Don't give up work to be a SAHM unless

[akaemmafrost]

You have a HEFTY private income or can work from home.

I gave up work, usual reasons, wages would barely cover childcare, WE wanted kids to be at home with a parent.

Fast forward. I now have two dc, the father of my dc cheated on me, physically, emotionally and financially abused me.

One of my dc has SN and cannot attend school for the moment.

I've been out of work for 10 years now, I have no profession. In 6 years time our child support will stop as will most of our benefits. I will near fifty having not worked at all for 18 years.

My future is shit. Utterly grey and bleak. All I have to look forward to is a state pension. While my ex earns a fortune, travels the world and has new relationships.

This is reality for me. So think long and hard about giving up work to stay at home because no matter how shit your job is it's preferable to my future don't you think?

And it was all decided for me by a man who decided he hated me and didn't want to be married anymore and a child being diagnosed with significant SN.

It's that simple.

and to those who say about childcare costs not coming out of just the woman's wages, but coming out of both. what difference does that make? it's the same amount of money. so as dp and i have a joint account, the same amount of money would come out and it would be exactly equal to what i earn. so it would equate to being 'all my wages', which would make me going to work in a dead end job of horror totally pointless.

I sympathise about wanting out of a dead end job of horror.

It seems to me though when basing their thought process purely on the smaller-wage-pays-for-childcare model, then a couple will overlook the hidden cost of losing X years of private pension contributions, losing health insurance / training / other corporate schemes and the cost of simply losing a step on the career ladder.

I do rather think the way you describe things Spuddy if DH enjoys his work and you don't enjoy yours, and you've just had a baby and both want two more in the next few years, and you're going to be living abroad with DH's work
.... well maybe be a SAHM for a few years and concentrate on that, then think about what you'd like to do when they're all at school and perhaps you're back in the UK.
I don't think things are as bleak as all that. It is possible to re-train and take a different career path in life ?
All the best to you, and everyone thinking over their options

Where are xenia and scottishmummy on this thread ?

I would NEVER give up my financial independence to be a SAHM.
I have told my young dds, that men respect you more when you earn your own money.

juggling - yes i think you are right. i don't think things are bleak at all, as long as dp keeps his job or doesn't leave me. it is the 'one decision away from destitution' that scares the bejesus out of me. i hate feeling out of control of my own destiny. and as much as i love dp, being divorced and having exh leave me for my best friend has made me realise how fragile these things are.

frequent - sadly no job i have had has ever had any of those things, and few of my female friends have those either. they are for those with careers rather than jobs i think.

You said you're interested in counseling Spuddy (as am I) - well how about having a few counseling sessions to talk through the things that have come up here, including feeling scared at things being out of your control during this time of raising your young child/ children. Sounds like you are understandably very affected by the behaviour of your ex ? Hopefully your new partner is more trustworthy ?
Someone will come along and say we can't trust anyone 100% but you only live once, and I think you lose something precious if you live without trust.
There are no 100% guarantees in this life - life is a risky game to play

"How many of us married women could pay the mortgage bills and food shop on our own with no help from a partner? Not very many"

I could, I would probably downsize within a year and would certainly live with less but I could do it fairly easily. But then I watched my mother struggle badly when my father left and I vowed I'd never be in that position.

I grew up in a single parent family.

I'm now married with two kids. Husband works full time and can provide us with what we need, however, I would never have given up work. I work in the NHS, it's not massively well-paid but it's quite 'steady' and I've never been out of work.

When I graduated, several of my friends went into trendy careers in London. I never had their company cars or their private health insurance and they were paid more than me. Years later they are SAHMs who would love to work and find their opportunities limited because they couldn't work part time in their industries.

I work 21 hours per week. We will have spent £47k on childcare by the time DD2 starts school. The value of hanging onto my job is far greater, to me. I will advise my kids to get themselves a job which will always be needed. I will advise them to hang onto their jobs no matter what. We will always need teachers, doctors, lawyers, vets, accountants, physiotherapists. The list goes on - they might not be massively impressive jobs 'in the city' but you really can't put a price on that feeling in your heart that actually, probably, you could cope. Always have a plan.

It's worth questioning why more women than men are in those 'dead-end jobs' with low wages and poor career prospects that are easier to give up when children come along and makes the decision about who will be the SAHP or primary childcarer, a no-brainer. It's like a domino effect and it's gendered all the way through. Young women are no less qualified or intelligent on leaving education than young men and yet by the time decisions are made about having children, so often it is women who are in the lower-paying jobs and/or are expected to be primarily responsible for their care.

Charbon I also think you can add societal-expectation into the mix. My OH was quite shocked when he realised that, if anything happened to my parents, who are DD's primary carers when we're at work, he would be the one who would have to give up work as I earn more than him and have better prospects too. It hadn't actually crossed his mind that he would be the one who would have to give up work to be a SAHP, not because he's a sexist twunt, but because all of the societal norms around him suggest that the mum is the one who gives up work in such circumstances.

What I always find depressing is how completely accepting people are about the fact that it is hard for women of a certain age to find work despite their having a huge number of skills and qualifications. There is almost certainly both sexism and ageism at play here, yet it is just taken for granted.
Whenever I read about employers moaning about how young people today can't write good English or do basic maths, I always think 'well you could try giving middle aged women a chance....'
Also the fact that it is generally agreed that a period of SAHMing is death to a CV and you should find a way of covering it up by saying you were doing voluntary work if you possibly can, suggests that everyone knows there is unfair prejudice against ex-SAHMs, but people, even women, just seem to feel that it is only to be expected and even that it is reasonable.
It's as if all the gains that have been made in convincing the world that women are capable in the workplace don't apply to women once they have taken time out.

Things do change. I am nearly 13 years into having children and over 20 years into a relationship with Dh and we've almost split up once and had other rocky patches. We're still together and happy but we're not the same people we were when we were in the baby phase or even five years ago. Having children and everything that involves changes your relationship completely - if you're lucky you change and grow together.

I have always worked and been the higher earner. Dh and I did a variety of arrangements when the children were younger which included each of us having a period at home and doing part time hours. We both have a great relationship with the kids and also know we are here because we want to be, not because we're unable to leave.

The women I know who are happiest at work are either those who kept a foot in the door with their careers when their kids were young, however small, and were able to step it back up as their children got older, or those whose family were lucky enough not to need a second wage and were able to use their time at home to rethink their careers and retrain. I know loads of women who had great careers and have gone back into the same field after a period at home at the level they were working at when they left university. Frustrating for them and a shocking waste of their skills and experience.

With seniority at work comes flexiblility and the ability to balance work and home and that is the lesson I would pass on to my daughter.

So true Tunip - I often think what old-fashioned times we are living in. Hopefully our daughter's daughter's daughters will look back in a hundred or two hundred years just as we do now on how our great-grandmothers lived in Victorian times.

I so agree with this - my dh has worked part time for the last 6 years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease before he was 50 and within a year of that being made redundant from his full time job. I work full time hours but can work from home 2 days a week - work/life balance is not bad and we both still have some financial independence but I feel lucky to be able to say that (also worked very very hard for it!) This discussion is not about SAHM or WOHM it is about women's independence and that includes financial independence. We have insurance and have made wills so we are in the best position we are able to be in. Since his diagnosis having savings for a rainy day has been a big focus for us and this includes a short period where I took a career break when children were small and my mother unwell - we still were saving if only a small amount. Money gives you choices and helps to stop upsetting news from being devastating.

For example it wasn't long ago that women teachers were paid less on marriage, and just a little earlier that they had to leave.
Nevertheless I was teaching before I had children right up to going on maternity leave, but I haven't yet worked in teaching since.

When I look at my group of university friends, who are all between 29-31 and just starting to have babies, I do feel optimistic that the status quo will gradually change. Out of four new families, 3 of the fathers are the SAHP, because the women are scientists or accountants who earn far more than their DH/DPs. And obviously I don't know exactly what goes on behind closed doors, but it doesn't seem to be the case that the woman does a 'second shift' when she gets home. These are geniunely hard-working, hands on SAHDs, and they are all keeping their hands in with their careers through p/t or freelance work.

This is obviously not a huge sample to go by though.

feu certainly all the SAHDs I know are freelancing alongside. The expectation among them seems to be that this is both obvious and essential.

Yep, same with the ones I know wordfactory, except one, but he is very unusual in many ways, very arty, and would really rather try and live without money or possessions altogether. And of the couples I know who haven't had children yet (including me and my DH), the man is very willing to SAH for a period of time if that's what's practical for both partners' careers, but none of them want looking after the children to be their sole job in life (they all say they think it would be too boring.)

I don't know any SAHDs.
Lots of dads do school runs etc, though, as they're in more flexible jobs. Definite progress there - when I was at school in the 70s my working mum (teacher, working over an hour away) never managed to convince school to call my dad rather than her if one of us was ill, even though he worked 10 mins away and could come in a jiffy.

Feu I really hope you're right to be optimistic, though I can't help remembering how optimistic I felt about it all 10 years ago - I think between 30 and 40 are the years when the shit tends to hit and the old-fashioned gender roles often get reverted to.

tunip I know a lot of writers/editors/journos etc who often eran less than their wives, so it makes sense.

Plus a lot of them were already working from home a lot of the time anyway.

and sorry to be cynical again, but a lot more men say they'd be willing to SAHP than actually do when it comes to the crunch.

feu yes the Dads I know who do it have a different approach to the SAHMs that I know.

Partly it may be to do with their sex, but also to do with the industries they work in.

Wordfactory, that does make sense. I know a lot of academic couples who started out equal but by the time there's been a maternity leave or two, the man is unaccountably several grades ahead of the dw (ie further ahead than you would expect just from the 6 months or a year she's taken out).
Ho hum.....

You could be right Tunip and it will be very interesting to watch how things go with these couples, especially once 2nd babies arrive.