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

TBH, I think YABU. It is your choice to pay that money. As has already been said, is it actually worth working when taking into account what you have to pay to get there?

I personally don't understand the mentality of having children just to pay for someone else to look after them.

After having DS1, I returned to work full time and DH became a SAHD as at the time, I earned more than him. Now, after having DS3, I am working Mon-Wed and DH works Fri-Sun. We don't have any childcare and we have 2 incomes and 2 secure careers. If were weren't able to arrange for this though, I would have given up work rather than pay for childcare which would effectively cancel my income.

too many people wanting it all. life is too short.

totally agree with you asuwere

I happily pay someone else to watch my children

because I want to
because I love working
because I love being mummy and working
because it maintains my career and autonomy
because I am financially independent
because I get approbation and affirmation working and am not prepared to sacrifice that

Personally, I don't understand the mentality that people (men or women) should be expected to put their lives in hold indefinitely when they have children. It just seems to lack self-worth to me.

Generally, I go with the live and let live approach, but I'm getting annoyed beyond belief by all the posters on here saying that women should be fulfilled and satisfied to stay at home, and even be grateful for the privilege, once they have children.

My children are incredibly important to me, and I love them more than life itself, but they're not the only thing that matters to me - I am a person in my own right with hopes, dreams, aspirations that didn't all disappear once DD1's head popped out of my fanjo!

I agree life is too short, so whilst I want to spend time with dd (which is why I work 4 days rather than 5, and have switched to a more flexible role in the public sector) I also want to use the skills/experience and professional expertise that I spent the best part of 2 decades building up before I had her. I genuinely think that I would look back later and regret not doing that if I chose not to work.

lets not pretend it furthers the womens lib cause to pay another woman to look after my kids.

it does, on the other hand, do a good deal for an individual who wants to work.

£1400 pm is more than enough to employ someone full time to care for all your kids. you just need to find the right person.

i know people that earn considerably less than £1400 pm themselves but still afford childcare.

as FBIB - you chose this arrangment. I am sure there are other cheaper arrangmenets you could have made.

MN orthodoxy favours the give it all up mummy martyr

no holidays
eschews new clothes or frivolities
lives life wholly for her children
hand knits her tampons
is complete by mere motherhood

If you spend £1400 a month on childcare and (guessing here) only have a couple of hundred left over after things like tax, ni, travel costs, lunches etc. Would it not be better to work 3 or 4 evenings a week (so say 20 hours a week) have no childcare costs, get to spend all day with your children and get to keep all your income?

Disclaimer - haven't thought this through fully - just the first thing that occurred in my head

Oddly enough, ScottishMummy, I hadn't encountered that until this thread, and I've been here a while. I've usually found a more balanced view... must have been lucky....

nbee - that's assuming that the OP either a) works in a sector where working eveings is an option or if not, b) doesn't mind giving up her career for a more convenient job.

God willing I will be a mother for the rest of my life. I am here for my children when they need me and when they think they don't. I'm putting the effort in, as is my husband but for neither of us is parenthood the only thing in our lives. I'm good at a lot of things actually and I can provide stuff for a lot of people not just my kids. Yes it costs - but as I was implying below EVERY choice costs. Don't think by sahming your way through a few years you are on a cost free option. Every choice costs and that's what frustrates me about this war debate. Time and time again I just get a sense that people don't get that. This self righteous statement about not having children so somebody else can bring them up - well I didn't have children so somebody else could finacially support me, so my skills and god given talents not be used and so that I subsume myself to the myth that my children need me to the exclusion of anyone else. Why does my choice always get reduced to being about a farking holiday abroad? I don't go abroad, I go to Scotland, once a year!

Whilst you ask for support for your choices AnnieLobeseder you belittle in every post women who chose to bring up their children.

I think Scotishmummy's first post is at least honest. If working is how she finds approbation and affirmation then great, but other equally intelligent women find it looking after their children in their early years.
I worked hard for my career- Two post grad courses to qualify and a place in a competitive profession, but I knew I could not be a good professional and a good mummy, and to ME being a good mummy was more important, equally I did not want to destroy everything I had achieved at work by becoming a mediocre juggling act.
That does not mean I knit my own tampons.

yes the ole clichés usually abound re working mums on MN

why have them for somoene else to eatch
missing precious moments
i know someone who knows someone who said they beat dem children at nursery

hey,here is novel idea do what you want,and refrain from judging others for doing what they want

hell,it might catch on

I don't view being good at my job and being a good mother as mutually exclusive - they are only if you define a good mother by one who is with her children every minute of every day. Why is that the be all and end all?

I've always thought you can both work and be a good parent - and to say otherwise is frankly rather insulting, particularly to those who have no choice but to work if they don't want to live on benefits!

silver - your post of 21.02 is (unintentionally I assume) hilarious. You accuse Annie of belittling 'women who choose to bring up their children' - great - so what am I doing with my kids then? Opting out of bringing them up? Raising them to be feral? Then you go on to talk about how your choice is motivated by the desire to be a good muumy. Well bravo to you - but tell me, in your heart of hearts does that mean that you think I - who work outside the home and have not made the same choice as you, am I not also a good mummy? Is it possible for me to attain that?

absolutely what AnnieLobeseder said. When I have children I WANT to keep working. I have no idea how I will manage it but I would be miserable as a SAHM. I don't think it's wrong to be upset or complain about the high cost of childcare.

Great post Northern.

Childcare is too dear in the UK. But there is this big taboo about subsidizing it. It's a shame, really.

Hooray, some sanity returns to the thread!!

I've noticed on these threads that someone who purports to work in childcare often pops up to disapprove and tut at the feckless working parents who pay them to look after their children.

It strikes me as a peculiar attitude. I mean...it's a bit like a doctor disapproving of people who get sick.

Why do it if that's how you feel?

What are the options for providing cheap affordable childcare though? Nursery voucher schemes aren't working, WFTC isn't, are the only options really

give up work completely as it is not worthwhile financially?
work at a loss or for a meagre profit for a good number of years to preserve your career?
take a lower paid and/or step off the ladder completely as to be able to afford childcare?

they really are rubbish all of them aren't they?

Our childcare costs would have been £1840 per month, which is more or less the same as my take home pay...so I finished work.

Essentially it comes down to the shift in family dynamics which has occurred over the last generation.

It used to be that the woman never worked so when the kids came along the was not an issue. So when feminism/womens lib happened and more and more women starting have kids later and found themselves in good careers earning decent money (fwiw, approx £1800 take home is about £30k PA), which can be childcare costs for 2 kids before school, (ok so not childminding as I don't have experience of that) suddenly there was a choice to be made.

This was always going to happen because essentially as it is the woman who has the baby, takes the time off, it is naturally (but not necesarily right) the mother who worries about childcare, paying for childcare etc etc. And then the equal pay thing also comes into it...

I'm not saying this is good/bad/right/wrong...but in my darkest hours with 3 kids under 5 I have sometimes wondered if life would have been easier if I had never worked...

And now I'm off to burn my bra...

and why the hell doesn't anyone bang on about how wrong it is for fathers to go to work? Surely following the logic of some posters it makes sense that life is too short for fathers to make the choice to go to work.

Wading in a bit late here built I know I couldn't be a good mother and do a full time professional job effectively. I just couldn't. I'd be a horrible monster. Hats off to those who do.

But I also couldn't hack just being with my children all day, that would also make me a monster, I need adult company and variety of tasks so I do volunteering and get babysitting so I can do some exercise. You don't have to work to get time to do other things.

Yes deuling - the importance of fathers not missing said precious moments and failing to notice child growing etc etc is rarely mentioned. Can you imagine 1 man in a 100 saying I felt I had to give up my career to be a good father? Not just saying I cut back, don't go abroad, decided to flex my hours to be there at breakfast but saying 'I had to stop work'. Doesn't happen ime.