Teachers speaking out about parents' long working hours

[vestandknickers]

Here.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27027677

Interesting. I think it is good that this is being raised as an issue.

I am not anti working parents at all, but surely a society that thinks it is ok for children to be at school from 8am to 6pm needs to look at itself.

Hopefully it is still a small minority of children who spend five days a week at school for these hours, but it is good that teachers are speaking out before it becomes seen as an acceptable norm.

Well they save a hefty deposit by living frugally for several years whilst both working full time, this tends to help.
Not having any luxuries and only buying what you need, not what you want.

With a deposit of about £40k needed...

Thurlow

It was that price where we lived. We couldn't afford a sahm with such little income so we moved to where we could afford it.
I don't think any job is particular to a certain area.
I'm told Leeds in quite good for financial jobs and insurance. There seems to be lots of these jobs in the south too.

" am so thankful they have good values, she intends to be a sahp in years to come when they settle down."

What are your DS's plans?

if there was still social housing that people could rent reasonably then people wouldn't have to work such long hours and children wouldn't have to spend all their working day in childcare so patents can pay extortionate mortgage costs
but now peole who live in council houses are seen as scroungers and cheats

At the moment he intends to carry on working as many hours as he can to earn the money, as does his gf.
I suppose his plans are to continue working, gain promotion, etc.
Why do you ask?

Wondered whether he had any thoughts to share the SAHP part of their plans.

potatoprints - Your DP must earn a very good wage then. Most families could not buy a 3 bed terrace where you live, on one wage.

What, do you mean be a hands on dad when the time comes?
If so, definitely. He has a much younger sister and from age 12 he was right in there, helping and changing nappies. he's been brought up to do his share of domestic chores too, and can iron better than me .
His gf is a level 3 in childcare and has said she wouldn't use it ever. It is her own decision, she may even change her mind. obviously, I think they are good values because they seem to share the same ideas as me and dh did, starting out.
My ds will always work, unless made redundant. He has worked full time since 16, all through college and uni.

Grennie

He is and has always been min wage. We moved from the East to West though and gained a bit doing this.
People round here tend to start with a 2 bed house, you don't need three bedrooms until you have more than one dc, surely?
Then when you buy bigger you have usually paid a bit off the mortgage and gained a few grand.
There are lots of sahps in these type of houses.

It's interesting what each family values above other factors.

I do appreciate that moving to another part of the country is a lot cheaper (though we are currently in that small minority that our jobs really are London based, bar about... a dozen, maybe, of my job in the rest of the UK ) but personally I couldn't move away from my friends, my family, and my entire support network. Moving to another part of the country is sadly not that simple, though I can see how it would work for many families and give them some flexibility.

I haven't read through the whole thread and the discussion may have changed slightly...

Regarding the article and the 8am to 6pm issue, it's not exactly new, is it? A '9-to-5' job has been fairly standard for many years, so if a parent has one of those average jobs then of course they probably need to drop their child off some time between 8am and 8:30am and collect them some time between 5:30pm and 6pm. However hours can run longer than that and I don't find 9-to-5 to be so standard anymore, and commuting a longer distance is more common, so this will only add to the hours that a child needs wraparound care.

You can be working full time, above minimum wage (let's say £10/hour, for example, or even £15/hour, probably even at more than that depending on where you are in the country), but there would still be no way one wage could support a family - even with just one child - without government support. So of course both parents have to work. One parent might be able to get flexible hours or work fewer hours, but none of that is guaranteed - their careers may not be accommodating, there may not be much in the way of alternative jobs, they may not be able to afford the cut.

I'm not saying it's ideal but at the same time it's not awful - I was a child in the 90s and did the same, some children came to afterschool club purely for fun as so many of us went after school. But as a child it was also tiring at times not being able to go home until after 6pm. In my early teens I got a house key and looked after myself - not everyone would have agreed with it, but I was much happier that way.

It would be nice to have some choice, some flexibility, for parents. At current you have to have at least one partner earning a wage that is well above the national average in order to have a parent on hand immediately before and after school, or at least be lucky enough to find a very flexible job. When I think back to my grandparents, my DGM worked and then became a SAHM until my DM and siblings were school age. She had 3 close together and took something like 6-7 years out of work, whilst my grandad continued with his business - he was self-employed, they weren't wealthy! She was able to make some extra money doing basic admin from home, like letter stuffing, when they were coming up to big events like Christmas. She returned to work part time when the children were at school, so that she could be at home before and after school. I just don't see that being common today, they managed it not because they were incredibly frugal and sacrificed everything, they were sensible, of course, but costs were just lower and expectations different.

"What, do you mean be a hands on dad when the time comes?"

Nope. I meant that they both WOH part time and both SAH part time.

Thurlow

I don't for one minute think that our way is the right way or anything like that, and realise ours has been a very unconventional approach.
I also realise that not everybody can up stix and move so readily, but just wanted to put another approach across.
I think that sometimes its easy to say we don't have any choices than to live in a particular way, and for some that of course is the truth. For others though the opportunities are there, they could choose different but convince themselves they couldn't. To me this is shame as these people miss out in life. Fair enough if people know the opportunities exist and don't take them out of preference.
My dh was offered work in London when we were young, we realised it wouldn't provide the life we wanted so he turned it down, we knew it existed though.

TheDoctrine

They may well do that, or work opposite shifts. She just seems to have something against childcare having worked in the industry.
Her parents have always worked alternate shifts but she thinks they missed out on some things because of this. So she is adamant atm she will be a sahp, but they are still young and could change their views. They are only 22 and 21.

I blame the unfettered greed of corporations and an unchecked capitalistic system which necessitates both parents working full-time outside the home. Back in the 1950's, the average factory owner made fifty times per hour, what the lowest employee earned. So for every dollar earned by the janitor, the owner made fifty. Which may or may not sound impressive until you find out that today, that ratio is 500 to one. So for every dollar earned by the janitor, the owner makes 500. (I read that at MotherJones but I could be mistaken.)

Decades ago, a young family could live on the wages of one parent if they lived modestly. And if the primary wage-earner were to lose (his) job, the family had an extra person (usually the wife) who could step in and get a part-time job to fill the gap. So in a way, the family had extra job security with that "spare" person who normally didn't need to work outside the home. Today, it's extremely rare for even a very frugal multi-person household to be sustained on one wage.

So while subsidized child-care is a worthy goal, so too is inserting some sort of cap or brake into the system, so that fat cats in the corner office can't accumulate 90% of a country's wealth, thereby necessitating everyone else work themselves to death. ANY economic system, whether it be socialism or capitalism, can go too far in the extreme where the disadvantages outweigh the advantages; and we are so far removed from a moderate form of capitalism today that our economic disparity is more similar to serfdom.

We need checks built in to the system, and we don't seem to have any. My opinion, anyway...

debt=a kind of serfdom

soon there will be one huge warehouse where all children are shipped to

perhaps the goverment will find ways with artifical wombs etc, to produce the next generation
while all the people carry on working and the goverment babies/children can start working asap

Blackmouse

you may jest but I think we aren't too far away.
The gov want to have them from 2 years old now, I'm sure it will be from birth soon.

Sorry, just coming back to this thread after a day out.

I don't have any intention of being dependant on the state. We cope just fine on one salary now. When both kids are at school and I work part time (next year) we'll put all of my salary into a deposit on a little flat in a nearby market town for DH and I to retire into. What I earn plus what we can let it out for will, even using very conservative figures, pay off the mortgage in plenty of time before we retire. We are fully covered life insurance and critical illness wise that should we fall I'll we'll still be fine. Neither of us anticipates retiring any earlier than about 70, even if it's just very part time work.

We are used to living very, very frugally. We'll be fine. And if we're not we won't be moaning, it's a choice we make very consciously.

Don't think it matters which parent stays at home. Don't think it matters if both parents want to work because of a sense of identity, fair enough. Their choice. What I don't buy is all the absolute guff about both parents HAVING to work in full time jobs. No one makes anyone live in a city. People live there in the main because they want to. Intercity life costs a lot. That comes with its own consequences.

It's all about choices. (Unless, as I said before, you are a single parent. You won't find me arguing with any single parent working their arse off to bring up their kids, ESP when I know so many personally whose ex's think taking financial responsibility for their children is an optional extra.)

I haven't read all the posts so I don't know if it has been mentioned but I think another contributer to the problem of children having to be in childcare all day/ both parents having to work is the amount of 2 nd and 3rd families we now have. This is no judgement, I myself have 3 step kids. But child maintenance makes it really hard for both parents not to work because if all your children lived with you, then you would put all your money into the family pot, where as now, If the mother has the kids after a divorce then the father has to pay her up to 40% of his wages. so his new partner must work to bridge the gap, especially if she doesn't have kids from a previous relationship to get maintenance for to break even.

I live in an expensive city (not in the UK). Houses are on average less affordable than London. We have a nice but not fancy 3 bed house with a decent back lawn within 5km of the city. We also have a hefty mortgage. I have a job that I love that I could not do anywhere else in this country, or in other countries, outside of a large city. I wouldnt want to live outside a city anyway my parents moved us to a provincial town for a year when I was a child and I hated it.

Potatoprints your comments re your childrens good values as they intend for your DS partner to be a SAHP are really rude and misguided. Its one thing to say that your happy that your grandchildren will have a SAHP thats fine if that makes you happy, not that I think its really any of your business (certainly my parents and in-laws have no say in how we arrange our working life) but its quite another to say that this is reflective of good values.

I will work between 80 100% when my child arrives, as will DH. Good childcare will cost about 30% of my net income (not that this is particularly relevant as our money is pooled) so financially it makes sense. Even if it was not as financially straightforward as this, I would still work. WE could manage (just) on DHs salary alone, but I wouldnt want to. Ive worked long & hard at my career, Im good at it and I value it. In terms of values, my values are such that I would like my kids to see that women work in worthwhile careers and be proud of me.

I was shocked when visiting my SIL & her kids in an affluent part of London. SIL is a SAHP as are most (of not all) mums in that area. All the dads work in the City. We were telling the kids that we had to go home after our holiday to go back to work. My nephew was aged about 5 understood that DH had to go to work, but couldnt get his head round me going to work. You mean you need to go home & look after [dogs name]? (we didnt have kids at this point). No, I need to go home to go to work in an office, just like Daddy and [my DH]. He didnt get it. In his experience, women my age stayed at home, they didnt go to work. I dont want my kids to think like that.

Working leaves me less vulnerable financially should anything happen to DH, and it puts him under less pressure to work and thus will allow him more family time. If I was to be a SAHP, the amount that DH would have to work to cover the deficit would mean he barely ever saw his family. In our circs, having a SAHP would mean more pressure and less happy family, not the reverse. I would also like to travel with my children and for them to have some extras that my income will allow its a luxury, sure, but I dont think it makes us materialistic. Wanting to see the world with your kids is hardly the same as buying a new Porsche every year.

Have no idea where all the question marks came from, sorry!

WordFactory and Gennz may be my new favourite MN posters.

Morethan - your views seem a bit naive. There are plenty of jobs where opportunities are very limited outside certain areas - particularly as roles become very expert and specialist. And if people were to move away from 'expensive' places to 'cheap' places do you think the relative costs would remain?

Another advantage to living in areas of higher demand for workers - ie those with more jobs - is that employers generally have to compete more to get and keep good staff. Increasingly that includes flexible working arrangements (though much more must be done to make those arrangements more available to everyone, not seen as the exclusive preserve of women with children). The more people are able to 'work' the job market because of shortages in some areas and some fields - and the more men AND women who do so rather than simply demanding higher pay - the more benefits will be felt by the wider workforce as different arrangements become normalised.

One of the most senior positions in my organisation is now done as a job share. It works extremely well, the organisation has clearly benefited and the rest of the workforce has seen a shift in what is and is not considered acceptable.

I LOVE your name Jassy

"I know men", Jassy said darkly.

PIL is one of my all-time favourite books.