in thinking that if we have monthly income of £3700 net we could spare £120 to spend on a cleaner?

[effedorf]

3+ years posting here, namechange for obvious reasons.

But, seriously, what do you think?

The income all comes from dh and I am sahm. We have two primary school age children. I truly hate cleaning and I do 95% of the food shopping and cooking and 100% of the laundry and 95% of all the other things that makes a family tick over.

Or am I being unreasonable?

Bonsoir- you are v princessey!

OP- I hope your 'special measures' work. I'm not convinced a cleaner is the answer really. Perhaps some of the problem is that you are fed up with being at home all the time and want to have the opportunity to develop an interest or career yourself. It is really not impossible to work part time, have a husband who works long hours and still be the primary carer for the children.

Agree with NorthernLurker. Yes, it can be tricky to find a job if you put loads of restrictions on it - ie got to be between the hours of 9.30 and 2.30 term time only. But childminders, after school clubs etc are out there - there is certainly far more available than 15/20 years ago.

I also agree with Quattro - sounds like bobbity is depressed and not particularly enjoying life at the moment, so maybe a job would perk things up and help get the marriage back on track.

It is almost impossible to find a job that fits in with school hours/term time, and especially one where at a moment's notice you can be called out to pick up a sick child from school/take a day off for sick child etc. As soon as you start paying for after school care/holiday club it becomes uneconomical, AND you are then 'contracting out' part of the childcare. So how is that different to contracting out part of the cleaning?

We all get lots of help with lots of parts of our lives - most of us depend on farmers to grow our food - we COULD grow it all in the garden, but we don't. Most of us contract out car maintenance. We could all do a course in car mechanics, but of course we don't. But in this country we have this insane notion that 'we must all be cleaners'.

Why?

My Granma had a cleaner/housekeeper for years. They became best friends. She bought her a house, and took her on holiday abroad (often with me) once or twice a year. No exploitation involved. It was a mutual arrangement that benefited everyone.

I don't particularly get why you can't keep on top of cleaning etc if you don't work outside the home and your DCs are at school full time. I work 30 hours/week and manage OK, the house isn't immaculate but it's fine. It really doesn't take that long if you do some every day.

I occassionally pay for ironing, so I'm not opposed to domestic assistance, but if my DH gave up work to be a SAHD I think I'd be a bit miffed if we had to forgoe his salary and then also pay a cleaner.

That said, it's your money, so you should agree what you both think is a reasonable use for it.

If your child is sick, you take a day off, end of. I work in a senior position, and have always taken time off when necessary for that - me and DH alternate so it's not a big deal.

Disagree that paying for after school and holiday care is uneconomical. If you balance it out over the year you'll still be quids in. Once your children are in school for the majority of the working day, you're getting the major chunk of time for free - it's economically far more advantageous than when they're at nursery and you're paying for every single hour!

I think it's a state of mind.If you want to find reasons not to work, then you'll find them. Just feels like the OP is not in a good place at the moment, and a job might be just what she needs - for all sorts of reasons as well as being able to afford the cleaner!

Lily- it's not impossible to find part time work, mainly around school hours. It isn't going to be uneconomical because of childcare costs. It just depends on whether the OP (or anyone else for that matter) wants to find a job or not. If she (or anyone else) doesn't want to find a job, that's fair enough but there is not point in coming up with 101 excuses. It's better to be honest and say you don't want to get a job!
I really don't get this business about farmers and mechanics. We live in a society where we are mutually dependent on each other. Nobody on this thread has said that women should just clean or that they are against cleaners in principle.

The business about farmers and mechanics was to illustrate that we all pay others to do basic things for the well being of our lives! But our society has dictated that cleaning will not be one of them.

In terms of finding part time work, violethill, you are incredibly lucky that you are in a senior position and get paid accordingly. When I was employed part time, I made enough to cover the childcare. I didn't take anything home, at all, and because I was doing private teaching in a school, if the kids were ill, the pupils missed their lessons and I didn't get paid. It only takes a couple of missed lessons and you start getting complaints, and requests to change teacher. I now work from home, in late afternoons and evenings, which does mean my kids miss out a bit, because they have to look after themselves basically for a few hours.

No Lily, incredibly lucky would be if my name was picked out of some lottery and I was instantly promoted into a senior position. Actually, I worked my way up, like most of us do. I too have been in the position of everything I earn going on childcare (2 x nursery places plus before and after school care for eldest).Oh and my senior position now is full time, not part time - yes, it's more difficult to find a senior position if you are only prepared to work part time, but again, luck doesn't come into it - we all make our choices.

I'm sorry about your experience of sick children, but tbh, I think if both parents pull their weight and alternate any time off, then it's usually quite possible to manage even if some of the time is unpaid. We have 3 children, two pretty healthy and one with long term medical issues, and we've managed. Yes,it's not always easy, but no one ever said being a parent is easy!

Lily- I do understand what you were trying to say about farmers, etc. I just think it is a silly argument.
I have no problem with people employing cleaners, gardeners, etc at all. Infact, I employ a lovely cleaner myself, but I am not a SAHM with two children of primary school age.

violethill, I'm sure you have worked hard. But in some careers, there is not the option to 'work your way up', there is nowhere to go. In my career that is certainly the case, and in many others that is also true. Particularly vocational jobs. And luck does come into it, as to what opportunities are available, whether you are successful in applications etc.

The point is that when someone has made the decision that they want to be at home for their children after school and in holiday time, it is galling when others say that 'if they want a luxury, which their household could afford, then they have to go and find a job to finance it'. Because that option is difficult, if not impossible to find. (ie 9.30-3.00, term time only).

As far as taking time off for sick children, I really do think it depends on what you do. If you work in a contact situation (eg teaching etc), when you really can't work from home, then eyebrows are going to be raised after one or two occasions.

Re the argument about farmers - perhaps swimming teachers would have been a better example - most of us 'could' teach our children to swim. But most of us put the children into swimming lessons (at a cost). And it's only expectation that makes that acceptable, whilst getting someone to clean, when you don't work, isn't.

I don't quite understand why it has to be jobs from 9.30 to 3. There is the option of childcare.

So, to pay out thirty poxy quid a week on a cleaner, OP should go and find herself a 'nice little job' and organise childcare?

pointydogg, the point is that if you have decided that you want to be at home for your children after school and in school holidays (as the OP has), then in order to 'get a little job' to pay for luxuries, as was suggested, would have to be in the 'child-free time' otherwise it is impacting on your decision to be at home when your children are.

Putting your children in child-care is an option, but is not solving the problem of 'making a little extra money for a luxury' without compromising your wish to be at home for your children.

I see, ok

yanbu

you can afford £30 a week to pay for something you dislike doing

so why not

Lily - the point you are making is that if you make a decision which will seriously restrict your chances in the job market (eg deciding that you will never use childcare and will always be around to drop your children at school, pick them up, be there every holiday and inset day) then you really have to just accept the consequences of that choice.

Life is generally about compromise. If you make always being there, every day, for every moment your children are not in school, your priority, then it's hardly reasonable to complain, or say that other people who have made different choices are 'incredibly lucky'.

If the OP doesn't want to work, then the compromise she may have to accept is that her husband will always be the sole earner, or at least until whatever time she decides she will work, and if that means he wants to save £120 rather than spend it on a cleaner, with the expectation being that she will clean for a few hours out of the 30 or so free hours she has each week, then tbh I don't think that's an unreasonable compromise.

Ultimately it's down to their family whether they both work, or one parent works, but I still don't think it's unreasonable of her DH to expect her to do the housework now the kids are in school all day. She says she loathes the housework, but she seems to loathe even more the alternative of working and paying someone else to do it.

Actually, when I was talking about being 'lucky' I wasn't meaning so much the choice between WOHM and SAHM - that is always a choice fraught with difficulty. I fundamentally don't think the choice to be a SAHM should mean that the woman has no say over finances, and may not spend a bit on luxuries. But yes, it is something to be discussed between them.

The 'lucky' bit was more to do with being in a position where you can earn a decent amount with enough flexibility to accommodate unpredictable children and their health. I know lots of my friends have horrendous difficulties trying to balance things, and it always seems to be a poor compromise.

I do work, but it is very much fitted round what I can do with the children, and is working at home, or evenings/weekends. Which means I get the worst of both worlds - I do all the childcare AND work! Mostly at the same time, which is madness. And evenings/weekend work isn't ideal, but I'm in the sort of profession where the first time you turn down work, you lose that avenue of work, and I can't afford to do that. I still don't make much money out of it, and if I had to pay childcare then I would make no money at all.

And interestingly, I would never dream of saying to dh 'I'm going to employ a cleaner out of MY money' - we share it all.

I see what you're saying, but I still think to say someone is 'lucky' to be in a senior position is rather misleading. Apart from a very small minority who earn ridiculously high incomes which aren't based on merit, this really doesn't apply to most people.

I'm in education, and you certainly don't walk into senior management! You spend years at the chalkface, in the classroom, on a fairly ordinary salary (bearing in mind you have to have a degree then a year's unpaid -in my day- training before you even get there). And then there's a lot of professional development to go through, LOADS of hours over and above the normal 8 to 5 day..... don't get me wrong, I love my job, but it's been hard graft to get here, and when we had two sets of nursery fees I was a mainscale teacher.

We all have to make decisions according to what we think is best for our family, and then take the rough with the smooth. If you choose your hours to fit around the kids, you end up looking after the children and then having to work evenings or weekends. The upside though, is you save a lot on childcare costs. If you work normal day time hours, the upside is you aren't then having to cram your job into evenings and weekends, but the downside is paying huge amounts in childcare.

I really don't think there's any simple solution. It's all about compromise.

I also see what you're saying, but I don't think the element of choice is always there. As it happens, a lot of the work I do ONLY exists on weekends and evenings (performing arts). You might say that I chose that profession, but really it was the only thing I wanted to do, and I'm good at it! There also isn't a 'career path' to follow - it's luck throughout, as to who you meet, who likes you etc etc.

And in this economic climate, I don't think the element of choice does remain - I know dh was just glad to have a job again after a period of redundancy, it's a good job, but he didn't 'choose' it. There aren't loads of jobs out there atm!

I think what I'm trying to say very clumsily is that you have worked very hard and have been very successful. But lots of people work equally hard, and don't have the same success - for all sorts of reasons. It doesn't mean they've chosen not to 'succeed', or that they haven't worked hard enough. But please don't think I'm begrudging you your professional success - it's great that you've been so successful in your career!

Interesting, responsible jobs where there is no travel element are very rare however, and I certainly don't know anyone in a job I would term "senior" who could or would take a whole day off work for a sick child. An hour out for a doctor's visit, perhaps.

Good thing my job spec doesn't have to meet BonsoirAnna's definition of 'senior management' then isn't it

Have you ever worked outside education, violethill?

article about working mothers on Sunday abotu Gaby Hinscliff who quit her job on the Observer

I think this choice thing is an illusion. Working mothers only have a choice to become at SAHM if their partners can hold the fort financially. So in the article above, I read it thinking, yes that's great but had it not been for her husband being in a good enough job to sustain all of them, she would have just had to carry on or find an alternative wouldn't she (though I have some sympathy with her because seeing her husband only one day a week is hard going when you are both working full time).

Would someone who thinks that if there is something you don't like doing, and can afford to pay someone else to do it, you should still do it yourself, explain why?

I would rather have the time than the money.

Yes I have. (in response to BonsoirAnna)

foxinsocks - I read that article, and tbh I felt it was rather self indulgent claptrap. She'd had an exciting, demanding job, and then reached a point where she wanted to jack it in..... and suddenly we have yet another tedious article.
I entirely agree with what you say about choice btw - not everyone has the choice to give up work, and conversely not everyone has the choice to go to work if they can't afford childcare.

But I'm getting pretty bored of those self indulgent articles. She was in a job which she knew involved masses of travel, and having to drop everything and get to work, and that would have been the same for a man doing that job