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.....

If you are a full time SAHM you can cook more complicated meals, sew, knit, bake, grow your own vegetables etc.

I try to do a weeks worth of baking every Saturday, but my house is always a complete mess. Working full time does make home life less than ideal. And I hate my kids being in out of school club which surely can't benefit them. And I would have liked 3 children, not two.

I should stop moaning; I love my job.

I do agree that it is beneficial for SAHMs to have a degree if they are that way inclined; it benefits them and their kids.

Perhaps taking a little break before working flat out with their families from home time until bedtime? And "housework" does not only take an hour or two a day, if you include stuff like financial planning and investments. Plus of course the school holidays, when children need occupation.

I say this as someone who has 2 part-time jobs and no fixed childcare and who cannot see a way forward without fixed childcare because there is too much conflicting stuff to do.

"When you put it like that, interestingly I think a lot of us do end up effectively working for the same as the '£5 a hour with tax credit' crew, despite all the effort we made to train doing something difficult, and the longer hours etc, because of this very tax situation."

It's not all about money though is it? We also have more interesting, fulfilling jobs that give us status.

My training was hard. But it wasn't half as hard or demoralising as working in crap jobs in retail and in catering, which is what I did before I went to university.

Anyway, as someone who lives in a very deprived community I really can't see how you can justify subsidising middle class lifestyles by giving people tax breaks for childcare/free childcare, when the vast majority of working class children in this country are still getting a shit education and while many of them are living in poor housing. I want to live in an equable society because I think it's better for everyone. Middle class families are doing very nicely already on the whole. Yes, it would be nice to have an extra £6000 in my pocket (the amount I'll be spending on childcare when I go back to work 3 days a week come February) which I'd get if I wasn't having to pay childcare costs, but we can manage without it, as most middle-class couples I know can.

Titty, some thoughts:

1. Middle class is an overused term and very imprecise. How would you define middle class? Top 5% income level? Top 50% income level? Education level? Parents' education level? Postcode?

1. Would you continue with subsidies for non-working people?

1. Sweden has the least polarised society in Europe economically and does the most in terms of subsidising childcare. I am wondering, how does that fit with your model of social equity, which brings with it very limited subsidy?

Agree m/c is overused term. I was actually thinking of educated, professional middle income families.

Not sure what you mean re: subsidies for non-working people.

As far as Sweden goes - don't think you can apply the Swedish model to the UK. We are a different society, branch and root.

agree with Anna

BTW some excellent posts here, even if I don't agree with them all!

Makes me question some of my beliefs whilst reinforcong others

Some of you women should write a book!

BTW, happy new year everyone!

Am I unusual then in finding that domestic things really don't need to take more than an hour or so a day?

Sticking on a wash takes a couple of minutes, you don't exactly need to sit there watching the washing go round do you? I run the hoover round a couple of times a week, or one of the kids will do it, ironing is unecessary imo apart from a few work clothes...
Cooking the evening meal is probably the most time consuming thing, as we tend to cook from scratch, but I see that as more of a social time, as one of the kids might be chopping veg while chatting about their day etc.

I can see that if you are home all day while the kids are at school you would probably spend more time on housework ... isn't it one of those jobs that expands to fill the time available?

Just curious really because it's never occurred to me that anyone needs to spend hours every day on household stuff in the 21st century

Am back. Have riot picnic ready.

Need to catch up and re enter at some point. Had a skim and once again feel the crux should be :choice choice choice. Adopting a different model need not alienate or cast a judgement on any particular parenting choice.

By model I mean the way govenrmant and society expects and defines the family workplace balance to function. And the way this is suported through the tax/childcare/health/education system

It need not assume any given peranting style as a gold standard.

And the UK may as well get on with it, as any change is always painfull - but in reality the model in place now, who the hell would miss it? Of whom does it approve? Which group in society can sit in it comfortably and think 'Ah this fits'? It seems that ANY group who have to in anyway interact with childcare/tax credits/sahm/part timers/full timers feel that someone somewhere is taking the piss out of them!

but I don't think this affects you until you have kids and try to return to work

eg. it only affects mothers!

that's why its not newsworthy or deemed important

Boffinmum- childcare IS tax deductible now! As I mentioned earlier, DH and I have joined schemes where we pay our childcare out of our wages BEFORE we pay tax and NI. It is widely available, from any employer, but not shouted about, so lots of people are unaware they can do this. It also saves your employer money, as they pay less NI- everyone is a winner!

As regards the benefit to society in general if childcare were subsidised, surely it becomes obvious that all that "free" education, paid for with the taxpayers money, becomes a waste of money if 50% of the educated, highly skilled people it produces (women) are deterred from using those skills and talents by the cost of childcare. My education cost the taxpayer plenty- 7 years of primary school, 6 years of secondary school, 5 years at Vet School. But the cost of childcare has put many of my colleagues off returning to work after having children- those skills are lost then to the general marketplace. Surely that can't be a good thing for society??

I agree with FTR that housework doesn't take that much time (unless you have cream carpets throughout in which case most of the day must surely be spent on hands and knees ).

Clearly if you are a full time SAHM you can cook more complicated meals, sew, knit, bake, grow your own vegetables etc. But I don't actually want to do any of those things which is why being at work suits me so well. Each to their own.

Agree with Jooly.

But about the voucheres schemer thingy - Sadly my old trust did not take part in the scheme. It only employed 14 000 people in various forms and guises. All those nurses, housekeepers etc who could have had it that little bit easier.

Plus it doesn't help those who rely on the kindness of relations to cover shift work as nurseries/childminders generally can't help people who work shifts [sweeps through lawyers, doctors to supermarkets and so on] and apparently the legions of grans keeping the 24 tesco open by providing free childcare to those workers aren't worthy of being even aknowledged by the tax system.

Grrrraaaahhhhhh

treedelivery - that's shit about your old trust.. my company employs about 300 people but we do have a childcare voucher scheme which was introduced last year. DH works for a large multinational and they have had theirs a few years now. But even with both of us claiming only half the child care cost is tax deductible.

Thing I would do if I were in power.

Abolish Tax credits as it is expensive to run and a load of crap.
Instead of tax credits do the following:
Raise everyone's tax threshhold to £10,000.
Except
In 2 parent families, if there is one non-working parent then the working parent should get a bigger tax allowance.
In one parent families, they should get a bigger tax allowance.

Right got to go and run DS's bath, does anyone want to add any more?

I have never been eligble for any kind of tax relief on childcare costs. Many many employers don't operate any kind of creche or voucher scheme and there is no legal obligation on them to do so. I wish we didn't as tax payers who get no help with tax relief on childcare have to shell out for it on our taxes for NHS workers etc though if we only get 90% of full pay for 6 weeks when we have a baby. We need more equity between private and public sector.

The answer to high childcare costs is when you're a teenager for goodness sake pick work which will pay you a lot per hour rather than the minimum way or marry a man who is well off I suppose if you can morally live with that.

Also never never regard chidlcare as a woman's expense nor responsibility. If in 1984 my children's father could be paying half the childcare costs adn finding the nanny I don't see why men in 2008 can't be doing so or do too many women just accept sexist relationships or does it all come down to the fact ultimnately he know I would earn more than him. Are we saying childcare is a cost off the lower earner so if the man is on £20k and the woman on £200k then it's not worth the man working when children come along but it never works out like that because so very many women marry up, marry men who earn more so their own earnings are in effect pin money. Is this the real issue that women choose men who are better, earn more or that women choose very low paid work because of how their mothers conditioned them?

What accounts for the differences? I suspect say Anna and I earn more per hour than others? Why is that? Is that because my IQ if over 150? Isa it because as a child I loved business and marketing? Is it because I'm financially greedy? Is it because of my class or because I got good exam results at school or because I went to a private school or what?

Xenia, it is a fact that there are very few well-paid jobs out there. I agree with the choices that you made wrt work/childcare, evidently for those are the choices that I made myself. But you cannot advise every woman to get a well-paid job because these are actually rare.

I agree with Xenia that women should at the very least choose training for a profession that has the potential to earn them decent money. And preferably also training that gives transferable skills - I think this is very important for women as their lives are, on average, much more heterogeneous over time than men's and many women will find themselves dipping in and out of the workplace and wanting to up and down scale their work commitments to balance them with their commitments to their families.

I am rather dubious of all the doom and gloom about giving up work/downscaling while children are small as I know plenty of women who have done this and subsequently gone on to have extremely successful professional lives, in all sorts of fields, when their children are less dependent. This Christmas I have seen two of my older first cousins, one of whom has a very successful course holiday business in Fidji that she set up 8 years ago, in her mid-40s, and another who is a very successful employment lawyer as a second career (she only qualified as a solicitor in her late 30s).

I agree with Xenia that women should at the very least choose training for a profession that has the potential to earn them decent money. And preferably also training that gives transferable skills - I think this is very important for women as their lives are, on average, much more heterogeneous over time than men's and many women will find themselves dipping in and out of the workplace and wanting to up and down scale their work commitments to balance them with their commitments to their families.

I am rather dubious of all the doom and gloom about giving up work/downscaling while children are small as I know plenty of women who have done this and subsequently gone on to have extremely successful professional lives, in all sorts of fields, when their children are less dependent. This Christmas I have seen two of my older first cousins, one of whom has a very successful course holiday business in Fidji that she set up 8 years ago, in her mid-40s, and another who is a very successful employment lawyer as a second career (she only qualified as a solicitor in her late 30s).

Xenia, I actually tried to a) maximise my hourly rate and b) marry a well off bloke, as you say. I also tick all the boxes in terms of IQ, qualifications, wide ranging experience, transferable skills and so on that should make me very employable. Absolutely shit hot in fact. I am currently in a relatively senior academic post on a mere £5k more than my 24 year old nephew earns, and I have to say coasting most of the time because I am capable of a lot more than this, but apparently somewhat stuck in terms of potential stellar career moves now (unless anyone reading this is hiring ...)

However the year I graduated (1990) was deep in the middle of the last recession and the only proper jobs going were seemed to be in teaching, so many of us bright young things went off to do PGCEs. When we tried to escape later on, when the economy improved, it was ridiculously difficult to persuade people we were capable of more, and we found ourselves trapped.

I then tried to do a nifty manoeuvre into research as a means of upping my salary and using my brain more, only to find that academic salaries immediately started falling behind teaching salaries, so I ended up financially worse off!

The moral of all this being it is nigh on impossible to second guess the external environment with any accuracy, and sometimes it has more to do with luck than anything else. I do feel a bit hard done by at the moment, tbh, to be still worried about this after the monumental graft on my part.

With respect to the well off bloke, I left after he started hitting me. So ditto.

Can I just add to this post, without getting into any competitive parenting nonsense (please don't let's start that - I see enough of that at the school gate to choke me), that whether at work or not, I have always chugged along cooking decent meals, keeping a nice house, doing my own decorating, teaching the kids piano, etc, and I still don't fathom how people spend 6-8 hours a day doing this to fill the day when they have teenagers. Are they doing all the jobs the teenagers ought to be doing in addition to the general housewife stuff, I wonder?

The last few posts were exactly why I had a poor little mini me moment wishing I'd used my IQ and persued a more profitable career than the 'health professional' one I went for in the end.

I got lots of lovely replies saying I helped people and they loved me because of it.

That's not going to pay my bills though. The government seems to think we are all snug and cushy around here as I earn more that £15k.

I will encourage my daughters to go into their life choices with their eyes open - take a lower paid line by all means but be aware the path that may put you on. Money worries, a feeling of displacement in society, the juggle of family and bills, are really fucking depressing.

Off to frost my combat muffins, Treedelivery. I am feeling riotous again now you have said that.

Boffinmum - I think you are amazing. Am humbled by your insight and it is a comfort to see that there are these powerful women out there who one day will get the call to change this 'lets ignore families' culture.

My daughters are in good hands if they can move in circles approaching yours.

My spelling held me back. Sigh. How can my IQ be 130-something or other and yet I can have no grasp of spelling or grammer?

I'm afraid if all women did as Xenia suggeste we'd have a heck of a lot of lawyers and bankers. And few cleaners, nurses, nursery nurses etc.

And things ain't looking good if you work in the finance industry or conveyancing right now!

Bloody good time to be a liquidator though!!

I suppose the thing is that these roles will have lean times and stresses, but are so bound up in the functioning of the country that they will 'come again'[poor comfort to those who are in strife now I realise]. I think that they also have some inhertant safety in being in the male educated world enclave.

Nurses will always be paid shit to stay up all night and look after their families all day, and then do the same the next night....

Unless we get our riot muffins going girls!

I think that Xenia's point is that you have to be aware that if you choose to be eg a nurse (which is of course a perfectly respectable career choice per se) you will have great difficulty covering your childcare costs out of your income, given current UK policy on childcare.

It is a matter for permanent debate whether or not society as a whole should meet some or all childcare costs for people on low or middling incomes who have received training at the expense of society and who may well contribute greatly to society in future if they receive additional financial support/subsidy during their children's baby and toddlerhood.