Anyone else feel that being a dad and sole breadwinner is a lousy deal?

[SpareWheel]

DW and I are SITCOMs (single income, two children, oppressive mortgage). I work crazy hours and race back work half-done to see the kids a little bit before bedtime then try to finish off work and fall into bed. At the risk of sounding like a whinger, I feel like I'm becoming a crap employee, crap husband and a crap father all in one - surely I'm not the only one...

bump, yes; sadly also husbands and wives die. I know three men whose wives died last year, two of them have children at home and the same thing happens to women all the time. Keeping up some career most women and men think is wise as a safety net just in case of divorce the more likely risk or death or long term illness which are less likely than divorce.

SpareWheel - How old are your children? Do you have a future plan?

Is your wife planning to work after your children are in school?

Do you work the long hours because you're nervous about your financial security? Or are long hours mandatory in your place of work?

Things will get better. Either your wife will be able to work once the children are in school and you'll be able to worry less about being the sole breadwinner for your family.

Or, you'll continue to work long hours but the children will get older and be less draining and you might be able to reclaim some more time for yourself and for you and your DW together.

If there is no way to change your situation now, then focus on the future.

Do you come rush home from work everynight because your wife demands it or is it because you need to see the children? Could you go into work later in the morning so you see the children over breakfast-time, and stay later in the evenings?

Do you have access to babysitters so you and your wife can have a weekly activity planned that you do out the house, just the two of you, one evening a week?

I hope you are able to find a way to improve your situation or look forward to it changing in the near future

'I do so agree that people who go into nursing, teaching, caring for old people etc., are really stupid. After all, those jobs are low-paid so therefore worthless. '

Yes, Caligula, and you know, in the World According to Xenia, these people deserve poverty, shite housing, and lack of opportunities for being so stupid as to chose that as work they love.

And society, of course has no obligation to assist people in such occupations in any way, shape or form, because, after all, they brought it on themselves and we could just import people to do this grubby work and pay them slave wages.

Vive l'empire! Vive Londres!

'girls are silly who pick careers which will mean their children are cross the family is so poor. '

There are plenty of men in low-paid jobs as well.

Guess they're all stupid and silly as well.

And woe betide you if the work you love is being a homemaker.

Survival of the fittest. Hmm, nice way to run society.

I do often wonder why nurses go into nursing, poor job security and pay. Are they just nice people?

Thye're not clever enough to become doctors, that's all. Most people aren't. God created us with very unequal IQs, abilities and looks. Not a very fair world but if you have a choice there are some advantages to picking lucrative careers.

It's work they love, FFF.

Xenia says we should all find work we love.

But only if it's well-paid.

'Thye're not clever enough to become doctors, that's all.
'

You are taking the mick now, Xenia.

Because that's just total BS.

thank God they do FFF or we'd all be f**d

my dh is in a very low paid job

(so am I)

but dh is the best dad I know

expat, I can't believe the difference between us on this thing. no one in their right mind woudl think most nurses could get AAA and get into medical school. Of course they aren't as clever. It would be ludicrous to suggest so. We like in a capitalist market economy. It's hard to become a doctor. They are in demand. They are paid more than nurses. This is how the real world works.

Has it ever crossed your mind, Xenia, that maybe some people want to be nurses and NOT doctors?

This happens.

It's actually happened to people I've known personally at work.

One woman I worked for even got into medical school! .

She didn't want to go to school that long - in the US, it's an undergrad degree, a medical degree, four years of residency and then sometimes internships.

She wanted instead to have children and a more flexible career.

So she became an NP.

In the US, half of all nurses are men. I've met lots! They all enjoyed being nurses. Didn't want to be doctors.

It happens.

But you have to accept that 99.9% of nurses are not clever enough to be doctors, certainly in the UK. It is very rare male or female nurses really have an effective choice.

Oh yes, let's just import people to do badly paid jobs.

Because that's all they're good for.

And what a pity they'd be standing in a classroom full of children who don't understand the language they're speaking.

It's not just shit jobs which are low paid Xenia, it's jobs which require a fair degree of training and education; things like occupational therapists, speech therapists, etc., are incredibly low paid. You can't just import an uneducated worker from a small-faraway-country-of-which-we-know-little, to do those jobs. People have to be trained properly to do them. But of course, they're very stupid to do them and the people who need them so that they can function in their homes and in society, should just do without them and send them out to the city.

I don't accept that at all, Xenia, certainly not that percentage.

I think being clever is only part of the equation, as well.

Many people don't get the opportunity to go to schools where they can get exposure to hard sciences, A levels, etc.

And consequently may chose different professions based on those experience.

Nothing to do with how clever they are.

And again, many don't want to be doctors.

There are also even doctors who aren't in it for the money.

Can you believe?

Many doctors do charity work for free, or work for lower pay in order to do something they feel helps more, etc.

And teachers are very low paid.

But I expect they're all stupid for being teachers and it's their own fault and they deserve it.

Indeed, Caligula.

I'm sure there are some very stupid people teaching the youth of today how to read and to become doctors one day.

In fact, a very foolish person who deserved poverty, shite housing and limited opportunities even taught Xenia how to read and gave her the tools she needed to become wealthy.

Ironic, that.

Then there's childminders. Not sure if you can import a whole load of them so that the mothers of the country can all rush out to work.

Perhaps we ought to start a thread: low paid jobs which can't be done by just any old body.

It's relatively easy to become a teacher and the wage rates reflect that. It's all very simple economics. Yes, people choose to be Catholic priests or voluntary workers or doctors or whatever to help others (and indeed our City workers probably help the country more than anyone else on some analyses) but in general overall most pay rates reflect your market value unless you move to a communist country. People are worth what others will pay. Why is my cleaner paid X, my nanny Y, my ex husband Z as a teacher and me ABC etc? It's just plain good old market forces. if we got really short of cleaners as is the case in some rural areas then wages go up, same for babysitting.

It is pretty easy to become a teacher. Yet in many subjects there aren't enough of them.

Apparently there are more junior doctors than there are training places.

Yes it is relatively easy to become a teacher Xenia, but you are saying no-one should do it, they are stupid to, because it is low paid.

If they all took you at your word, the country would collapse. (And we'd all have to home educate!)

Xenia - why do ill-educated "barrow boys" get paid shed loads of cash to be traders in the City? There is not necessarily a correlation between earning buckets of money and being intelligent. In fact, in many cases the converse is true; look at University lecturers for example. What about female escorts? I understand they earn loads of money. Where does that fit into your "market forces" theory? (whatever that may be.)

We know the doctor's system hasn't exactly worked very well this year. All I'm saying is that some jobs pay better than others and jobs that fewer people can do like play football like Beckham or sing like various people or whatever pay better. We need to ensure our teenagers pick workthey will love most of all and secondly that they are aware that career one means X sort of life and career 2 means Y so on one is ignorance.

I must agree with speccy - we all need to click here for the good of all thread-kind.