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?

I think that vaste swathes of the population are influenced and manipulated by the media, society, the Church, Charities, the man in the park with a pitbull, mothers in pygamas at the school gate, adverts, horoscopes and their own families.

But the only thing I can change is the message my DCs get from me, so that's where I put my energies.

I made the conscious decision of carrying on my business when I fell pregnant with DC1 so that I would be able to afford a good school (or at least have that option). We are now 10 years on with 3DC. They do all go to a very good school and are doing very well. As I am the boss (!) I leave at 3 each day to pick them up. I almost have it all. BUT. There are things that I just don't have time for which the SAHM mum's do - and the kids notice of course. Despite my best intentions to get organised, trying to juggle three kids who all have prep/clubs/instruments to practice and attempting to get them fed and into bed at a decent hour, something or someone always misses out somewhere. I suspect this is the case with families that have someone at home too, but I don't have the opportunity to clear up, prepare for the after school onslaught and think about dinner until I get home with them at 5pm, and they all have to be back in school by 8am. I had to go away for four days on business recently to the other side of the world. They seemed fine and everything was ticketyboo when I got back. However, it has since transpired that they all had EOY maths tests when I was away, they are all very good at Maths and normally get high scores, however, this time, they all failed miserably. The teachers are putting it down to the fact I was away, which is making me feel awful (so awful I have stayed at home today to try to 'catch up'). It is something you need to think very seriously about, as once you have made the decision it is hard to go back on it - you and your DH need to think about what your priorities in life are, what is important to you is what will, most likely, be important to your kids too. Despite my years of hard slog and desperate attempts to be both I can hand on heart say that you simply can't have it all, although, knowing what I know now I don't think I would have done anything any different. Just don't put too much pressure on yourself to be everything to everyone and just do what is right and best for you. That's all we, as parents, can do.

Lambethlil

"But the only thing I can change is the message my DCs get from me, so that's where I put my energies."

I'm not sure that's true, entirely. We all have a responsibility to think about what we can do to influence political policy, our workplace and our wider community, and be aware of how our actions and choices shape/reinforce/subvert that.

That's where I depart slightly from the "my family, my choice" view, because we have to realise that our choices, because we live in society, has an impact beyond the immediate one to ourselves and out nearest and dearest.

I'm not saying we oughtn't to put them first, but we can, and should try to, have an influence on the influencers of our children as well, IMHO.

db
xx

Personally I prefer to get my news from sources as unbiased as possible and form my own opinion about them. I don't feel the need to give £1+ a day to a multi-millionnaire to be told everything we're doing is shit and we're all doomed. I also don't feel the need to pay polemicists to write shite to elicit intelligent comment by way of content. I come on MN for intelligent comments and views.

wordfactory and Xenia,and there are others who regularly post on these types of threads,are for WOHM,but they work inside the home.They work from their own home.
So they are not really helping to change working practices themselves.

amillion, that is true. But many men also work from home. And I suppose that if you're not a hermit translator like I am many people who work at home occasionally or often go out to meet clients or contacts. "Work" has changed thanks to the internet and mobile telephony- the boundaries have blurred between work and home.

Working from home is equivalent to WOH but as you say there is less visibility so potentially less awareness.

I dont see how women WOHM and women working from home cam be the same.
Women working from home are not going to have anything like the impact on womens future working practices,as the women who work with men day in,day out, imo.
One of my daughter's is right now working in an almost complete mans environment,just to give you an idea of where I am coming from.

amillionyears with respect it depends what you mean from working from home. I am a senior manager in IT and I work from home (and so do most of my male colleagues). I manage a large number of staff. I meet with clients and colleagues on videoconferencing and over the phone every day. We work on major international programmes across the globe. I make decisions every day. I don't see how that differs from other people working in the office. Or do you mean people selling Avon from home?

Conors, thanks for sharing your experiences, a bit of much needed truth about how difficult things are,

PS My line of work is male dominated too, goes without saying in IT.

It depends on what you're doing from home! If you a world expert on something (which in all likelihood you'll have learned through progressing along a standard career path before setting off on your own) then of course you will have an impact. If you an artist, author, illustrator, musician, journalist, then maybe you will have a significant impact. If you are at home doing something more stereotypically "female" then maybe less so the way things are at the moment.

Working at home is not "mum option". Nor is it "not quite working". It's just a different way of working. Working from home doesn't mean you've stepped out of working life or are trying to fit it in around something else. And really who wants to still be stuck trying to climb the corporate ladder into their 60s? We'll none of us be retiring much before death- do you really think people will spend their entire 45-50 year working life in the same environment?

X post yellowhouse, soz!

PS: I belong to a few translators websites (our vitual equivalent of the water cooler)- there are 1000s of us all over the world, men and women, all working from home.

I would like to know what people are actively doing to change the way things are (appart from posting on mn) Xenia says she gives her employees more flexibility to work round their families and that is lovely. What about others, are you writing letters to the government? Standing for mp? Getting petitions together? What exactly are you doing to help fight for your average office worker to obtain flexibility in their job without loosing wages?

Or

Are you telling me I should give up my choice, my freedom to choose, so that I can return to my 8.30 - 5 job and start fighting my employers for these things. By the way the work I did could not be done from home.

amillion you are absolutely correct about the level of my impact upon the workplace.
Of course I have to interact with all sorts of professionals but it's not the same as having proper colleagues that one sees day in day out.

To be honest, I do feel guilty for stepping out of the workplace proper. I do think I could have had a much more positive impact on sexism within it. Especially as I was just about to make it to the bench!!!

However my current set up is more pleasurable for me and my family...so...

But I will still support working mothers, be they working outside or within the home. My own DD is likely going to be one of them some time in the not too distant future. I think it's in everyone's interests to try to fight sexism where one can.

housework who here is trying to take away your choice?

I think you are seeing things that aren't there. Looking for antagonists.

And do we really want to get into a 'I do more than you,' pissing competition?

@amillion sometimes I am working from my own home. Sometimes I'm in my office in London (or Brussels). Often - like now - I'm in a different country entirely (this week - Malta). I don't actually think that makes my views any less valid than a WOHM who works in one office location all the time.

Taken from xenia's post....

"Someone asked: "So are you saying that mothers that want to stay home should forget about what they want and return to work for the sake of women who want to work?" Objectively yes, until we have more men than women at home. Surely we don't always put ourselves first?"

I haven't once said anything about who does more, I have been quite open about the fact that some days being at home is easy and that I would find doing everything child related and work a real struggle, unfortunately I was in a bog standard job which would have been very difficult to work around children's things.
Someone mentioned they still went to parents evening as it is in the evening. At ours the last appointment is at 4.50 my partner has to leave work early because he would like to attend. All concerts are during the day, there is no after school or breakfast club at all. Some schools are not geared up for working parents.

Wordfactory you are telling housework that her choice is damaging to women everywhere.

That's a fairly strong statement to be making don't you think? It does imply she should go back to work.

I still cant get over the blaming women for the sexism of men in the workplace. That concept makes me angry.

Should all women dress conservatively because the more women that dress in short skirts the more men will feel its ok to make comments about all womens legs. Isnt that the same sort of reasoning?

@housework I'm smashing through glass ceilings, being the first woman doing various things in my profession, being generally visible as a female (and a non conventional one at that) doing STUFF that only men did before. HTH.

@housework and what are you doing about changing the way your DCs school is geared up? Me, I have caused my DC's primary school (only one of them is still there now) to completely change their approach so that working parents weren't excluded. It took years and a change of head, but I did it. Not on my own, but I was the first mum to kick up a stink about the way things were.

But your case is a perfect example of why things are so bad - schools are set up like that because they assume most mums will be SAH. And people let them get away with it.

wordfactory,dont feel guilty,or have others make you feel guilty.
I think we should all put our own families first,and then decide what else we want to do,in order to make the world a better place to live in.

Metabills3 that's lovely, great and you should be very proud of yourself for doing that, but how does that help someone like my cousin who is a pa to a university professor who can't finish work at 3.00 to go and pick her child up from school? Or my friend who works for an insurance company who has to juggle childcare with friends and family because she wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage and nursery fees? And how am I exasperating this by staying at home?

I agree we need more women in top jobs and I do think this is happening slowly. You can't get rid of choice for the sake of "the greater good of the female"

sarca where have I said being a SAHM is damaging the cause of women?

@housework perhaps if you read the posts instead of responding to one person's rather idiosyncratic (and agenda laden) take on them it would be more helpful for the debate?