A small rant about a stupid situation, re: SAHMs and childcare...

[TooTicky]

WHY is it that SAHMs are looked down on so often but people who look after children for a living are not?
I don't want to go out to work until my dd2 is at school because I want to look after her myself. But if somebody else looked after her, I would have to pay them.
There is something very wrong in this situation but I can't put my finger on the solution - unless SAHMs received an allowance for staying at home with their young children.
And there is so much legislation these days that it is very hard to find a job you can do with your child present.

good luck all those that are going to try for school hours TTO jobs...!

bk -

I've seen and applied for 2 suitable jobs in the last 9 mths - neither one even bothered to acknowledge my application

pistachio - personally I think that the decision to be a SAHP is a lifestyle decision for couples to make.

If the government wishes to encourage that lifestyle decision (for the good of children or for whatever other reason) then it might make some financial arrangement through the tax system to do so.

Actually, I think the government ought to support parents irrespective of working arrangements - children cost money/loss of earnings and more support with those costs would make family life less stressful.

pistachio - the more I think about this subject, the more I think that government financial help to parents ought to be neutral on the issue of return to work by mothers. After all, if mothers return to work they bear additional childcare costs and if they (or fathers) stay at home they forfeit earnings - there are costs. And I don't think governments ought to intervene in what ought to be a lifestyle decision by parents based on their own good sense and circumstances.

So - how about universal flat rate help for the first years of life up until a child starts school?

Maternity pay and being paid to be a SAHP are two different things. You only get maternity pay if you have met the criteria re length of service etc and your job is then there to return too. You cant expect an employer to give you a job back after having three or fours years off. Nobody has mentioned begrudging anyone maternity pay/leave, its a benefit provided by law to cover women having children whilst working.

Choosing to be a SAHP parent is a lifestyle choice, if you choose to become a parent and not return to work you shouldnt expect the government to pay you for that choice.

Happy - I used to think that way.

Now I think - either the government does nothing for any parents or it provides financial assistance to all parents irrespective of earnings. A bit like state school, or the NHS - they are not earnings-related either.

That means that all the poor sods who have to go to work will pay more tax and get less money, and will have to work harder and see less of their families.

Well, we can say that about everything that is paid out of taxed income.

What if, when we weighed the pros and cons, we actually found it was cheaper for society to support stay at home parents in the early years?

This is apparently what was found in Finland.

If parents paid less tax in the first place then we would have the choice on how we spend our money to fit with our own individual set of circumstances.

Yes, that's one way of doing it - making children tax-deductible to the tune of a few thousands £s a year.

Indeed but supporting millions of women to stay at home could be quite costly.

"Now I think - either the government does nothing for any parents or it provides financial assistance to all parents irrespective of earnings. A bit like state school, or the NHS - they are not earnings-related either."

Excellent - they could call it "Family Allowance"

We pay too much tax, government wastes the money, abuses the power and then comes back for more and we have to work harder and longer for less. Come the revolution ..

or they could just not take our money from us in the first place and allow us to choose how we spend it to our immediate benefit..

Blu - yes, that's another way of doing it - increase Family Allowances.

The NHS is dysfunctional by their own admission, they can't even keep it clean - I'd prefer to pay private medical insurance

Basically I'm for a flat rate simple system for parents these days - call it child benefit or family allowance or make it tax deductible (but that's more problematic) - just have a flat rate per child and per family to make the transition from two earners with no children to one earner with two (or more) dependents, or two earners with dependents and childcare less financially traumatic.

Our economy has scaled to account for dual incomes, but that's another debate

Rebelmum - but that's surely the crux of this debate? If the economy has scaled to account for a dual-income norm for households, surely there is a legitimate cause for rethinking the financial implications of children on household income?

Like I said that's another debate

It seems to me that it is at the very heart of SAHMdom...