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

Totally agree annie about taxes. Paying for childcare is an expense incurred directly through working. I had no objection to paying a big whack of our income to the nursery, because it gave my children the most amazing experience, and enabled me to remain in my career. I did object to the fact that DH and I were paying out of taxed income, and then tax was being paid on what we paid. Ludicrous!!

I was the single working girl, living the high life, fab career, travelled all over the world, loved my job and the people I worked with.
Now I am a single sahm and luckliy I love it even more.
For me I find it alot easier than working.
I feel like I am on a permanent holiday and know I am lucky to feel like that.
This thread seems to be all about knocking people who choose a different path than themselves.
We are all very different people and we are all mothers.
Ce La Vie

I sahm and, I am quite certain that in my 3+ years on Mumsnet I have never stopped so low as to criticise a wohp simply for being a wohp. My dh, for instance, is a wohp. He earns a reasonable salary and we are fortunate in that we can just about muddle by on one salary although it has been hard at times. I have actually worked part time for some of the time I've been at home, and I have had childcare one or two days a week for both my dc once they were a year old. In the time I have been at home I have trained in another profession and am now in a position to earn in 10 hours per week self employed what I could earn in 35 hours per week if I went back to my old job now. To suggest that SAHM are "not normal" and "dull witted" is so deeply fucking insulting that I don't quite know what to do with my contempt .

add to that been told why have children if you use childcare (said by a sahm)

on both sides emotions and stereotypes unfortunately run loose

so the sad part of this debacle is the argy bargy mud slinging on both sides

Thing is, sometimes if you've had the same education as a (modern) bloke, and see the world in the same way as a (modern) bloke, then you go nuts trying to be something different in a domestic context.

I do wonder if actually the problem is that society even now can't quite cope with intelligent, engaged mothers going off and doing things that beyond domestic duties. I think society would rather we wear fluffy Nigella cardigans and bake buns all day and be relatively unchallenging. So we get fined for trying. The fine is our childcare costs.

i dont know this is society issue it is a female issue in my experience.

i have had the greatest amount jip and harrumphing from females about working ft and using nursery. it has been females not men who cast aspersions and play the i-am-woman-motherhood-is-a-giving-things-up-competition.

was the point not that we have choices and inevitably choices will individually vary

I dunno, Scottishmummy, I wonder how much of it is actually choices, and how much of it is conditioning. I am not sure people's life paths are always straightforward enough to give them a lot of choices.

For example in my heart of hearts I know I am really only killing time in this job until I become a Rock Goddess. That would be my choice.

But more seriously, lots of my 'choices' have been influenced heavily by ill health, miscarriages, recessions, domestic abuse and other stuff like that. 'Choice' doesn't happen in a vaccuum. Best laid plans and all that ...

I think a lot of men think they have even fewer choices than we do, incidentally.

an annoying i-am-woman-i-am-earth-goddess does descend upon some women women post birth. they give birth and are suddenly emeritus professor of all things maternal. mylene klass springs to mind

you had a baby not an epiphany

I think the really sad thing about this subject, is that we (women/mums) are arguing with each other about it. IMHO we have been royally stitched up by 'women's lib'. I was encouraged to go to Uni, work hard and achieve, and strive to be successful in the workplace/education. I have, by and large, achieved what I was encouraged to achieve (by society/family etc etc). I now have a fairly good job (MUCH higher paid than my DH if I was working full-time).
DH and I come from fairly similar backgrounds with SAH mothers (for the whole of our childhood) and 'breadwinner' fathers.
We find ourselves slipping into these roles, even though DH earns less than me and I work part-time. I therefore feel hugely guilty that I haven't had time to bake a cake for the PTA, sew a costume for the school play, or invite lots of children round to my house every day. I attempt to do all these things, as well as working part-time in a very responsible job. DH comes home after a full day at work to dinner on the table. And although he baths the DCs every night, he doesn't give 2 hoots whether DD needs to take something in for Harvest Festival, or whether she has got any clean sport kit!
We (women) all have it hard enough, whether we are SAHM or WOHM, without arguing with each other over our personal choices. FGS, as if being a mother isn't the most guilt-ridden thing you will ever do anyway, without other mothers giving you shit!

hooray mumofeve!

I can really identify with a lot of your post mumofEve!

i wonder whether people in the uk are a bit too obsessd with owning their own property which has fueled this need to earn so much money? and has also go hand in hand with things going tits up with this ressesion.
basically building lifestyles that are not really affordable

Yes, but there is also the issue of old age poverty, which means many people feel they need to accumulate capital in order not to have a cold and hungry old age.

Mumofeve, it doesn't help that schools are Victorian in structure and instead of, for example, kitting the kids out for PE themselves, they send snippy letters home if plimsolls have been lost or forgotten or confused or whatever.

Similarly with fundraising. Instead of doing it properly and getting a professional in, they fiddle faddle about with jumble and buns and raise less than it costs to make or collect the stuff. All these things cause female hassle and stress IME.

Owning your own property is hardly a luxury.I believe most people would view that as a pretty sensible investment.

Having two incomes is not just about going on holidays and other luxuries. For most its probably more about financial security. Being able to pay the mortgage, health insurance, pensions, money aside to pay for your childrens education. I think especially in the current recession, I am pretty sure the stresses on one-income families are a lot greater.

Here is the BoffinMum school manifesto, for her fantasy school St Boffin's:

1. We will supply PE kit to all children and launder it afterwards ready for use next time.
2. We will feed the children properly and for free at lunchtime.
3. No fundraising ever. You don't fundraise for your accountant or lawyer or other service provider, so you don't fundraise for us.
4. Free school bus for those who want it. No guilt trips about driving to school.
5. All school play costumes provided. School plays to take place with numbered tickets in a proper theatre so latecomers from work need not end up standing at the back forlornly through lack of chairs.
6. Homework club at school so you don't need to battle with supervise children in the evening.

I could go on!

imo,we owe feminism a debt of gratitude.it has normalised many expectations eg Uni,career,working, autonomy that were previously asserted beyond women.feminism has influenced society and polices and has introduced legislation to try address inequalities.

as a result of feminism i assumed i would go to uni,have a career.my mother was working class woman and the societal assumptions placed upon her were have children,raise them,know your place

i am not saying things are perfect,they aren't but i am personally indebted to feminism

sad aspect of sahm/working mum debacle is inevitably it descends into whose choice is most worthy/justifiable/correct .

when if you are happy with your choice that is enough

I apologise for being rude - was I think reacting to the why-have-children-if-you-go-out-to-work schtick

As sahm I do not in any way think myself to be superior to wohm. Or vice versa.

I made the choice to be sahm and am glad I did. I have a better degree than dh. I had what looks on paper to be a good career - London, arts, senior, publishing, writers, Groucho Club, well paid (in context), fantastic prospects, blah blah - but I didn't enjoy it. I was fed up to the back teeth with it but when I was pg I always thought I'd go back to it - how could I possibly give up the kind of job that an awful lot of people apply on spec to do for free?

But I did choose to give it up, and it was not a particularly difficult choice for me. (Thanks to dh earning £45,000 pa and our mortgage being about £600 per month, back then - comfortable, I know)

The truth of the matter is that I have a better future ahead of me now than I would have had if I'd stayed on that treadmill. I am no longer a wage slave and have gone off on a tangent which I doubt I would have done had I stayed in my old job.

Being sahm to my two dc has broadened my horizons, not curtailed them. I think it is inaccurate to suggest that a parent who puts their career on hold for a few years is as a matter of course written off for the future.

Why suggest people give up owning property? Our mortgage, relatively speaking, is very high for our area. But still cheaper than renting, plus we have a long-term investment. How would selling up and throwing away even more money each month on rent help us?

bibbity - I hear what you are saying, but in your case you didn't enjoy your job, so you can't really make a fair comparison with people who do.

I also think it's sad that sometimes women feel they need childbirth as a kind of excuse to get off the treadmill of a job they don't enjoy. Why not make the changes to your life that you want without needing to have kids to prompt that change?

It sounds like it's worked out for you now, but I think it's sad that anyone should feel trapped in a job they don't enjoy.

No, no, don't feel sad for me violet.

If you work you are not capable of being involved in bringing up your DC.

how did it all get so damn nasty and judgey.

LOL well i take solace from "good enough" parenting and wine, and fact i don't give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks about working FT

Once the children start school is impossible to tell who has been at home with SAHM and who has been in fulltime childcare anyway.Its much easier to spot who has been a SAHM and who has been a WOHM from how fat they are and weather they are dressed in track suits or decent clothing

Heh heh fairy.

I'll never forget going out for lunch with my boss, her toddler dd, and her nanny.

Boss was ordering lunch. Had to ask nanny what dd would and would not eat. "Does she like pizza? will she want meat on it? will she want orange or apple juice?"

Still, at least her clothing cost a deal more than mine and her nanny's, eh?