SAHM or private school for DC(s)

[Gatorade]

I have a 4 month old DD and I am starting to think about what I want to do in relation to going back to work and future school options (these decisions appear to linked as affordability starts to come into the equation).

We could comfortably afford for me to be a SAHM and send DD to a private school (well pre-school nursery first, but then through the private school system), this again would be ok for a second DC. The difficulty would be if we have more than 2 DCs, if we are lucky enough we would like 3 or 4.

If we were to have 3 DCs I would need to work at least 3 to 4 days a week to ensure that we could maintain our lifestyle (which is quite basic really, we are not extravagant people) and fund the school fees from earned income.

I am not too worried about my own future career, I feel I have achieved what I wanted to in terms of work before I had DD and if I don't have a professional career again in the future (if, for example I take 10+ years out of the workplace) this wouldn't concern me.

So my question, what would be more beneficially to my DD and future children, having a SAHM or going to private school?

It's an interesting one, fivecandles...

I've assumed that DH isn't remotely interested in spending more time with the DCs than he does ? which is that he drops them at nursery on his way to work, and sees them at weekends... But we've never really talked about that, per se...

He doesn't appear to be particularly torn about it, but maybe that's resignation/acceptance... Maybe he hasn't thought about it...

That said, I did suggest last night that when DD1 geos to primary school, that he might like to choose one day a week to leave work early and pick her up from school, hear about her day, do her reading homework over coffee, and then collect DD2 from nursery at 5pm...

(I'm trying to minimie use of after school clubs and whatnot, feeling that at such a young age, school days are long enough. She'll do ballet after school one day a week, singing one day, (which takes us to 4.30pm) I have one day off a week as DD2 will be in nursery 4 days a week, I'll leave work (just down the road form school) at 3pm one other day and then I thought it would be nice/fair if he did one).

The look on his face didn't suggest that this was something he's been dying to do all this time...

Yes, he has a pretty full-on job, but he's the boss, so he has as much flexibility as he wants, so I don't think it's that his work is prohibitive on this one...

db
xx

Yes, but designerb why marry someone who doesnt' want to see his chidlren in the week? Most men aren't like that and most women avoid men like that and they discuss it all before they marry.

On fivecandles' point about marrying down etc - yes the pilot used to like to marry the air hostess, the doctor the nurse but now they often want someone on a par wtih them who works. Martin Sorell's new wife eg is not in the typing pool. However the bottom line is that there are many many more potential partners who earn £30k a year or less than there aer who earn £100k+ so for men and women their pool from which to choose tends to be low earners.

I was talking to a widower this year who says he knows no local couples to him where he lives where both do not work and both are not in good careers. It's almost a mark of their social scene - wives who are surgeons etc. He obviously seeks that too as he had it in his marriage. However that is fairly rare. Plenty of people aren't in a cultural group where the status, career and earnings of their spouse, male or female, matters at all. It just varies. Indeed plenty are in social or cultural groups hwere it is a badge of success if you've forced a woman to be home - the housewife as symbol of your manliness and ability to support a wife and family, male bonding over how much their wives spend, jokes about divorce costs etc - massive part of our culture.

Perhaps we need to get into why many women are hapyp to vo away on business trips (I am ) and some are not. Why some wnat o do school collection every day and others don't. I don't think it comes down to love - plenty of working men and women love their children very much . Is it because that parent who feels they have to be there has not much else in their life and the only area they can succeed is as mother or because of conditioning or because they are with a sexist partner who would not in a month of Sundays do boring school collection, washing and cleaning so leaves it to muggins mum who because of her upbrining, or lack of choice/income or because she genuinely loves singing wheels on a bus 25 times and then washing the floor?

sarca and db, I love it when threads here reach some common ground. One thing I've learned is you really get the extremes on Mumsnet with Xenia on one extreme and strident SAHMs on the other. Such extremes provoke people to dig their heals in and defend their position without listening and I think both camps have things to learn (and some would admit that they might like to be somewhere more in the middle if they didn't feel quite so threatened by the other extreme). Also, it turns into such personal and self-harming attacks when actually the fight is not with each other but with social structures and prejudice.

Well said, five :)

Xenia, you can only think of negative reasons to be a SAHM.

Your contempt of traditional women's roles (outdated as many of them are) is on par with misogynism seen normally only by sexist bigoted "cave men".

Do you treat the people (...women?) who look after your babies and clean your house with equal contempt?

Despite your intelligence, you seem to be completely unable to walk a mile in another (wo)man's shoes.

Well said five...although I must admit I have found this thread very balanced and unusually insightful for a SAHM vs WOHM thread. I wish we could always engage in such intelligent debating. Thumbs up for all who contributed such diverse and excellent thoughts.

Xenia I love singing wheels on the bus 25 times in a row, infact I did last night, interspersed with row row row your boat.

I also have a full time job. These things are not mutually exclusive.

I agree five, there is loads of middle ground to be had. I think it is unlikely that the majority will ever want to be camped out in either extreme.

I do hate the expression 'marrying up' or worse, 'marrying down'. I think the people who think like this must be similar to the ones who get their 14 year olds to abandon career aspirations based on monetary concerns. It makes me itch. What happened to love and fufillment?

The book Xenia is referring to is 'the compleat woman' it is very good and I recommend it for you, op.

I was trying to answer this and it turned into a 1500-word essay, so here is a distillation of what I was trying to say.

Over the last 19 years of parenting and 4 children I've tried practically every childcare/school combination possible and this is how they have worked for us:

SAHM, all children at home: I personally found this not at all stimulating or entertaining most of the time. I was hyper-competitive mother simply because I needed a challenge in it. Has it helped my children achieve? Probably not.

SAHM, with all children at state school, playgroup and nursery: I personally hated this phase. Felt like being a taxi driver. All days disrupted by the need drop off and pick up at three different places and times. Very early school finish time (2:50) so impossible to get any sensible job without additional childcare.

SAHM, all children at school all day, in foreign country: was lovely as had plenty of time to destress from 4 difficult years of juggling work and family, and had loads of time in the daytime to explore the city we were living in.

WOHM, with child looked after by on site nanny share. This might have been a very good option had it not been for my mad employer. Seeing DS at lunchtime was lovely, and commuting 30 miles with him allowed us plenty of conversations.

WOHM, live out nanny for children. Again if the nanny had been wonderful this would have worked very well.

WOHM, live in au pair: worked extremely well as au pairs were both fantastic and second one stayed 2 years. Children adored her and she was easy to live with and just a lovely person.

WOHM: family childcare. Would have worked very well if my MIL hadn't decided to go back to work within days of starting the arrangement. Led to WOHM with live out nanny above.

Working from home, live-in nanny: fab with the right person. Got to be the right person though.

Working from home, nursery: DD goes to day nursery 2 whole days per week at present. When I have a busy working week she goes more. The disadvantages have been the bugs, oh my god the child gets everything! The rest of the time we use a combination of DH and DMIL and working the work around her. I have chosen not to work as much at the moment.

The children have all been at independent school while I've been working. The hours are longer, there are clubs and activities for them to go to after school and altogether much less disruption in their lives. They have benefited from specialist teaching much earlier than they would have in state school (from yr 4 onwards) and the much smaller classes and, frankly, higher expectations.

What some SAHM don't seem to realise is that their choices legitimize the sexism of sme of the men that those of us who chose or have to work face on an almost daily basis. Like Xenia I am often in meetings of 20 or more people where I'm the only woman. I'm subjected to casual unthinking sexism all the time (the international nature of my work increases this, too - you realise things are actually not nearly as bad as they could be in England once you have visited some other countries).

The challenge is of course to not take away or demean SAHM choices in order to protect those of us who work - but those SAHM who bang on about not being able to bear being away from their child for a week - some of us HAVE to do that. If you don't, be honest and say that your choice was down to being able to afford not to work. That's the only relevant issue. It's not about your feelings it's about economics. Most people in the world whether high flying or not can appreciate that many (most even) people who can afford not to work as a wage slave won't work as a wage slave. Nobody is surprised when a lottery winner jacks in their job.

If SAHM limited their justification (which obviously they don't actually need but so many of them seem so desperate to provide) to the fact that they can afford it so why not, without bringing in other factors that some might then want to attribute to sex or gender, it would do the rest of us a huge favour. Especially those of us who do have to go away in business trips and would prefer it if others didn't imply that we are monstrous unfeeling creatures for so doing.

Yes Yes and Yes. I lose count of the amount of time a random male colleague has asked me "don't you miss your children?" or "we also have children but my wife chooses to stay at home as we want the best for our children" and similar. It is shocking that men in the 21st century developed world still hold these views!!

duchesse as I also have 4 children and had similar combinations, I agree WAHM is more doable (that's what I do at the moment too). Can I ask you how did you find the private schooling financial commitment with 4? did it feel overbearing at times? I have contemplated it but it does scare me. But most importantly has it helped to manage things? I find carting around all the extracurricular with 4 a bit of a hellish task...

We are lucky that we live in an area where independent sec sch fees are not excessively high. If we still lived in the SE I doubt we'd have been able to afford the number of years we have. The last four years have been pretty hard financially as the recession coincided with my last pregnancy and DD's babyhood. This has meant that my work throughput has been hit in more ways than one. We have now used up savings (with rates so low there was little sense in building up much in the way of savings). Having a huge age gap has meant that there is little overlap in terms of school fees. 4 years ago DD2 was still at cheap little independent school while the two older ones were at secondary. The hard years were 2008-2011 when we had three at secondary, the recession really biting and the birth of DD3. It never rains but it pours.

Now DS is at university (self-financing due to wise grandparental investments 19 years ago), DD1 is at state 6th form college (so free) and we are only paying fees for DD2 and nursery in the form of pre-tax nursery vouchers for DD3. It's a lot easier now that we can see light at the end of the tunnel. If we did pay fees for DD3 (not a given for a while since we have a choice of good primary schools), paying for only one when all the others are already through university will seem like a doddle.

Yes, like Meta sometimes I have seen that. In practice it isn't said much to me as they wouldn't dare and I would use it as an opportunity to make a feminist point if that were going to work. I was with Saudis in London the other wee - their client brochure of all the workers over there was amazing, page after page of all the teams and 100% male, all the way through, every single job. We are lucky London is not quite so bad.

Even when women work they often pick the lowest paid elements of their profession or work. I remember with baby 1 (who is now 27!) going back in to work after 2 weeks' holidays exactly as I had told them. We (and I mean we - her father and I just as equally involved and paying) had hired the nanny before I had the birth and I worked all 5 times until I went into labour by choice. I got back and my desk was gone or occupied so they put me in with someoe else who I am sure did not want me in there until I found a way to get 3 desks into the room I had been in 2 weeks before. That showed them. And I also got the odd person talking about his wife at home with babies. (MOre fool her - she's probably divorced and in poverty now).

As I had children so young (3 by 26) I never found it a problem. In fact it gave me huge common ground with customers and senior colleagues in their 30s and 40s something most 24 year olds might not have had. IT also means you have to work hard because you have so many mouths to feed so it makes us (parents) better workers. We are more stable too and less likely to give all work up and move to Thailand on a whim because we have a mortgage, children stable with a nanny etc,.

On yellow's other point above our third child got almost free schooling as he went to his father's school where he taught so we were paying for 2 and then he got a music scholarship to his next school. It got harder later and fees went up more than inflation. Children 1 and 2 just had £1k a year univesrity fees and son £3k. The others will have the full £9k which is less than school fees actually so I'm sure I'll cope and being in a third decade of work without a break it does get easier.

The only reason I trot out the 1000 reasons working mothers are better for babies and housewives is because housewives constantly trot out the wrong idea that their being home is beneficial. They seem to tkae it as a given that mother being there is going to be better than daddy or granny or a nanny plus both parents out of working hours and weekends and they are wrong.

But most people's couldn't afford a nanny. For both parents to be in work can involve 7am to 7 pm nursery. I wouldn't wish that on any child and am sure a parent home would be better than that.

If you can afford a nanny however and choose well, the child gets to make a bond with a caring adult and parents get to continue working which I think is great.

Circumstances are so different.

Metabilis3 your comments:

'but those SAHM who bang on about not being able to bear being away from their child for a week - some of us HAVE to do that' and

those of us who do have to go away in business trips and would prefer it if others didn't imply that we are monstrous unfeeling creatures for so doing.

I can only assume were in response to my post about my husband being happy spend a week in India, whereas I wouldn't...

Firstly I'm not a SAHM.

Secondly, defensive much? I neither said nor implied that you were a 'monstrous unfeeling creature' for going away. I don't think my husband is monstrous or unfeeling. In fact I said that the children would be absolutely fine (they would) but that I would be miserable. That's not a judgement of those who don't feel like that, just how I feel. You will just have to put up with that, i'm, afraid because as I don't expect or think you should apologise for how you feel, neither will I apologise for how I feel.

I have been away with work. Often, as it happens. I choose to go for shorter periods, cramming everything into a day or two... because I know what works for me, and, so far, I've been able to.

There are often ways around things... but sometimes not, I grant you. At least now I'm my own boss I have more say in where I go, when, and how long for...

An while I wasn't going to engage with you, Xenia, now you've resorted to just being rude, rather than engaging in reasonable debate. But I just have to say this:

I have plenty in my life besides my children. I have a career I love, in which I have been and am highly successful, and for which I have won numerous industry awards. One which I fully intend to continue and for which I intend to win more awards!

I often find myself in a room full of men for work. Usually I am presenting to a room full of men. I've never been asked about my childcare arrangements, nor felt any judgement upon me for being there (instead of chained to the kitchen sink). I do wonder why there aren't more women in the room. I do think that's a problem. But I don't criticise other women for the choices they make, and I full understand why some women might consider a demanding, corporate career incompatible with their wellbeing, happiness and parenting choices. The way we work in the developed world needs to change, but I think that change will take a good many years yet. Meantime we all draw the lines where we see fit, according to economics, emotions, logistics and any number of other considerations.

I have a wide circle of good friends ? some with children, and some without. I have hobbies I enjoy and I read good books. I love my husband (his occasional lack of enthusiasm for parenting notwithstanding).

I also enjoy doing the school run, and being with my kids as much as I can. And, indeed, singing. In fact, we all sing a lot ? almost continuously ? and all kinds of things. You'd fecking hate it, I'm sure. Most people would, my kids are the only people on this planet who think my singing is LOVELY. With love like that, why wouldn't I want to hang out with them?

db
xx

thanks duchesse and Xenia. Mine are all 18 months apart so it is a little harder to manage. At the moment I am planning to send them for secondary but I am taking it year by year. My first two children are very bright so are on track for that but DS2 is more of a concern!!!

Well, when I routinely attend meetings where there are at least 50% women, and people ask my husband "how do you manage to work full time?", I will consider the battle nearly over and we have achieved something approaching equality. Until then, we do other women no favours by stepping off the career ladder in order to bring up children.

Yes, excatly as FSG says. Admitted in some sectors (usually low paid, often publishing) women can sometimes predominate. We are making progress but must not give up on it.

Ah designerb, we have have singing in common, even if I have children and you have "kids". I sing every day. I have spent a lot of hours with the children on their music. They sing too although the voices of the youngest have broken. My point was that whilst most fathers andm others adore time with children within reason most of us don't want to do that for many hours a day say 8 - 8 - the standard time many housewives are alone with 3 under 5s. it just gets boring. A few hours a day is fine, even of wheels on a bus. In fact if you're careful enough about it you can buy carefully harmonised classical stuff nursery rhymes - the King's Singers did a lovely one I used to like.

Do remember even career is mentioned in this poem:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann 1927

Xenia I am the same age as your DC1. My mum stayed at home until I was 5 (I'm the youngest), and then went back part time from then on.

She is retiring this year, she's stayed in the same role (roughly) at the same place for the last 22 years. She is happy, feels like she enjoyed her time but is ready to retire (a little early) now. She has a full life, and masses of interests outside her (professional) role.

I have massive respect for my mum and am so grateful for the stable and loving home I come from. It was a home where both parents were there. Quantity of time spent was important. Still is, I'm visiting right now in fact. My parents marriage still rock solid. They are happy, and they did things there way.

My dad has worked for himself, from home for as long as I can remember.

Neither particularly high flyers, but we had foreign (usually camping) holidays, 2 cars and a detached house.

My siblings and I are all graduates and were financially independent from 21 (would of been earlier but my parents generously paid our rents while we were at university).

My point? There is more than one way to skin a cat. Being at home simply is beneficial, not that your way is Nec. Wrong (although 2 weeks maternity is ridiculous). Happiness is not just found in the office.

Xenia, you'd do well to memorise parts of that poem yourself.

Oh, and if and when I decide to become a SAHM I certainly won't feel guilt about 'letting women down'

Do men who work do it to keep the male side up? Ridiculous added pressure.

The people who work very long hours,are often worried about letting their parents down.

amillionyears, has it ever occurred to you that some people who work long hours (I assume you mean by choice) might actually do it because enjoy their jobs?

This idea that work must be dull and soul destroying is poisonous, along with the platitude that on your deathbed you never wish you spent more time in the office, does our dcs no favours at all. Choose a job you love and you never work a day.

Oh yes,there are many who work long hours because they enjoy their job.There are also many who are doing it for different reasons,such as to escape home life,and,as I have said,because they do not want to let their parents down.