To want to work but cant because of crippling childcare cant I have a life?

[mummycanthavealife]

Really want to work but kids under 5. my dp works long hours so never sure when he will be home, I was offered a job but had to turn it down because my hourly rate would of paid for my two children to be looked after so turned it down.
I really want to work give my kids a better quality of life but what is the point should I wait till my children are at school advice greatly appreciated,dont think im entitled to any help either,thanks mn.

I second it should be a tax deductable expense- people dont realise that £9,000 is a big chunk of the post tax average salary

I'm kind of in the same boat OP. Have skimmed this thread and can't comment on circumstances where there are SN involved - but I think it is a kind of catch 22 when you are thinking about going back to work but if you do it will actually cost money! It is a luxury in a way to be able to 'choose' not to go back to work and be able to be there for the DCs, bring them up yourself rather than a CM / nanny or whatever. I want the best of both in that I only want to work part time. Part time jobs would not cover the childcare costs making it financially ludicrous to work. i.e. you are making (as a household) a loss for the main carer to return to work.

The options for me are as follows: (one DS in school / DD at nursery 3hrs per day) work full time - don't see the kids mon-fri and possibly break even financially, part-time local work - make a loss but see the DCs, keep foot in door work wise and wait until they are older to return to full time work, or stay at home and do childcare myself - better off short term, potentially damaged career prospects long term with all the mixed emotions that I have regarding staying at home which I find both a privilege and a joy and at times intensely mundane and boring.

I've done an MA, I've joined in with voluntary things etc. to keep the mind active and to have a life of my own as well. However, I think if you are in this situation there has to be a compromise somewhere along the line and you just have to work out the timing the and the costs (of childcare / retraining etc.) in the short term vs. the gains in the long term. But you probably know all that already! Of course supposing you can actually afford to make a loss (as a household).

A very successful friend of mine who who runs her own recruitment business said to me that if you break even in the first year that you return to the workplace you are doing well!

I have of course written all of this assuming you have a supportive DP who would support you. Fuck knows how you do it if you don't.

you are giving your children the best start in life by giving them 5 years of your life!

ChippingIn- sadly our SSD has a no Aspergers rule for help (children such as ds1 are the extreme behaviourally) so we don't qualify. We do for ds3 but don't need it for him. Am still hopeful as dh is going to talk to his people next week.

Bibbity is right- my Sister manages a nursery and apart from her and the boss everyone gets minimum or 50p extra if they are a supervisor. Within nursery settings there is not much range for a decreae but I do think childcare should be tax deductible.

And the comment about grandparents is right- I remember Mum calling to offer me free childcare when I was expecting ds1 and I was so grateful, there was no way i could have affordedmy crappy job otherwise. I don't think people who have that option (we live miles away now) often do see how luclky they are- my Sis uses my parents and has just had a screamining go at her for booking two holidays as Sis didn't want the time off, and she feels free to book herself in to do 30 hour shiftsn without asking m(Sis is a vet nurse, sleep overs combine with normal shifts). BIL is very sick atm so nothing I can say really but it does make me wonder if she realises how lucky she actually is.

in think the losers are clearly middle class /middle income women, as their DP/DH earn enough to support the whole family . so when they do ask for tax\credit to offset, they automatically get refused, as rightly or wrongly the money is for POOR people. If you can support a small family of one partners salary, you are not poor. skint maybe, but not poor.

A lot of truth in that porcamiseria.

When a woman complains that she can't afford to go back to work because of the cost of childcare, and becomes a SAHM, at least the family are able to live on the earnings of one partner (plus possibly tax credits/benefits). Even if you are pretty skint, you are able to keep a roof over your head and feed yourselves on one person's earnings.

If you are very well off, then one parent has the option to work or not work; you can afford either.

Often the real losers are the people in the middle, who qualify for no help at all, yet can't afford to live on one income. And I mean live, as in pay for housing, council tax, food etc

[Some women find that the costs of childcare eat up most of their salary, negating the financial benefits of having a job]

Response from Chippingin
"Yes, in some cases that maybe so - but you knew that before you chose to have children. If you don't want to pay for them, don't have them?!"

Gosh, that is a bit rich isn't it...

I guess you don't think the average nursery worker should have children then?! I suppose you think they should just choose a better paying job and not look after richer people's children.

Eastsushi - almost all of the girls who work in DD and DS's nursery have kids, and all of them have their parents looking after their kids - none of them use formal childcare ironically. I guess its the only way they could afford it, as you say.

Why do all these women so earn so very much less than their men? Did you deliberately choose to marry men who would earn a lot more?

If you don't earn much different from him then why do you see childcare as your cost and not 50% his and how do you decide if you have similar earnings which of you stays home if child care even off his glorious male salary would leave him with very little? If he earns a lot more than you is that because he is a man so better at things or did you choose to marry someone better than you are? Did you choose to marry money? I am just interested in why for so many on the thread the man earns so much more in the first place so that it becomes a woman's issue as to whether to work or not or just a parents' issue.

Xenia - my DH earns considerably less than me (pro rata, as I work part-time). However, I don't feel comfortable with us both working f/t whilst having small kids (not judgey about others doing so, but my own personal view). DH offered to go p/t, but I wanted to be the one who went part-time, and my DH was happy to support me (emotionally and financially).

As for choosing to marry for money - I wish!

Personally my DH and I earn about the same - however his role is more secure and he is unlikely to be made redundant -whereas my industry is more volatile - so employment security will be a factor in choosing childcare.

However, as I have worked in HR I am well aware of the wage gap between male and females.

'did you choose to marry someone better than you are?'

'did you choose to marry someone better higher earning than you are?'

C- to Xenia

Eatsushi - the other option for nursery workers would be to stay at home and look after their own children?? Even become a CM/Nanny with own child for a few years.

Incidentally, I think nursery workers should be paid more - but as people think they should pay less for childcare, I don't see how this is going to happen.

the nursery my sis runs offers discounts to staff, so she had mum until dn was 3, then reduced nursery twice weekly.

The reality is (and this is obviously not true in all cases) that lower paid workers are less likely to have gone to University, and therefore are more likely to have stayed in their home town, and therefore are more likely to have family nearby to help with childcare.

Higher paid workers (e.g. professionals) tend to have gone away to University and therefore are more likely to have either stayed in their University town or moved again to somewhere totally different. Therefore they are less likely to have family nearby to help out with childcare, but have more disposable income to spend on formal/paid for childcare.

interesting point about having family nearby to help out..

Xenia- my DP earns more than me because he's 10 years older- so has been working/ establishing his career for longer. In 10 years I will probably be earning much more

Xenia - most women do earn considerably less than men. It is a fact of working life.

Women pick men who earn more. It's the real reason we have big pay differences because if one is 10 years older and earns more or even 3 years ahead ina profession and earns more when it comes to babies the lower earner or less stable career tends to give up work and thus women's position as cleaner and servant at home is set in stone. If women married men who earned less and had worse prospects than they were or were routinely younger than they are then the issue of who earns would could reverse. The reason I earn what i do in my 40s is in part because I married down, someone who earned less and so if there were ever any debate about which career came first over 20 yars it would be mine. I am quite rare. 4 in 5 women marry money in effect not often consciously. You don't see many women on the board who marry the cleaner but plenty of male board directors marry the pretty blonde secretary. And who is going tos tay home with the 3 swalling infants - the blone secretary because she earns £20k a year not £100k or whatever.

I find it harder to understand women who earn a lot more than their men giving it up. We knew a couple who did that and survived on a very low salary and they just couldn't buy the life for the children the woman's salary would have done. The man ended up inside for fraud so keen was he to keep up with the Joneses, not that that's common.

Some Xenia- I picked the lower earning of the three after me. Why? A was FD of the company I worked for, and did indeed turn out to be the wankert I suspected (serial philanderer etc); B was nice enough but- nasty temper. DH was C, marginally lower paid than B..... long term propects were better though and indeed within a few years he outstripped both of them.

Had he not I woudl ahve still chosen him (and there were obv no guarantees) becuase of the three ghe is by far the better DH and that counts for a lot.

Yes women do often marry money- they often end up divorced. far better to marry soemone you might stick with IMO. I left a well off public schoole cuated DF to date dh and am certain that ahd the marriage go ahed I would be divorced and very bitter.

Of course when all is equal etc, but how often is all equal? Very rarely.

Dh and I earned £ for £ the same in our last jobs. Somehoe that caused power struggles mroe than anything else.

xenia- my dp may earn more but we do achknowlege that my job is more important. By the time we have another dc we are expecting to have paid off the mortgage and be in a position that my dp becomes a pt sahd. He already does all the washing/ cleaning where as I fix things and cook. I don't think our age difference or salaries depict our household roles/ importance of our jobs.

He may earn more but I have more passion for my job and it has a better pension etc. He works to live, I live to work- which is why I will be the future bread winner.

Xenia - its not all about money you know! I may have earned more than DH, but I have always known that I wouldn't want to work f/t once I had kids. That's not the life that I want for me or the DCs. DH said he would be happy working p/t - but tbh I doubt he would have been.

I have thought in the past that it would be better if DH earnt more than me, what with him being the f/t worker. But we are where we are. We have a modest lifestyle, no foreign hols as yet, and only a 3bed semi, but we are happy with our situation.

So virtually the men earn more than the women? Whatever the reasons, excuses, the fat it's all 100% chance you all earn less than men. Well that's a coincidence. Doesn't help female equality or example to daughters or the feminist political cause. Why don't you make it your aim for 2010 to ean 10x what the other half earns just to help people realise it's not always 4 in 5 women in mumsnet and in the UK married to higher earning men and thus being on pin money. I'm not impressed.

Can I now have legions of mumsnetters coming to this thread to tell me 4 in 5 earn at least double the men and if it came down to it the men would stay home because they earn the pin money?

I'll happily earn ten times dh if you domn't mind paying enough tax being as I am a carer

I assume the 100% all earn less than men meant doing the same job? Obv. ynot all women earn less than men otyerwise.

Remember distantly reaidng something about masculine men earning more and read something today (may well ahve been waitrose mag though so sorry if ti is LOL) that women in 'sfe' countries pick more feminie men than women in countries where illness etc arife- sure threre must abe a link but if so it may be one that actually says women reallya re making progress with independence?

I don't believe pin money exists

whoever dreamt that up?