending 3 years off work with my child reskilling so I can enter a career with 4 times the earning potential...I think it's quite a narrow mindset to think the ladder you are climbing is the best or only way to achieve financial security when around the corner there may be an elevator. But what about all the hard work you put in before kids? Sunk costs and all that jazz

They do exist. Where I work you can get an entry level job on part-time hours once you’ve been trained, and work some of those hours at home. It’s a customer service support role - coming from retail you’d find it very easy.

I know it’s hard when your children are small and it’s a constant juggle to work and be there for your children (not to mention the cost) but if you give up work now you’ll find it really difficult to get back on the career ladder. I also understand that retirement and a pension seems a long way off but I cannot stress enough how important it is to get money into a pension now. Even if you only put £20 a month into a private pension, please do it. Your 67 year old self will thank you!

YANBU. You’ll get so much time to enjoy your children, and the stress of dealing with constant illness and lack of sleep in the early years will be massively reduced when you don’t also have a boss on your back guilt tripping you. Be your own boss of your own life and enjoy the freedom that comes with that.

So we get 22 hours a week which covers 2 8:30-5:30 sessions and 1 part day. So we would be paying for 2 full days which are £55 each, plus 10 hours at an hourly rate of £8 to cover the rest of the part day and the extra hour each morning. So it would be £190 per week per child over 51 weeks so £19380 minus 20% it would cost me £15504 per year or £1292 per month. Full time minimum wage is about £1680 so £388 left from the earnings.

In contrast I work 2 retail shifts for £950 per month with no childcare costs. But there is no progression opportunity there and we would struggle a bit if my partner dropped from nights to days although that's an issue in either scenario.

Some (a lot) of people are just not mover-uppers.
Millions of jobs are just jobs with minimal pay rises of chance for progression. Some people are happy to not progression, which is fine, we need workers whi are happy to plod along doing the jobs lots of us wouldn't.
Some people are unable progress due to ability or disability.
I can totally understand that missing out on minimal pension co tributing and a tiny pay rise is not worth flogging yourself amd missing out on time with your kids.
Some people are just not in the position to go into debt to pay for nursery, so stay home.
It's a no brainer for MILLIONS of parents 🤷

have you calculated ALL the related costs? hit on pensions etc?
How it affects mental health?
The role model it sends for your kids?
And how difficult it is to get back into full time after a break?

I already gave up my career after DC1 as the hours couldn't work with childcare. I work 2 days a week just in basic retail. Even if my partner moved to days and dropped 10K off his salary we still wouldn't be entitled to benefits.

I think that’s why a lot of women wait to have kids until they have a decent job. I waited until I had a stable job with decent pay and good conditions for maternity, part time work, sickness etc. I was 35. When we had 2 in nursery, I was working 3.5 days a week and I think my take home was about £100 more than nursery fees. But then we got the 15 hours for the eldest and it gradually got easier from there.

If we’d had kids a few years earlier, I would have struggled to work as my job was zero hours that point. We have no family to help and no flexibility/ wfh at the time so we always knew we’d need paid childcare.

for parents on a low wage or poor conditions long term, I agree it’s very difficult to start a family and needs a lot of planning.

Have you checked if you’re entitled with paying childcare costs? When mine were little the thresholds were quite generous for tax credits for childcare, for 2 kids it was over £50,000 even 10 years ago.

Even on 24k (full time wage) my pension pot would yeald about 5k a year. We would be losing about that each year if I worked full time until I earned a higher wage. It would probably work out cheaper for my partner to make that contribution to my pension each month!

How much does your partner earn?

I don’t know how it works but a low-income household gets up to 80% childcare paid I think?

It’s tough if you have kids before reaching a decent stage in your career.

I do value the flexibility I have - DH and I command our diaries and attend sch/nursery events, at least 1 is always home (I’m 80%wfh he is 60%.

But reaching those levels doesn’t come by accident.

I had a good job. I didn't however think about the fact that the hours I did (and the hours my partner does) didn't work with childcare. So ultimately I had to give it up as he earned a bit more than me. Which was my fault I should have realised getting childcare for unsociable hours was impossible (without a full time nanny which we didn't earn well enough to justify that)

OP, I absolutely loved staying home with my DC on an extended maternity leave after having my 3rd. I didn’t want to go back to work. Working full-time with 3 young DC is really hard, and childcare is expensive (although I still make a ‘profit’ every month from my salary after paying for childcare).

However, I just had a coffee with a friend who has been a SAHM for 8 years and has no semblance of a career. They are moving back to their home country and she has to get a job. She is screwed. Age 32 and no work experience. The only jobs are minimum wage and the hours don’t work with the school run/childcare. I left feeling very relieved that I’ve kept my career going and have good earning potential going into the next 30 years.

I’ll probably be flamed for saying this, but I think that teaching/school based work is great as a career when you have young children. You work school hours, get all the holidays, and can do your planning etc. once the kids are in bed. I’m really thankful that I’ve made my career in schools.

No, I wouldn’t. I’d have still kept working, I love my job and I don’t think my kids have been affected negatively by having a working mum. I’ve not always been in the best financial positions but working hard is what has got me on a decent salary and excellent pension. Your sums don’t add up as you’re assuming you’ll be on same salary, and same position. Kids don’t need childcare forever. I also had a gap so didn’t have two in nursery together as knew that would be hard. There’s more help now too than when mine were younger.

I understand and agree op. You either need loads of money to throw at the issue or you need heaps of family support. If you don't have these two things, then it's ridiculously difficult

This. It’s better to look at the bigger picture, rather than the here and now. Personally l was reluctant to not get the pension contributions and stall or regress my career. I got promoted a bit over a year after l went back to work after maternity leave. I now have a bit more autonomy and earn more. I think my husband ideally would have liked me to go part time which l declined but even he realised that passing all the financial burden onto him by quitting wouldn’t have worked. Life is busy but they arent little forever both of us does 5 days compressed into 4 days so our children go to childcare 3 days a week which they enjoy

Won’t DP not be contributing to the childcare bill?

OP has already said she has a Job, not a career.
That's the difference for many.

I completely agree. I worked very part time for about seven years.And I haven't regretted a minute of it. Kids are about to leave home and it went i. A flash. I've now worked into a pretty good job, and I just wacking it into my pension.
Love those years when they were little and squishy.

We can get a bit of help towards it but nowhere near the full amount or enough to counter our loss.

Totally agree not all jobs come with good pay or job progression . You can’t always work your way up to good pay . Which most people assume you can?. Do what works for you and your family. Maybe two part time jobs? so your husband can stop doing nights . You up your hours but work around each other to cover childcare