Am I missing something - childcare.

[Halie]

I'm currently on mat leave and thinking about what will happen once mat leave ends.

Initially, I planned to return to my job, but currently I'm struggling with how that would work financially. As well as that, I feel very negatively about putting baby into childcare / nursery aged 1. I know it works for some and that's great but for me it's going completely against my instincts especially with the things I read on the news about nurseries.

If I put my child in nursery it's approx £200 per week locally, so £800 per month. We're a 2 income home, but to simplify it, that leaves me with about £1000 left of my wage. However, if I quit my job I can look after my child myself and according to online calculators I would get approx £900 in universal credit and £100 child benefit.

Am I missing something? Why would I go back to work to pay for a stranger to take care of my child when I can leave, do it myself and have a similar income?

What are other people without a village doing and what led to your decisions?

And yes, you are missing something. You, not the taxpayer (ie. me), should be responsible for the cost of raising your child.

I’m a SAHM and it’s really not popular on MN. 🤣🫣 I do understand why some may view it negatively or at least advise you should be married first though. We don’t get UC and do have to budget but I have absolutely no regrets and it’s really worth it for me to be home with our children, I love our days together and the unpredictability of them. I have taken the time to retrain and volunteer in a role where there are part time jobs that occasionally come up so I’d look to move into that area once they’re at school instead of my previous role which wasn’t so family friendly!

Her husband's income and universal credit. It sounds to me like she has good skills and a plan to get back into the profession after a career break. I think society should give people more options and this is what universal credit ought to be for, its supporting those on lower incomes to have options. Ideally people would be properly paid for jobs like nursing and the cost of living wouldn't be so much. Unfortunately successive governments have not tackled the property market, salaries and energy companies enough so here's where we are. Once the child(ren) are three she will be expected to work, and before that she will have to do work preparation activities. So it is helping people for a short time while they have young children.

I wanted to be a SAHP and was devastated to go back when they were 1. The first few years managing work and nursery were hard financially, physically exhausted and mentally drained. BUT we got through it and I was able to continue to progress, go for a promotion and get it with no time missed. My children didn’t have to suddenly adjust to childcare as they were used to it. I really wouldn’t give up work.

What you’re missing is career progression because you went back to work instead of missing out several years.

When my eldest started nursery, it was £1100 for 40 hours a week. I had £200 left over every month after the contribution of my salary, as I only made £1300.

When I went back after my second mat leave though, I had doubled my salary. I still ended up compressing my hours and having plenty of time with dd, but not losing out on that career building time meant I’m much more financially secure now than I’d be if I’d had a career break for several years. It’s banking that time because nursery costs aren’t forever.

The family money that would be spent on childcare. Wouldn’t need benefits

It doesn’t have to be difficult, OP. It’s just that some MNers dislike the idea of staying home with children so will do everything they can to put you off.

If you want to be a SAHM for a few years, do it. I was and I don’t regret it for a moment. Not only do I believe it was better for my children, I also think it was better for me and for our family.

You need to consider your pension too, if you’re not paying in you won’t accumulate as much. Can you stay at work and your husband stay home? Or both go part time so no need for child care but you do have security?
I have to say, if you like working then bring a SAHM can be really difficult on the brain, if you’re used to using it, you won’t get as much academic input, I say that as a mum with a degree, PhD and a professional job in research, I thought I’d love being on may leave but it soon got boring and a chore to be honest. Wonderful being with your baby all day but it’s nice to have a mix of work and life balancing going on

What plan? Just a naive idea that she'll walk back into a job.

I don’t think being a SAHM is unpopular on Mumsnet. There’ll be some confirmation bias going on there. It’ll be unpopular with some posters but if you went on a nursery thread you’ll see posters tell parents who work how terrible it is they leave their kids with strangers, how you ‘won’t get those years back’ (that’s been on this thread) etc. I think MN is pretty split on the subject.

I do think you should only be a SAHP if you can actually afford it and it won’t negatively affect your future which I don’t think is the case for OP right now.

If you do this you have short term gain, long term pain. You will miss pension contributions, and the interest on them that you otherwise would have earned. Your career will take a hit. Once you're out of work you may well struggle to get back in, and may have to completely start again. If you're the higher earner it would make more sense for your dp to stay home.

Or you go back to work and have short term pain but long term gain in terms of pension and career progression. Nursery fees don't last forever.

Do you know any childminders? Many of the second time mum's who use me say they wish they had used a cm not a nursery. You build a relationship and get to know them unlike a hand over to anyone of the team like in nursery. It's much more homely and you find someone who works with you.

I have no issues with SAHPs - I have no issues with working parents either, people should do what they like. I have a massive issue with someone planning to quit their job so I can support them although they are fully capable of supporting themselves. I absolutely support the whole concept behind a welfare state and think people should be helped - I volunteer at my food bank and begrudge none of that. But if you are capable of working and have decided to have a child, then that should be your responsibility.

However... that's not how the game works and the OP isn't doing anything illegal.

But it is a terrible plan for all the reasons already said. The world is changing quickly and there are fewer and fewer jobs - and pensions are only getting worse. Giving up a good job with a good pension because the news today was horrifying is incredibly shortsighted.

Does that £200 a week include your 30 hours free? I’d be surprised if it does. We’ve just signed our baby up to start next September for four days a week, and it works out at about £80 a week for the four days, once the 30 free hours has been applied.

A lot of people commenting correcting the funding etc to talk about the financial side, but you also said you don't want to put your child in nursery yet. I was the same, I planned to take just under a year maternity then put baby in nursery, but when it came to it and I was actually a mum with a real baby, it felt way too young. I went freelance and she did 2 mornings a week, I built up her nursery hours (and my freelance work) over time. Yes having a pension is important, but I can save later. Money isn't everything. Life is for living, and I wanted to be with my children as much as possible. For us that means no holidays abroad, cheap car that we share, low budget for Xmas, but we have so much time together and I wouldn't change it.

I have been at home with my children for almost six years and don’t regret it for a moment. I am actually going back to work part time next week and am looking forward to it but that is because my children are now of an age where I feel comfortable leaving them in childcare. My career has obviously taken a knock but for me personally the benefit of being with my children in their early years has been priceless. I’m only in my mid thirties so still have plenty of time to build back up if I want to. It’s up to you but just offering a different perspective in that not everyone regrets it

The world is changing, certainly. Not enough children being born to balance out paying for our pensions when we get to that age is one of the concerns. We should be making it easier for one parent to stay at home or work if they want to.

I don’t care whether she regrets it or not.
I just don’t want my taxes to pay for it

@bittertwisted yep apologies I somehow missed the part where it was funded by UC. I do think in that case it’s not really reasonable

Or we should make sure everyone works when they are able to and have a serious think about how we are funding pensions. I don't see any reason to encourage more people to opt out of working unless they truly need to (and then of course should be fully supported). The model of the young people paying the old people's pension isn't going to work long term as the population shrinks down anyway.

I think the right thing to do is have your husband, your babies father, support you and your child if you decide not to work. It's not really down to tax payers to fund your lifestyle choices. This is why people, rightly so, get annoyed with people choosing benefits as a lifestyle not a safety net.

Also, don't cast shade over nursery users. The nursery staff where my daughters went were the most amazing people. Beautiful, multi-lingual, male and female.... it was a wonderful setting which gave my children an amazing start.

We just sucked up the fees. Plus we were just before the 30 funded hours came in.
Long run a career break is not good. Especially if you want more kids, need to move house in the future etc. You limit your pension and lifetime earnings for a short term gain.
Plus putting your child into nursery isnt great for anybody, there are thousands of nurseries and most are pretty good.
Its your choice of course but I oersonally never wanted to be reliant on one income and also have the expectation that I would pick up all household duties as a SAHM.
I would also say my kids don't even remember being at nursery!
Also as pp have said, universal credit is supposed to be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. We could all walk out of our jobs tomorrow and try and claim universal credit couldn't we. I am pretty sure that the system would collapse pretty quickly if we did. It would never have occurred to me to do this even though I have been the higher earner and alao would have liked to spend more time with my kids at home too. You are coming at this from a very self centered place.

Obviously the answer is why should you go back to work when you’d earn roughly the same by not working and collecting benefits you’re entitled to. You have to do what’s best for you.

But it raises the issues that seems to be forgotten more and more these days, that all of these cogs are required for our economy. If you don’t go back to work, it has a knock on effect where there’s one less person working and now collecting benefits. When society shifts towards that, less people work and contribute to the economy, and more are reliant on the government and taxpayer’s money. Of course it should be made more financially palatable to return to work, but I don’t know how that will happen, childcare workers in the main are paid very poorly.

I should also add don’t be put off about nurseries; our child went to nursery from 10mths old up to 4 and then onto school and we felt they took excellent care of them, preparing them for life at school and in many other ways.

The obvious solution would be to go back part time surely, it’s not a case of either you work full time or not at all 🤷‍♀️

it sounds like in your situation it might not be worth working from a hard numbers point of view

But also bear in mind:

pension (I know you argue you can top up later but your employer contributions will not catch up similarly unless you are on a generous matched contributions - I wouldn’t be surprised if NhS is ridiculously generous but for most likely private sector employees that would be a big factor)

will you lose your NHS blue light discount? That’s very valuable

Career progression

Re-mortgaging or moving to a new rented house: in case you need to move…it can be very hard to get a decent mortgage/ credit if you have not got a track record of stable income and employment.

I do also agree with pps that it’s depressing you are better off at home on benefits.