Would you leave a £250,000pa job to be a SAHM?

[misosoup]

Ok, I've changed my name for this, not quite sure why....

I really enjoy my job and it is pretty well paid but since I returned to work after having DD2 I have been thinking a lot about this.

I can afford not to work, dh's income is nothing like mine but still above average although it will clearly be a huge drop in our standard of living.

And I miss the kids do much during the day... I spend 2 hours per day with them plus weekends. There is no way I can cut my hours any more and part-time is out of the question.

But I have worked so hard to get here, against all odds. I don't want to throw it all away.

"supporting the state" (quite possibly single handedly - it feels that way, lol)

Fasten your seat belts, I'm feeling irritated today on account of the early start

mw too HMC!

up too early )have been up for ages)

hope you have a good day!

Rhubarb, just wanted to say I agree and sympathise with your last post. We are on a very low income too but dh's job is (as) secure (as can be these days) so I've always been at home, but I do a few part time jobs at evenings/weekends around the kids when dh is at home. I know lots of peolpe who just don't get the level of income we have (£15k altogether) and constantly go on about being skint when I know their dh's bring in £40kplus. I think these people don't mean to sort of rub our noses in it, they just could never imagine the money we have to live on as they've never had to do it themselves. Hope this makes sense! Anyway I'm sure your little boy is doing fine in his nursery, he sounds like he's got a loving and caring mum and at the end of the day THATS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!!

I gave up reading around the 500 mark but 2 things strike me...

firstly would we call a sahd a leech, a parasite? I call mine a lazy layabout from time to time but not a parasite. By not working he saved us money on childcare in the UK and he is completely running our lives here in the Gulf. This move would have been disastrous without his time. The reason I can do the job I do, which I love and which is stupidly busy, is because he chose not to do his career thing. He enables me to be a better boss, parent and partner by not working. His choice - does that make him less of a man? Less able to contribute to society/earning power? I think SAHMs are often enabling the same things from their partners but we're quick to condemn that choice as wasting education/opportunity. Why? Surely the point of feminism is to enable women to have that freedom of CHOICE?

secondly - this whole thing about if you wohm then you aren't a full-time mother is stupid. I'm a mother when I sleep. I'm a mother when I go out for dinner (last time was in 2003 I think...). If you think for one minute that WOHM's aren't thinking about their children on some level while working then you're wrong.

(and on a flippant note - all you who get/got fancy lunches when you WOH... what jobs? I only ever get a sweaty sandwich these days)_

Well I've finally had a post 7am start for the first time in ages, feeling fairly human and I am incredibly irritated by that comment about WAHPs sponging off the state. My DH's tax bill is less than HMC's DH but it's still a fair whack. How on earth is that sponging off the state ? Or is that because if I worked (well I do actually but from home) I would have to pay for childcare therefore creating someone else who would be paying tax to the state ? And I would be delighted for any tax our family paid to help a single mother not have to go back to work, though the only ones I have known have all worked.

And as for a WOHM not being a full time mother, what absolute cobblers. I have friends who work out of the home, they are just as much a full time mother as I am.

Whatever happened to respecting the fact that what is right for one family will be completely wrong for another ? Since when was there a one size fits all answer to this ? Anyone spouting a strong opinion, I respect your opinion, but that is all it is, not the definitive answer to motherhood.

(just for the record QGM I had a year off when I had my ds1, my dh and I were both at uni, my dh stayed at uni 120 miles away on a student loan while I was a single parent in a council flat on benefits. All up until I was pressured and miss-guided into thinking that the best thing I could do would be to get off benefits asap, go back to uni and, oh get a job and childcare in order to support myself.)

To those of you who see single parents people who are sponging off the state by sah.. No. I can't write my opinion because some of your heads might just blow off your shoulders.

meant to add -the point was I could have waited until he went to school and done everything then, probably without as much stress and worry. In the meantime dh could have finished his studies, got a job and rescue me from my sponging.

Xenia there should be a choice and why should single mothers not have one? Does everyone have to make the same choice as you?

In a truly feminist society this thread would be going on about how the workplace needs to give both mums and dads the options for flexible, part-time working in all the interesting as well as not-so-interesting careers so that we can start putting the family at the heart of what we do

if people like misosoup have to make such a stark choice - work or not, again, ever - then something is wrong with our working patterns

am i the only one who wants to go to work but cant afford to???

if i worked then i wouldnt earn enough to cover childcare and we would lose our tax credits. it isnt worth me going back as we would be more skint then we are now.
i dont undeerstand this but hey its how it is . i would love to get a job and change my day-to-day lfe but it isnt happening so i am at home with dd3.

When I looked at ds' sad eyes this morning, when he hugged me and didn't want to let go, when he asked me if the nursery was closed, I sure as hell wished that I was a sahm! What the feck am I doing putting my son into nursery so I can earn £7k a year? What a horrible situation to be in, knowing that my underpaid job is the only secure thing round here, the only way we have to ensure the rent gets paid, bills get paid etc but to think that I might be doing some harm to my son in the process! This is just such a shit society we live in, it's so bloody unfair!

I was talking about single mothers on state benefits with school age children which the Government (not only me) thinks believe themselves to be in a unique position of having a right not to work whilst children are at school whilst many wives have to work. That was all, that narrow. A wife or husband who chooses not to work and their spouse supports them is not sponging off the state at all.

Would I regard stay at home fathers as wrong for their financial dependence on a spouse? The reason it feels al ittle different is because of the 1000s of years of sexism around the globe. That's all. And the fact so many women have been financially dependent to their detriment on their men. Of course if we started with a blank slate today then it should be a neutral issue as between men and women. I do think it can lead to inequities in relationships if one earns and the other doesn't which may cause problems for some couples - people at home resentful of the wonderful life of the worker, worker fed up to the back teeth with work pressure and pressure as sole earner, neither happy etc but that is not the case for all couples in that situation.

As muma says there are issues for some parents who want to work but are caught in poverty traps which we need to try to solve. A guarantee income for all of £200 a week regardless of whether you work or not was my solution below. Another solution is to try to think of something that pays enough to get you above and beyond the poverty trap but that is not easy for most people. There's a 16 hours a week problem I think too in some legislation which stops some women and men taking on more hours.

handlemecarefully, the reason I requoted my grandad's ethical/moral stance on taking benefits payments was because poppets inital question was 'if there were more financial initiatives would you be a SAHP?'
I took this to mean that if you would get more financial handouts/benefits from the government would you stay home with the kids.I replied that No I wouldn't because taking government handouts to me personally isn't something that I wish to do because of the way my grandad etc brought me up.

I did NOT say that all SAHM claim benefits, now did I say that all people who claim benefits are sponges.

To make it clearer, personally I feel that I should work if I can. And that it is not the governments job to support me if I choose to take a career break to gave kids, study, travel the world etc.

Let me get this straight. If I divorce DH and quit work, I can get a house to live in with my 2 kids and enough money to buy groceries and pay the basic utility bills (including of course broadband to access Mumsnet). And I won't owe anybody anything. And other people should go to work and struggle to pay their childcare and never see their own kids so that they can support me in my choice.

There is something a tad bit selfish about that "choice".

Do you know what childcare cost for those of us who pay our taxes? I just checked with a childminder today. If I put my 2 kids into a childminder for long enough for me to commute and work full time, my bill at the end of the month would be £2600. And I only have 2 kids.

Rhubarb, is ther eno way you can look at other job possibilities? and sorry if you've already explained this but surely £7k is less than the minimum wage? or is this for p/t?

I used to earn £11k working p/t but I always quoted my f/t salary because otherwise people assumed I was being underpaid.

Poppet, did you say that you claimed as a single parent whilst your husband was at university?

Rhubarb what do you do?

If you are only earning £7k pa fte that is below the minimum wage! That is illegal isn't it?

so what is the outcome? did she give up her 250k job or what? (personally think we were all being had tbh!)

Rhubarb works part time for the Red Cross, CD.

But even the red cross isn't exempt from minimum wage laws. And if rhubarb works in the not for profit sector (my area) she has good transferable skills to do with peole focused work and might be able to find alternative work.

I don't think we're being had at all, I know several people who earn close to what the OP earns. Fewer women than men but I can think of at least 3 women of my acquintance who earn this amount.

Mmm am loving being at home, sitting on my arse drinking coffee, pottering around, looking after my kids

cheers Uwila for making that possible for me

muma3 ~ I am in the same position. I always knew when I had a second child that it would not be worth me continuing to work. I'm happy enough not working because I am studying for my Master's degree and will jump into a new career, part time, when dd1 starts school or the year after, but sometimes I have felt trapped by this situation.

I love the way my husband is considered an individual when they calculate the amount of tax they want to take away from him (which is our family income)in yet when it comes to calculating how much tax credits/help towards childcare I could claim if I went back to work- suddenly our joint family income is what is important. i.e. I'd get no help towards childcare costs and with 2 in a nursery in the South East, I'd be working for a loss.

Still, if I was severely depressed at home, or had been in a job which was my lifelong career, I would have been prepared to work for a loss for a few years.

The reality is that I have days when I feel like being a SAHParent is wonderful and the best thing for everyone and days when I wish I could walk out the door to work and leave the children with someone else. Doesn't everyone have days where they feel conflicted? For those who have a choice, surely that choice is based on which way the scales tip the most. Assuming that women are so different from one another is not helpful.

Oops - that sounds like it is easy. I might not jump into a new career. I might have to struggle to find my way into a new career.