to be so peeved that we spend approx £1400 a month on childcare

[couture1]

I know I have to pay for the service but it leaves me with little left over each month and we need to salaries to get by. I dont want to give up work as 1 cant afford to and 2 Im hoping that when 3dc are at school in 3 years time we will be better off each month - but how do we manage until then?

Rant rant rant

Ah well. Need to get some shut eye before hauling the DC out of their scratchers at some ungodly hour so that someone else can rear them...

Night night.

Thanks for the good luck wishes, Fleabie! I'll make sure to tell DD tomorrow, poor thing that she is.

I wish she was as lucky as your children.

"personally i'm amazed at people that begrudge the money, they pay for childcare" I think they begrudge the percentage of their income that the have to spend on childcare, particularly those on a low wage.

Night all - should also be in bed as I have to get up in a few hours to commute to the big smoke and leave DD with her childminder (gasp!).

It's been interesting.

and another sahm/working mum debacle winds down

til the next thread pops up

Before I finally drag my hide off to bed, I'd like to echo theOldestCat and Martha by quoting, well, myself, on this thread:

Mothers have worked from the dawn of time. This idea that the precious little things need their mummies 24/7 is a relatively new invention and doesn't help the feminist cause one bit.

'Night all!

Good night ladies

Fleabie - I chose to have children with my (now) XH. WE chose to have children. Our marriage did not work out. It happens.

I have worked all my life and chose, when XH left, to continue working to preserve MY dignity and self worth PLUS to ensure my children knew that people had to WORK for a living PLUS to afford to be able to bring up my children with food on the table, clothes on their backs and a roof above their head without having to resort to going into hostels for months on end waiting for a LA property to become available. Basic needs "fulfilled" ATM, no luxuries as such.

However, I still utterly BAULK at the cost of childcare. I work, have a mortgage and maintain a household comprising of 2 DC's and me ON MY OWN and childcare costs to enable me to do so - not to live but to survive - are hideously high. IMO.

I chose to be a parent WITH my XH but as it happens I am a parent WITHOUT him and the dual income that comes with it. I am....a lone parent! Working my ass off to survive and enable me to house, feed and clothe my children. And the childcare costs that come with that TO ME are horrendous.

I actually would have been better off taking my kids from pillar to post in any LA digs the LA gave me claiming benefits. I have looked it up. But I have chosen not to.

Well, having come on to Mumsnet for a bit of light entertainment before I go to sleep for a few hours (before going back to my full-time five days a week job - what a bitch I am, eh?), I was not disappointed. As usual, the OP came on with a perfectly reasonable request looking for a bit of moral support and all those sodding goody-two-shoes patronising mothers started lobbing about dreadful accusations about women who go back to work missing out on the best years, bla sodding bla. I couldn't be bothered to read all 10 pages of the thread (I have a life) but someone called Nickytwowits or something like that made an extremely sensible point and hats off to her. FATHERS do not have any qualms about going back to work (or if they do, I have yet to meet them) so why are we making these fatuous comments. You should be ashamed of yourselves. This is the 21st century. Anyway, here's a little song I invented for my DD to sing whilst I'm at work, about her mother:
She's a heartless, hard-boiled bitch;
She's a mercenary, money-grabbing witch.
She doesn't give a toss unless she's shagging the boss.
She's a heartless hard-boiled bitch.

And yes, childcare is very expensive, and perhaps the alternative for some of the nasty posters who made comments about having children being a choice would be what...abortion? Accidents happen, and I love mine immensely.

I do agree that the formative years of a childs life are important and precious and if we can we should try and be there at home as much as we can.

But to suggest that we shouldn't have children because we may have to put them in childcare for a while?

Parenting goes so far beyond toddlerhood. Imagine when I'm teaching my son guitar at 10, or shopping with my daughter at 20! Waving them off on travels and encouraging them to go for jobs, being a proud grandmother when they have babies of their own. Would I miss out on all of it, just because someone told me not to have kids AND a job?

I'm 26 and I bought a house in 2008 - it was EXPENSIVE! Mortgage is massive and house needs plenty of improvements. I have to live near London because I drive trains..(no working from home there) The reason we bought a house is because I want to have something to leave my kids one day. DH has children from a previous relationship and we provide for them too. I can't afford to learn to drive a car! DH has a 12 yr old 7 seater. We buy nearly everything secondhand.

I think childcare should be cheaper, maybe very large companies like the one I work for should have subsidised murseries etc, just shave a bit off the fat cats' pay.

I don't expect my children will doubt the choices we have made for their early years in sending them to nursery a few days a week.

Those of you on your high horse - when your own sons and daughters go out to work and have to use childcare will you berate them too? A lot of people here can't seem to see beyond the age of 5....

Note: Please bear in mind that this topic encourages posters to give their opinions - i.e. they might disagree with you.
Has anybody read that!

I see this kicked off
dd's childcare is called school and thank heavens for it.

Whta I want to know is why there isn't under 5's childcare for disabled children. All those who had to go back to work to pay mortgage etc, you'd of been stuffed if your child had been born with a problem. No-one would take dd and I tried so many places. So dh had to give up work for 2 years to be her carer until school kicked in.

That's an excellent point Riven and it is a disgrace. I suppose the only option is a nanny with expertise in that area and I imagine you might just as well burn ten pound notes it would cost so much. Dd3's nursery has a child who has downs syndrome though and also a child with a serious heart defect so I guess some settings will take some children but there is no universality of provision.

Hi franca Not much time to mn lately but I do what I can

Franca: Emma Bonino for president is what I say!

this might sound stupid and it was too late for me but finding yourself in a position where you have to work to keep the house is very precarious position to be in when you plan babies.
we were really stuffed when dh had to give up work to care because of the total lack of childcare.
Few people are in the nanny-pay bracket I imagine!

this is why I would think very seriously about continuing with a pregnancy where I knew the child would have a disability though of course there's no planning I can do for a disability which is undetected or happens at birth. The lack of this kind of childcare for children with disability would be a big issue for me sadly.

But this is not a debate about SN.

PrincessToadstool - am not sure I read anything aboutr self worth and ambition but I'll read back.

Another thread that has descended into WOHM vs SAHM.

Yes childcare is expensive, DS nursery is £760 a month for 3 days a week. But it is a fantastic nursery, the staff and environment are wonderful and I dont begrudge paying the amount I pay.

For those parents who have made the decision to get flexible hours/ give up work totally so that they are able to spend the early and formative years with their DC's - well done you! So long as you and your family are happy with that set up, fantastic!

And equally - those parents who have chosen to return to work because that suits their family dynamic - well done you!

It is sad when both parents have been forced to return to work due to the high childcare costs/ inflexibility from employers - but to ask why these people have bothered to have children is just a little IMO.

Why we choose to attack others (as some not all posters have done) for their decisions is beyond me. Each to their own. Why cant we support one another in the choices we make?

To pick up on citybranch's point about parenting extending beyond toddlerhood, I don't intend to just be there for my dcs in the first few years of their life.

I intend to be there for my dcs their whole life, god willing.

Parenting is for the long haul, not just the nice cuddly 'formative' first 5 years of a child's life, which nicely tails off with them going off to school, in most cases at the state's expense.

That to me means putting in place a robust structure that can cater for more rather than fewer eventualities. These include the fact that children need the emotional support of their parents more when they are schoolage (yes, you know, that's is true), rather than toddlers, I might get divorced (pruneplus2, you are doing a great job) or widowed or dh/I lose our jobs or are unable to work, dcs need help with uni fees or to set up a home. I am sure there are many more.

By always keeping my hand in, I am building up a nest egg for future. This allows me to give up work if necessary and take any knocks that life dishes out with little impact on my dcs' life or standard of living.

Guess what, my dcs still seem to have no problem recognising me and dh as their parents and for most part, indistinguishable from the other well-behaved occasionally naughty children they play with at school/nursery who had SAHM in their early years.

Dcs of WOHM/WAHM/SAHMs mostly end up at the same place anyway, if from the same socio-economic strata in society. As a WOHM, I have to put in more effort to organise my time and juggle to get to that same place for my dcs, but at the same time also have this comfy financial buttress of marketable skills, reduced mortgage and options, such as giving up work later.

I take all this on myself with the long term in mind. It would be so easy and simple to just give up work and devote myself to childcare and housework. But I can do both and more and actually, quite enjoy it!

Meant to include one of the eventualities as Riven's situation whereby dh or I is forced to stay at home to become a carer for a disabled child.

if there was inclusive care that cost the same it wouldn't be an issue.
I was thinking about the OP's first post. £1400 is more than anyone I know takes home each month. With fees like that how can people afford to work? One parent is effectively working for nothing for X number of years until school kicks in.

True, Riven - until I got a payrise (and moved out of London) I was working for practically nothing after paying childcare. But we took a long-term view - we needed my salary, irrespective of outgoings, to get a mortgage so we could move away and out of our one-bed flat.

Romanarama (are you italian?), Emma Bonino yes, maybe. Rosy Bindi in the former Prodi's govt (which I dearly miss) intended to invest lots of money in nurseries (as in central and southern italy they are virtually inexistent), but the govt fell... and the rest is history

HI blueshoes, nice to see you ... and in good shape as usual!

Riven has a good point, I think - possibly - that stat funded nurseries could be structures that could look after children with severe special needs. But I might be naive.

Princess, I didn't get the insults thrown by wohm at sahm.

princess toadstool never ever take to heart the shite on a sahm/working mum thread. it isnt representative of mumsnet

most of it is hyperbole and one size fits all grand statements. the topic brings out all the hairy handed zealots.

bottom line is we all make our choices, we know our individual circumstances and a bunch of strangers with pc bumping gums shouldnt detract from whta you do