Wise women of mumsnet, help me sort my life out

[sushistar]

Right. DH works full time. His salary pais for mortgatge and utilities, with nothing to spare. Before ds my wage was for other - ie food, travel, clothes, day to day expenses. Fine.

Because I had not worked for my employer long enough for them to pay me maternity pay, I am on Maternity Allowance, which is £112 per week, plus of course I get child benefit and we get £20 child tax credit. This is now our day to day budget, and we're doing ok. It's been a big drop in income, but we're living withing our means and very into environmentalism and voluntary simplicity so it's not too awful to live on less.

I have no job to go back to (contract ended). DS is 4 months and I'm considering how/when to go back to work. I'm uncomfortable with leaving him in childcare and I think I will be for some time to come. So I need to work so dh can care for him - ie evenings/weekends or from home. I am able to do this, but it won't pay briliiantly. Thing is, ideally dh would like to go to 4 days per week to have more tiume with ds but he earns so much more than me that even if I worked for that day PLUS evenings we would not have enough to cover mortgage etc.

Oh dear, this is very long and garbled and I've got myself in a muddle again.

What is your question?

are you looking for ideas as to what jobs you can do evenings/weekends or from home?

I don't knoooow!! I think it is... how can dh go part time to spend more time with ds when I earn so much less than him?

And do you think I should get a 'proper' job (earn more) or do odd bits of supply teaching/freelancing (more flexible)?

Or maybe it's 'How on earth do all you supermums manage this whole work/baby/finances thing?' Because it's DOING MY HEAD IN!!!

Pink, I already know what I can do. I can teach in a college where I used to work. That's evening work. And I have some web based work I might be able to get during the day at home. I used to do that too. It's unreliaable and doesn't pay as well as teaching, but it's less like hard work

There you go.
You had the answer all along!

DH wanted to go to 4 days after we had DS1. It's a nice idea but not always practical.
What about getting a saturday job so DH can have a full day with your LO?

No dragon, it's not the answer. I have work I could do. It's unreliable, no sick pay, and no work during college holidays. That's ok, but dh would like to drop 1 day per week, so I need to earn more. Maybe I could look for a one-day-a-wekk job... but surely that's very hard to find!!

And the saturday thing - like what? The college I used to work at is shut on saturdays

I'm looking for a job for evenings and weekends only because i don't want the children to be in childcare.
Previously i had a good professional job but can't do that for just one day a week.
Think something has come up though working in a sports centre, as a result of a few phonecalls.
So you never know what's available locally if you just ask.

waitressing, bar work, check out?
they all need extra staff on weekends.

Can your dh "work from home" one day a week? Lots of women do that, and there's supposed to be equality between the sexes now. Actually, now I come to think of it, I have two friends who "work from home" one day a week, not because of kids or anything (both of them footloose and fancy free), but because they want to! And (whisper) at home they don't do much work...

He's very concientous, if he worked from home he'd want to work iyswim. and I don't think he could work properly whilst caring for a 4 month old!

Sushistar if you teach could you not offer tutoring ?

When I went back to work after dd2, I worked out that I would have been better off working just wkends at a supermarket than 3 or even 5 days a week teaching and paying nursery fees for 2 dcs BUT I really enjoyed my job and didn't want to lose it so I carried on working there. Plus, after a health scare I was absolutely terrified of getting sick while not in a job (that would give me sick pay) and potentially leaving dp to support the whole family financially and otherwise. For ME it was important to think long-term but I might well have taken more time out to be with the dcs if I hadn't been so worried about losing the best job I've ever had and of relying on dp to support the whole family alone .

I do think a lot of women who are reluctant to leave their children in childcare are sometimes thinking more about themselves than their children/ family. I can understand why you wouldn't want to leave a baby for a whole day in childcare but I can't understand why you wouldn't want to leave a toddler in nursery for 1/2 day a few days a week. It's good for everyone to have this experience. I think a lot of women choose not to go back to work because they may not have enjoyed this work in the first place or because they're frightened of leaving their kids. IMHO neither of these reasons are good reasons for not going back to work. Not speaking to you personally here Sushi because your circumstances are different.

I also think that sharing care and work so that EITHER the father or mother is at work or looking after the children sounds good in theory but what that means is drastically reducing time spent as a family which IMHO is really, really important.

So you'd have to weigh up the advantages of dp spending a whole day with the dcs if this meant that YOU were having to work (above and beyond the equivalent of that day) to make up for the financial shortfall ESP. if that also meant that quality time as a family and your quality time off in the evening was being spoiled.

In my situation my dp certainly wouldn't have thought this was a worthwhile trade off but then as a teacher too he gets to spend quite a lot of time with the dcs. Even so, he would rather work 5 days so that he can enjoy weekends (and evenings) with the family with none of us thinking about work.

Don't think that has helped at all. Just some thoughts.

I'm afraid that I think that it is a lovely idea in theory but almost always unworkable in practice, for financial reasons, for both parents to work part-time when their children are small.

Good, well-paid jobs require a high degree of commitment.

If I were you and didn't want to put my child in childcare yet I'd be inclined to keep things as they are with dp working 5 days and me not working and then agree a time when I would go back to work at least pt. Probably a sensible time would be when childcare is free at 3 yrs old. You could also still look into doing a bit of work to keep your hand in and possibly to save up some money so that dp could go down to 4 days at a future time. So you could work a couple of hours a week from home or an evening or a morning during the wkend with a view to dp going down to 4 days after a year for a ltd period.

Purely fincially, if you have to work more than 1 day for dp to have a day off with the dcs then this doesn't make sense.

Only you and your dp can decide whether the advantages outweigh this but you really have to consider the effects of disrupted weekend and evening quality family time and individual time if your dp not working would mean you had to work during these times.

Someone my dh works with has rearranged his full time hours to work 3 longer full days and 2 half-days so that he can spend more time with his dds. My dh has also rearranged his core hours so he starts early but is home by 4 which makes a huge difference to our day. Would some kind of flexible working arrangement be possible for dp? Is his employer 'family-friendly' enough to consider something along these lines?

How about this: you pick up your college tutoring etc. Dh does not initially go to an 80% contract, but uses his annual 5 weeks of unpaid parental leave to allow him to spend more time with your child - this would be more like working 90%. He might have to take the time in chunks rather than a day a week of course, it would depend on his employer.

Meanwhile, you look for ways of increasing your income so that you can both be part-time while bringing in a decent amount of money. Are there other colleges in your area who could give you some teaching? the OU? private tutoring?

I really disagree with Anna that it is 'almost always unworkable in practice, for financial reasons, for both parents to work part-time when their children are small'. I know at least five families who manage this (including my own!). Of course, a lot depends on how much you can earn in your line of work, and how much you think you need to live on. But it is definitely NOT 'unworkable'.

Thank you all so much for useful wisdom and ideas to chew over. My maternity Allowance stops at the end of June, so I do need to figure stuff out. I need to at least make up the shortfall, which is £112. JJ I hadn't thought of the compressed hours option for my dh - I'll suggest it to him. He works for a charity, they are pretty family friendly.
5candles, I will be happy for ds to be in childcare at 3! But before 1 yr I'd like to avoid it if I can. I like your idea of working just the odd bit and otherwise leaving things as they are. I want to avoid weekends, but I don't mind doing the odd evening.
Zazette - OU is a very good idea! I have looked into that before, but must get my lazy bum in gear and apply. That would be absolutly PERfECT.

It's a sort of vicious circle - DH can't go part time until I earn more, I can't earn more till I work more, I can't work more till he's part time...

Actually talking this through has made me realise part of the issue is that I feel a bit guilty being at home with our darling boy when I know dh would love to be too.

There are small things you can do to help DH spend more time with LO whilst still being FT. (They are only little things so not a long term solution for you but might ease the guilt you're describing)

Take your DS to visit your DH in his lunch hour and have lunch together. Bring a picnic, to save money.

Have some activities that only your DH does with DS - e.g. swimming at the weekend (just after lunch on a Sunday is a good time to go as it's quiet then)

DH come home early and do a few hours from home after DS has gone to bed.

I like the lunch time idea! I might try that. We havn't braved the swimming yet but this is also a good idea. Is ds too young at 4 months?

Sushistar, I know exactly how you feel!!

My DD is 17 months. From 6 months DP worked 4 days and I worked 2 from home. At 10 months until now DP has not been working at all as he took severance from his job and could afford not to for a while; I've worked 2 days at home, 2 in the office. Both of these situations really worked for us and, although we had a lot less money than previously, I think it was really worth it.

Our plan was that he would find a part-time job and we'd continue in the same vein, but he's ended up with a full-time one he really couldn't turn down and we're all a bit gutted to be honest! We signed DD to a nursery but at the last minute I've decided it's not right for us and I'm leaving work for the time being, but still doing freelance for same company.

Like you (I think), I think it's so important that there is as much equality in our parenting as possible and I think that benefits everyone. Personally, I would give up some 'family time', which is of course lovely, for the chance for us both to spend our own time with DD. So working a 6 day week between you, say? i know when it is the 3 of us together, adult jobs/ conversation seem to take over (I'm sure that will change it time!), whereas when it's just DD and me, my attention is fully focussed on her - I think it'd be great to allow your DH this opportunity if possible.

Sorry this has turned into a bit of an essay now but try a website like www.i-resign.com where you can work out what his pay would be after tax etc on 4 days. When I went from 5 to 4 days I only lost around 100 a month (but then I didn't earn much to start with). I think a charity may well be willing to flexible with him. DP works in public sector and 2 of his colleagues also either worked compressed hours or 4 days a week. It's becoming more normal.

Am already dreaming up new ways my DP can go back to part-time! Good luck with it all. x

ps DS not too young for swimming at 4 months, but pick a time when pool won't be full of noisy kids as the loud echoes scare them.And bring a towel out to poolside with you.