Would you be a SAHM under these circumstances?

[ToBeOrNotToBe2023]

Just looking for some advice really.

DH and I have two young children. One will be starting school in August and the other is due to start a full time nursery placement in March (after my mat leave ends).

DH and I both earn well. He earns approx £100k and I earn around £43k but with bonuses this usually ends up closer to £70k.

DH has accepted voluntary redundancy and will receive a payout equivalent to one years salary in May. He is very experienced in his field and his contacts have advised that he should secure another role fairly quickly.

We both have decent savings in our own names. His are around £50k and mine closer to £100k.

We can’t decide whether I should be a SAHM for the next 12-18 months in order to allow our eldest to get settled at school and our youngest to get settled at nursery (we would still like her to attend 2 days per week even although I’d be at home).

It would ease some pressure around drop offs, pick ups, who looks after the kids when sick, how to juggle annual leave around the school holidays, ensuring we can spend weekends as a family rather than chasing our tail with housework/house admin.

The downside is that I’d be giving up a good income for this period and no guarantee that I’d be able to walk back into a role with the same earning potential. Also, DH should secure a job easily enough as he has a lot of senior contacts in the industry but of course there are no guarantees.

DH would be paying for mortgage, bills etc and I’d be looking to use my savings for nursery (for eldest until August and then for youngest from March onwards) as well as their clothing/some activities etc.

Really struggling to decide but need to make a decision soon as need to inform my work.

Sorry if I’m rambling. Didn’t want to leave anything out!

honestly the hysteria on mumsnet .
OP take the 18 months out . enjoy that time with your children . its 18 months not years and you can comfortably afford it .
you can always earn more money. children are only little for a short amount of time .
Agreed nursery fees should be jointly split

I’ve taken 12 months maternity leave so think my work would frown at the suggestion of a sabbatical….I’d happily take a further 12 months off if I could walk back into my job but think it’s unlikely they’d agree to this.

When we were both working then we would split bills proportionately. I’d then pay nursery fees from my salary and he would save the same amount to allow us to make an annual overpayment on our mortgage. We both felt that this was far.

Now I’m on maternity leave…he pays all the bills, food etc whilst I pay nursery fees to allow us to continue to make the mortgage overpayment. I would be ok paying the nursery fees from savings given that I’m benefiting from the reduced mortgage. Didn’t make that clear initially but thought OP was long enough!

I am more concerned that I’d be giving up a good career and salary for the sake of an extra 12 months at home. It would probably make life easier for us (breakfast club/after school club full for example so will need to sort an alternative - grandparents have offered but they are mid 70s and I fear it would be too much as we live 30 mins away from them) but I’m not sure it’s worth the trade off.

For those saying that DH isn’t working…that won’t happen until May and when it does then it will only be short term (hopefully). He will, of course, help with the drop offs etc during this time but it’s more difficult once work resumes. He may be allowed one or two days working from home but he’d still be expected to work in the office for the majority of the week. We live in a small town so commuting to the larger cities is 60-90 mins so he can’t really assist with drop off/pick ups then.

I am just worried that all the child responsibilities will lie with me (whilst working full time) as this is what he has been accustomed to whilst I’ve been on mat leave

Stopping work will make this 10 times worse. You’ll never be able to go back properly.

no way with bells on

Would make more sense for him to stay at home as he’s getting redundancy and can easily slip back into another role - would be an absolute no brainer if we were in that position. Although my husband would easily manage giving up work, I on the other hand would probably go slightly mad!!

This is also a good point made by @SleepingStandingUp

OK, but what will be different in two years? You need to juggle sick kids and school holidays for years yet. So in a few years when you say OK, I've done it for two years I'm ready to go back now, what will be different?

I guess it was just to take the pressure off temporarily until DH settled into his new role where he then may have some leeway to be a bit more flexible around travel as he’d be more established within the company

@Noras I am a little concerned about this. My work is pretty full on and I’d be worried that staying at home wouldn’t stimulate me enough but then again it would only be for 12-18 months? Did the boredom kick in straight away for you?

You are massively speculating here. If the job requires overseas travel it’s unlikely that’s going to change a year or two in. Or maybe it will, who knows. This job is imaginary at this point. Use the information you know to be true, even if it brings you to a conclusion you don’t prefer.

You are marrued. Why is it he pays she pays?
One pot.

He needs to be back in work before you consider anything.

I'd consider part-time but if that's not an option I think I'd look at a nanny to help you out. Your both earning top money and I'd try to keep it that way.

Not every one arranges their finances how you do

Your husband is paid 100k but you have to pay the nursery fees out of your savings?!!!

If you want your husband to stop seeing you as the default parent and taking a job without considering the impact on your career and just expecting you to pick up the childcare then I strongly suggest you stop acting as the default parent

That means

Stop talking about you paying the nursery fees and for children clothes, these are shared expenses because you are both parents. If you both also want to save towards overpaying the mortgage fair enough. but by splitting children costs to you and house costs to him you are reinforcing that you are wholly responsible for the children and he cannot help because he is the big breadwinner who pays for the roof above your head.

Stop talking about impacting your career to facilitate his. You are both parents, this needs to be a joint decision where he takes some responsibility for how you are going to manage as a family if he is around less

If you want him to stop expecting you to pick up all things children related because that's what you have done on maternity then I strongly recommend you go back to work. If you have 12-18 months more off you will just spend then next year or so reinforcing that you are responsible for everything childcare related. the longer it goes on the harder it gets to change things.

Op could you look at going back until he has another job lined up? So he does full childcare until then. You won't have to pay back your maternity pay and it means there's at least one in work and once he's got a job lined up, you can evaluate how you feel about giving up work.

Also def price up a Nanny alongside nursery costs

No. Contrary to mn doctrine not all adults share their finances. One pot doesn’t suit all

Why do you need to step down,stall your career to relieve his career? You’re not the buffer to his stress. If he’s stressed he deals with it, he learns strategies, he shares parenting fairly with you. Your dh earns £100k but thinks paying nursery fees is your responsibility - it’s a shared proportionate responsibility. Earn more=pay more

stop stereotypically stepping up for all childcare and chores whilst he get to carry in unencumbered

The downside is that I’d be giving up a good income for this period and no guarantee that I’d be able to walk back into a role with the same earning potential.

For this reason alone, it would be a no for me.

And what pot would your continued pension contributions come from?

Er no, I wouldn’t give up my job just as DH has been made redundant.

My DH is the sole earner and I have no earning potential and I’m always worrying in case he loses his job! Despite loads of savings.

I do recommend being a SAHM though!! So wait until DH has got a new job. Or you keep working and he can be a SAHD.

With the household income you have and the childcare concerns re working abroad, surely looking at a nanny rather than nursery would solve the issue?

Doesn't help with you wanting to be at home, but fixes the other worries.

I think if you stop work for 12-18 months it'll end up being longer. Juggling primary school age is a headache with the pick ups and holidays. You'll end up thinking 'I'll stay home until the younger one is settled' or 'until Tilly gets past this tricky patch' or 'until swimming lesson is at a better time' and before you know it the youngest will be year 6.

Obviously that's fine if you want it but much harder to get back to work.

Must it be for a fixed period of 12 to 18 months? If your goal is to help you children settle into school and nursery I think 6 months would be sufficient, and perhaps less of a strain financially.

If you think you'd have problems getting a similarly paid job again then why not let your DH be the sahp? He's going to be 'paid' for it 12 months!

“He's getting 100k in his bank but none of his savings are being eaten up, just you who now can't afford to add to them!!”

Just an aside, but if he’s earning £100k, then by the time tax, NI and pension are taken into account, it’ll be closer to £50k going into his bank.

Look around you.... women are paid less for the same jobs, are more likely to be found in lower paid jobs, more likely to take time out (which you already have!!), more likely to bear the burden of childcare, household tasks, care of elderly family members, responsibility for life admin and emotional health of the family and more likely to live in poverty when they are older.

You have already divided household expenditure by gender, you pay for nursery which does not increase in value, he pays for the house which is a long term asset while you deplete your savings. Nursery fees are a family expense, they are not a cost of you working. The cause / effect is the choice to have children and the cost of nursery not, your choice to work and the cost of nursery.

He has a perfect opportunity to allow you to recapture lost career capital as a result of pregnancy and maternity if he takes a year off - fully paid due to his redundancy - and takes 100% responsibility for all household tasks. Then.. when he does go back to work, you are in a much better position as a family, to share household and childcare tasks.

He is in a much better position, being male and with his contacts, to restart his career in 12 months time, to negotiate flexible working, leading from the top, showing his staff that family and work are compatible whereas women are more likely to be frowned upon for building in flexibility for childcare and for taking time off to attend school events and look after sick children with consequents to progression, movement and pay rises.

Taking the pressure of him while he starts a new job will not only have a disproportionate impact on your career, it will also set the mould for your life going forward, that his job come first at all costs, and this will become further intrenched as the disparity in salaries increases.

Yes - you might never have the earning capacity that he has, but are you prepared to accept that the impact of having a family together falls entirely on you? You have already made sacrifices which will have career and life long impacts. Any decision you make now, to take more time off, will only widen the gap between you and your husband or you and the person you could have been had you not chosen to have children whereas having children is more likely to enhance your husband's career.

His take home, excluding pensions which are discretionary, will be approx 67K, her's including bonus will be about 50k - the difference in pay would cover the cost of childcare for one child full time in central London.

Nursery fees are short term and to be able to overpay a mortgage during this period means that overall, they are not struggling to make ends meet so other childcare / home support options are possible.

Out of interest if you take time off to take the pressure off your DH whilst he settles into his new job, do you think in say 3 years time if you suddenly manage to get yourself into an amazing new job that means you could do with the pressure taking off you, do you honestly think he would give up his job to support you? Or will you always be expected to juggle family and work regardless?