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, I suspect that is because the people you know in senior positions work for large multi-national companies. If you run a SME in the UK, work in a UK based charity or politics, you might well have comarativly little travel.

I think she focused on the wrong things in that article. I agree with you and re the men doing that job (and lots of them in the same job have working wives!) but what is hard is doing all of that then only being together for one day.

I really had to give up my full time job when ds1 was born - there was no way on earth I could have continued. I had to start work at 7.45 (and it was a 45 min commute), didn't finish till 6 at the earliest, and usually 7 or 7.30, about once a month it was 10.30pm. I also had to work Sat mornings, 7.30 - 1.00, and Sun mornings. Given that dh also works Sundays, what childcare could I possibly have got to cover those hours, even if I'd wanted to continue to WOHM full time.

I switched to part time, but working an 8-6 day only just about covered the childcare costs, and with the commute it wasn't financially viable. When my 3rd child was born I gave up altogether, as it was just too complicated with the children, despite ds1 being in school by then.

(This was a job in education btw).

I'm happy being self-employed (with 2 regular bits of employed work), but there is NO job security or benefits etc (pension etc).

LOL I used to work for a UK based charity and there was lots of travel involved! And my DP runs a French SME and there is lots of travel involved in that - he was up at 5am for the first flight and won't be back until 10 pm tonight. And UK politics is not family-friendly at all (unless maybe you count Parish Council type work as politics).

Even in education, as soon as you get beyond children/schools, there is a lot of travel and you cannot let people down by taking days off. The main advantage of education, at all levels, when combinining it with a family is that things slow down very seriously at holiday times.

if people have that senior a position and both partners work though Anna, it's most likely that they will have a nanny (either live out or live in) and the nanny will cover a child being ill

it is certainly possible to have both parents working and travelling with their jobs.

Lily - tbh it sounds as though you've done the best thing in your particular situation. With both of you having weekend commitments, the childcare would have been virtually impossible to organise. I think working a long day is do-able, but when you factor in inflexible weekend times, it becomes a nightmare! Fortunately I can do any work I need to do over the weekends at home.

So I don't think you should feel any guilt or whatever - as I have said consistently in this thread - it's about coming to an agreement with your partner about what is best for your own family unit, and then regularly reviewing the situation because circumstances change, children grow up etc. After all, if your partner wasn't in the same line of work as you, and had weekends free, then you may well have carried on in your original job. But that wasn't the case, so you made adjustments.

It's swings and roundabouts isn't it? And you say you're pretty happy with being self employed. I would recommend starting up a pension as soon as you can, because that will give you some longer term security, but apart from that, you seem to have it pretty sorted.

I completely agree that if both partners have senior jobs with travel involved, then it is indispensable to have a third FT adults around to pick up the slack.

But you still have to be reconciled to the idea that you cannot be there for your sick children. DSS2 had a life-or-death op when he was 13 months and his mother couldn't back from a business trip in time for his anaesthetic.

I am pretty happy with the way things are violethill, but I wouldn't be happy if dh took the line suggested by some on this thread that because he earns 5 times as much as I do that somehow he holds the pursestrings. We both contribute - I earn VASTLY much less, but it does help a bit.

(Dh's main work isn't the same as mine btw, he has a 'regular' 9-5 job, but then another job as well, which is where weekends come in. We both still have weekend work, but the children come along too, and that works well).

nah Anna. Both dh and I travel and there's no way on earth we would miss an operation that our child/children were having.

Maybe if it was an emergency and we were stuck on the other side of the world but I cannot believe for a second that any senior person who travels would miss an operation like that (if it was planned).

If it was an emergency there are loads of reasons any parent might not be around and work would only account for one of those reasons!

Of course, it was an emergency. But that's the point: childhood is an unpredictable business.

Bonsoir - your experiences have been different to mine then. I suppose the answer to the question "Does a senior position inevitably involve lots of travel?", is "It depends". The people I know who work for Investment Banks travel a lot more than those who work in Westminster. Some charities operate in a small geographic area. Your milage may vary.

it's the most senior people who should (theoretically) have the most discretion with their time

I have less sympathy with them than people in low paid jobs who lose a day's pay when they take time off and have to supply medical certificates every time they are sick.

yes but in that situation, you could have been visiting a friend the other side of Paris and not made it back in time yourself.

Absolutely foxinsocks.

I find it far easier to be flexible with my time now that I'm in a senior position than when I wasn't.

My DP travels far less than anyone I know at a similar level of seniority/responsibility/salary. He and we know we are all very lucky in that. Members of his team (ie less senior, lower salary) travel more, and to more far flung locations, than he needs to, and he is aware that they can encounter conflicts with their family commitments and tries to accommodate them. But at the end of the day not many senior jobs are that sedentary, unless you work in the public sector. The private sector is highly globalised.

The flipside, is that their are also plenty of NON senior jobs that require lots of travel. Some jobs are just shit.

dammit thread-x.

Emergency ops don't happen that quickly! Other side of Paris is 30 minutes by metro. DSS2's mother was in another city (and only in France) and took a taxi back, but that was still a few hours.

Parts of the private sector are highly globalised. The degree to which this means travel varies. I know of someone who runs a business selling laminate floors. Some are manufactured in poland - I think he's visited the factory once.

Anyway, I think everyone should have a cleaner.

Selling laminate floors doesn't alone meet my definition of a senior job, though.

I thought I posted, but it seems to have gone, so if this is a repeat, sorry...

I find this thread strangely fascinating. I haven't read it all.
OP, I am a SAHM who is a little "lax" with the housework. I struggled in the beginning with the identity of "SAHM" and I used to put my DD in nursery two mornings a week, to concentrate on what I call my intellectual pursuits. Housework fell by the wayside, but because I didn't see my identity primarily as being a housewife/SAHM, I didn't have a problem with this.
NOw I have a second baby, those pursuits have gone out the window for the time being. However, I seem to have thrown myself into the SAHM role. I sat down and realised that, far from being a parasite, my contribution to the household is considerable and when I added up the sums: cooking from scratch (as opposed to take-outs/restaurants), natural nappies, doing my own cleaning, etc, in fact, my work contributes thousands of pounds a year to the family pot! This was a revelation, and made me understand the significance of my role.
What I am saying is that, with our husbands' level of income (not that high!), the SAHM's role and the decisions she makes regarding the finances hugely affect the family. So, as others have said, using a cleaner (or as in my case, paying for chilcare so I could have time to myself) means you won't have that money for a better holiday, or whatever.
But if you and your husband deem cleaning to be your responsibility, then hiring a cleaner is your decision to make, not your husbands'. I don't think that the decision to hire a cleaner really has anything to do with the husband at all. I mean, if he's that bothered about the money going on a cleaner, he can always do it himself.

yanbu
i hate cleaning HATE HATE HATE IT
but we cant affird right now!!!!! If we could, we would

Does it meet your definition of globalised private sector though?