To want to sink to my knees and cry?

[tessofthedurbervilles]

When my baby is born I would be better off not working than returning to my well paid respectable job....that is just the most stupid thing ever. All I want to do is pay my way but the system is making it easier to live on handouts.....

Well, I am a vet, qualified for 13 years, and work 2 days a week, which covers childcare for 2 dc (1 at school) and petrol costs, and leaves me about £150-£200 a month People think I am in a well-paid job, so I don't know why anyone in a less well-paid job would bother to work. For me, it really is "to keep my hand in"- my skills are perishable, and things change all the time . I think if I took 8 years off to ahve my kids, I would lose confidence and never go back, which seems a shame when I worked so hard for my degree. I keep telling myself it will keep my options open for when the kids are older, but if I wasn't in this field I may well not have bothered.

I love being a sahm too, though, and really enjoyed my mat leave (I was almost better off then, too, as I took one of my dds out of nursery for a while) I have no problem with free-wheeling a bit career-wise, but I do get annoyed at the cost of childcare. I was under the delusion that you got "free nursery places" at 3 yo, but as the sessions run 9-11.30am then 1-3.30pm, and I work 9am-7pm, they really were of no use to me. Only useful for sahm's who can accomodate those times.

There are times I am tempted just to chuck it. I work long days, and some Saturdays, never get away on time, feel guilty at missing things to do with the dc and financially it really isn't worth it. If the current situation continues, the country will no doubt lose out on some valuable minds, trained at the tax-payers expense but driven out of the workplace by the cost of childcare.

Treedelivery, it sounds like you would be better off with a nanny if you wanted to work full time with 2 children, the bliss of nannies being that you don't have to double their wage when you have another child!

The logistics of having 2 or more in childcare is making me dizzy.

DD is 2 and DS is 10 months. Am hoping to start part time in March. So, nursery or childminder? My friend who is a social worker says nursery - professional opinion. Nanny is probably out of the question as DP does shifts and is slightly uncomfortable with having someone in the house.

So, after child care/transport, I will be taking home about £75 a week until I complete the requisite training - about a year.

Ideally there would be a 'back to work' hello handshake to help with costs. (did I mention that my 2 children will be contributing to the UK economy?)

Joolyjoolyjoo - totally agree with the point about 'free' childcare places. Having had my first child before any introduction of vouchers etc, I eagerly awaited the 'help' I would get with dcs 2 and 3. The vouchers did help a little, but you are absolutely right that the starting point with subsidised or 'free' places seems to be that a short morning session from 9 til 11.30, is the answer. The only people I know who benefit from this are SAHMs!! Two or three hour nursery sessions are useless to those of us who need childcare for a full working day.

Long post now, from the heart. The funny thing is, I am comparatively ancient and started work in 1990, when I had a 3-year-old. And it's always been like this for me.

For nearly all of that time, if you take the childcare off my net pay, I have worked for considerably less than an au pair would have earned for considerably fewer hours as an unqualified employee. Yet I was not entitled to offset these costs against my tax liability even though it was clear they were directly incurred as a result of me going to work. I should also point out that I was a single parent for some of this time as well.

I kept going because of all the arguments people use about being 'better off in the long term', plus even the paltry au pair type salary I was left with was badly needed. It was better than nothing. At one point however I was working for -£4000 a year when the two boys were both in nursery, before the days of tax credits. These deficits all end up as bank loans, and need to be paid off later, so invariably I am always running behind. And I tell you, if it happens to me it will be happening to other people, because I am very good with money.

I also found that I was continuously discriminated against for being a mother in the 1990s. Typical conversation with first boss:

Me: "I have just found out I am paid half what everyone else is for the same work. Why is this?"
Boss and father of three: "Because you are a mother and can therefore only concentrate half as much on your work".

I also found that because I used to have to cobble together different contracts to make up a full week, employers continually used part-time employment loopholes to minimise their pension liabilities in relation to employing me, which only changed when the regulations were altered about 5 years ago. So even though I have been working full time for 18 years, I have only managed to accrue about 7 years of pension whilst blokes I graduated with have managed to get the full amount. Yet we have worked the same hours at similar levels of responsibility.

During all this time I tried and tried again to get work with a better contractual basis and which gave me a better margin financially, but it proved impossible. And I tell you ladies, I am pretty indefatigable, interview brilliantly, and I am extremely well qualified to boot. I have also gone to the trouble of challenging all this discrimination through channels such as the union and so on, time and time again, and this did little to really improve things, and a few times I just ended up being bullied at work by bosses (another story there) who decided I was 'trouble'.

I think it came to a head recently when I was talking to a physio on her couch as she was treating me, and we were comparing salaries. I found that even in my relatively senior academic post in a leading university, I earned for a 50-hour week what she was able to make for three days a week flexible working to accommodate her kids. Now I am not a great advocate of the politics of envy but at this point I burst into tears on her couch and felt sick at the utter unfairness of it all. Particularly because her DH happens to be a GP and earns considerably more than my DH since the new contracts came in, again for considerably fewer hours and less responsibility.

So summing up, we have to ask the big question - if it was so poorly paid after childcare, why work?

1. Because I believed the capitalist myth. I spent 18 years believing things could only get better, but due to to increasing regulation, childcare costs escalated rapidly opver my working life, which meant they actually didn't get better.

1. Due to improved gender equality since the 1944 Education Act, I have now been so well educated that staying at home over a protracted period of time with children who frankly don't need me to do that was never going to be an option.

1. I actually think it is important for women to have a public life and not hide at home, because then society is less dysfunctional and male-centric. So I believe it is my duty to go out to work and play a part on the national stage. We get the society we deserve, and the 'I'm all right Jack' aspects to the rhetoric of some yummy mummies (and their husbands) I come across on a day to day basis makes me sick to my stomach.

So this is why I have been typing in capital letters and threatening to bake combat muffins.

I don't get annoyed at the cost of childcare.

It's hard work looking after children and who ever does it deserves a living wage.

I have three dc's, two in school and one in a children's centre 9.30 - 3.30. I work 3 days a week plus two evenings and pay about £140 a week in childcare - about a half of my wages. Don't get any help from the government other than 5 morning sessions for my 3 year old, which I 'top up' myself to make a full day's session.

My personal feeling is that you cut your cloth according.... if I'd thought harder about it I wouldn't have had three children. If I only had two now it'd be a dead synch for me - after school club three days a week for a couple of hours each. Unfortunately I didn't think things through and had a third child without really thinking about the financial and practical implications for our family.

Agree with Quattocentro that free childcare is an unrealistic fantasy right now. Personally I also have huge misgivings about the advisability of loads of children under three being in full-time childcare rather than being at home being cared for by family, so wouldn't want the government to go down this route anyway.

What would make a big difference to us as a family would be dh's employers showing some sort of acknowledgement that he has three small children and encouraging (rather than simply allowing) him to work flexibly. Unfortunately because my dh is a manager and the sort of man who prides himself on NEVER BEING OUT OF THE OFFICE BEFORE OTHER PEOPLE we don't see him from 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday, which means that for practical purposes I'm a single working mum with three children (all in different schools) for 5 days a week - and that's bloody hard work whichever way you look at it.

Great post, boffinmum. Yes, another reason I like to work, albeit p/t, is so that my girls see me out doing something else. My mum worked, so I assumed that's what women did. I do want them to inherit a work ethic (not saying children of sahm's won't have, btw!!- I just think it demonstrates the possibilities to them)

But I can't help feeling it's a bit ironic that, having slogged to get a "prized" place at vet school, then worked for 5 years to get my qualification, followed by years of full-time, physically and mentally draining work in practice, my dh, who left school aged 16 with no qualifications and joined the Royal Navy now earns more than me (even on a pro-rata basis), has more holidays and a good pension (I have none!) C'est la vie, I suppose.

On another note, I have only recently found out about the childcare "vouchers" scheme, where you can pay up to £243 per parent from your wages BEFORE you are taxed/ pay NI. I work too few hours (just!) to qualify for the childcare element of tax credits, so this is saving us about £800-£1000 a year!

I don't begrudge childcarers what they earn, but it effectively feels like I pay something like 75% tax, or a kind of fine in order to be able to go out to work.

BoffinMum - that is a fantastic post, written from the heart and summing up the reality for many of us.

I am a mum of slightly older children too, and I can really identify with some of your points. I first returned to work in 1990 (after a 3 month maternity leave! So different to now!!). I remember a few comments which I can laugh about now, but which really grated at the time. eg when our dc was around 6 months old and caught a bug and couldnt go to the CM. I took the first day off work, and the second day my DH rang in to say he needed the day off. Seemed the fairest way, to divvy up the time needed off. His boss said incredulously 'You mean you are going to take a day off to look after your child? What about your wife?!!'

Although the whole childcare issue is still really tough, believe me, things have moved on a lot over the last 15 or so years. And maternity rights are way better than they used to be.

BoffinMum - your last few points about the reasons it is important to work are spot on. And I don't think we can underestimate these. Yes, in terms of what I've brought home, when I had two kids in nursery I just about broke even. I would have been better off stacking shelves in the evening or pulling pints. But at the end of the day, I have a profession, a career, and watching other women trying to break back into the world of employment after lengthy career breaks,and seeing how disheartened they become,often being passed over, I can see how valuable it is that I've always stayed in work. And even without a full pension, I know that my retirement is going to be a lot more comfortable than that of some of my friends, who have no provision at all. I find pensions a deeply dull subject, and I would much rather not have to pay the few hundred pounds a month that I put into mine, but of course rationally I know that it's the only alternative to a retirement spent in poverty. I think pensions are going to be the next 'big thing' - it won't be property prices that the current generation of 40somethings are worrying over, it's be who has made provision for retirement and who hasn't. Let's face it - we can expect to live to around 80 or more - that's a good 20 years of your life when you probably won't want to work, or at least not full time, and it shocks me that so many quite sensible people I know are just burying their heads in the sand about it.

And BoffinMum - the self satisfied, smug yummy mummies that unfortunately do exist - well, tbh you don't have to scratch very far below the surface to see that having the high earning husband and spending your day lunching or going to the gym while the children are at school is actually not a recipe for happiness or fulfilment. Usually these women are actually seething with envy underneath, because they know that their lives are pointless.

Well said, findtheriver.

The pension thing is so important for all women, but a further issue is the need for women to have independent income. I see posts on MN that indicate some women are still being controlled financially by men, and when relationships come to an end, they are without the obvious means to even feed their children. This is terribly sad and a testament to how far we have all got to go as a society.

"Usually these women are actually seething with envy underneath, because they know that their lives are pointless."

My own mum only ever worked part-time in not very interesting jobs. The rest of the time she was at home making a brilliant life for us children.

At 73 she's now got a great life - loads of friends and an adoring family. She's had lots of emotional satisfaction in her life, partly because she's had the time to focus on her relationships with us as well as with the rest of her community who, as a stay at home mum for all her life she's been able to do loads for.

I'd hate her to think her life has been 'pointless' because she's not been in a salaried job all her life.

Joolyjoo, I also think it's important to set an example to children about a positive work ethic, and the government probably do as well, which is why they are urging single mums back into work.

Tittybangbang, responding to your very good point about the need for community life, I have found paradoxically it is the working parents around here that bear the brunt of being involved with community life (eg running the PTA events, fundraising, volunteering, checking on older neighbours, etc).

Now this puzzled me initially, but I think it has something to do with looking outwards and having the work ethic some of us have been discussing. I am not saying at all that SAHP have no work ethic, but I think you need a certain kind of drive and sense of civic responsibility to make things happen within a community, and people who are used to busy workplaces probably are a bit more prepared to take this on, as well as having more cultural reference points about what is possible and what other geographical areas are doing. Does that make sense? What is everyone else's experience of this?

God this is an interesting thread!!!

Tittybangbang: it's not just salaried work that gives life a point, and people who don;t do salaried work but engage in loads of community work or volunteering are likely to have higher self-esteem even if they are broke, than those who don't do much of anything - but I think findtheriver is referring more to the 'yummy mummies' who do spend their time hanging out with their mates and doing all the 'beauty' crap like gym and facials and maybe a book group or two - these women are bored shitless hence the hysteria with which they defend their right to SAHM (and the frequency with which they set up bunting-cupcake pseudobusinesses).

Thank you solidgold - you've understood my point exactly!

I've never said that salaried work is the only thing to give life meaning - much as I love my career, my family, friends and many other things are hugely important in making my life fulfilling!

I was indeed referring to the kind of woman boffinmum described - the ones who fill up their life with pointless activities or even worse, interfere with all aspects of their children's lives.

The pseudobusiness thing has really disturbed me to the point where I stopped buying women's magazines that applauded it. These businesses are now folding right left and centre in the recession, I note.

The harsh reality is that these married women have been frozen out of mainstream society and are pigeonholed into a mother-and-children slot where they are relatively unthreatening.

When such women use their brains and put their heads above the parapet for a greater purpose, such as trying to establish the extent of policy failure in relation to 9/11, in the case of the Jersey Girls, they are quickly shot down.

www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0401-02.htm

I wonder if society is really very frightened of what women are capable of, and therefore still holding us back in some intangible way?

Interesting point BoffinMum.

I agree that to some extent, traditionalists are holding back women. The fact is, there will always be some people who are threatened by change, and they find it more comfortable to remain with the status quo, so watching women gain access to areas of the world of work which were previously inaccessible to them, has scared them. I noticed in the paper this week that we are one step closer to appointing women bishops in the UK - which no doubt will be threatening to many!!

I also think though, that the yummy mummies described earlier are poisonous simply because they often do have the skills and brain power to achieve far more, but these skills are misdirected.
A friend of mine teaches in a private school, and she's really interesting on this point - she says that a small group of about 8 mothers are responsible for causing about 90% of the friction/bad feeling/hassle within the school. And apparently the thing these women have in common is that they are all intelligent women who had good careers which they gave up years ago. They are bored and lacking a direction in their own lives, and consequently meddle with their children's lives.
So I think there is a mix of different factors - yes, women do still have a hard time in the world of work to some extent (though things are improving and moving in the right direction) but also some women are their own worst enemies.

Perhaps I have led some kind of charmed life as a parent, but I have worked part time and full time and I have never had negative comments from SAHM's. I have found other mothers to be my greatest support, and I could not work full time if it were not for the flexibility I have in extra free childcare from other mums. f I cannot get back for 6.00pm, I know that another woman (and sometimes a SAHM) will agree to pick my children up from out of school club. I try to repay these favours by having their kids around during holidays/ weekends etc to give the mum a break.

SAHM's do a great job and do hold communities together. I am not saying that working mums don't contribute to that, but things like the PTA are a very formal, management type contribution, which most people find intimidating, and that is why it is often a certain type of working woman who runs them.

That's a lovely positive post MillyR - and I think there's a lot of truth in what you say, that in reality, other mums can often be a real life line. When my kids were really small, there were a few occasions when I relied on SAHM friends for favours - and I never felt that they were judging me.

Good point too about PTAs - I've never really thought of it like that before, but I guess sometimes if you haven't worked for a long time, the formal type set up of some organisations could be intimidating.

"Tittybangbang, responding to your very good point about the need for community life, I have found paradoxically it is the working parents around here that bear the brunt of being involved with community life (eg running the PTA events, fundraising, volunteering, checking on older neighbours, etc)."

But that's because these things are traditionally done by middle-class women. In my community it is middle class women working part time who sit on committees at their local hospitals, run the PTA and who are volunteer breastfeeding counsellors.

The working class mums I know don't have the education or the confidence to get involved with volunteering which requires professional skills.

My understanding is that volunteering is undergoing a crisis in this country because fewer people with appropriate skills are making themselves available for voluntary work.

Have to be honest - I find myself rolling my eyes and huffing a bit when I see posts decrying life as a stay at home parent as boring and pointless. I left my lecturing job in FE 5 years ago when I had my second child as I couldn't organise appropriate childcare that covered me for the odd hours that I was required to be at work. I'm a shit housewife and a lazy mum but I have made the best of my time out of the workplace - I've used my time away from the workplace to do voluntary work and to take a diploma. I have also done a small amount of part-time teaching. I find the whole 'yummy mummy' thing is a bit of an irrelevance. I live in a very poor community and I see how bloody hard the lives are of working class women - those who work and those who don't work. DH and I are not rich but I feel hugely fortunate compared to the mums I mix with at the school gate every morning. Many of these women work in boring, badly paid jobs, poor housing, difficult relationships.

I have everything I could want: a lovely family, an education which enriches my existence every day, whether I'm working or not, and an active 'life of the mind'. I honestly find it completely baffling that people with enough money not to worry about paying the bills, friendship networks, an education and the chance to use their imaginations and skills in helping their communities are miserable and unfulfilled because they can't work full-time.

I don't know - maybe it's me. Maybe I have particularly low expectations.

Titty - you don't sound as though you have low expectations at all!
I think you are being a little over sensitive and reading things into posts that just aren't there though. No one on this thread has said that being a SAHP is 'pointless'. And you have clearly used your non-working years productively.
My posts, and boffinmum's, were about a particular breed of women (who thankfully are in a minority) who are bored and unfulfilled, and who meddle and interfere and carp and criticise because they are bored. These are the women who may not need to work financially, but don't have the resources to use their lives in a productive way.

This thread really has been very interesting reading.
Can't remember if I have gone into detail about my situation, but I was working full time in a pretty stressful environment - it needn't be like this but due to a complex set of circumstances (which I can't really go into on here) my job is getting more and more stressful to the point where it was making me ill. I also had a long commute (complicated by nursery pick up and drop off) which Dh can't really help on as he has an even longer commmute in the opposite direction.
So after been signed off sick with depression (I had a breakdown at work) I decided to hand my notice in. I was constantly exhausted from long days, long commutes, and baby feeding through the night. I had asked if I could work part time (which I believed would help enormously) but was told no.
My boss has been hugely sympathetic but he could see I was struggling to cope as well. I have to give 3 months notice so I finish middle of March. There are very, very few opportunities to do what I do so I don;t think I will able to continue my current job with a different company. But I have lots of transferrable skills.
I told DH I would take any job as long as it was part time and would cover our childcare costs and a bit more, but having read some of the comments here I think I am underselling myself a bit so I will be looking for other things which I am qualified for.
We are lucky as DH has had a well deserved and long awaited promotion which means we can just about cope with one salary, even to having ds in nursery still for a minimum period (once I stop getting paid), as he loves his nursery and I believe it has been very good for him. But I am hopeful that I will find something.
We have talked about having another child, so I am looking for something I can hopefully do from home so that I can carry on earning after having baby no.2.
In the meantime I will be throwing myself into things such as getting involved in our local NCT branch (already I am a committee member, look after the cloth nappy bank and regularly help at Nearly New Sales). I am also hoping to start BFing Peer Supporter Training as well.
I think the crux of the matter is the need for fulfillment - and it can be found in lots of different ways, not just in salaried work.
Women do set their sights higher due to increase in education opportunities in the last 50 years... we just need the world of business to catch up!

And just to wade in to this full on woman's hour - I want to limit the idea that any particular point of view must attack another's by definition - the absolute bottom line here is that people SHOULD HAVE THE CHOICE!

The choice to be a SAHM and find it fullfilling, and all power to you. There is no need to justify this or explain away how you filled the day. This is your parenting choice.

The choice to have part time work to keep the hand in, to keep ticking over, to keep sane, and power to you. There should be no sense that the work is less usefull, or play work. The country, the service sector and the NHS in particular are run on this labour.

The choice to work for the career of your choice in a way that enriches the lives of those around you. Not to have to sell your souls to the devil and yourchildren to a the nursery, but to have an respected role at work and a functional family dynamic at home.

This is therefore no a debate or judgement on any particular way of parenting [we'll leave competitive and insecure types to that and let them chew their heads off] - it's a debate on supporting ALL forms of parenting.
If we could do that society could be so much richer.
We have earned the choice by achieveing education, training and developing our roles. As no one else can produce babies for a society desperate for workers [i.e. men, nor can they be got by other means] we ought, surely, to be almost nutured and coddled in our reproductive role.

Yet all we ask for is affordable childcare! It's hardly the French Revolution!!

Interesting post Bouncing. Sorry to hear you've had a rough time - but you sound as though you've coped with it admirably, and are looking forward in a really positive way.

Amen to your last sentence - spot on!