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.

don't joke about it, UCM. My father was governor of a quite pricey girls private school and explained that girls' private schools have this funding problem because their fees have to be half that of boys schools, because people won't pay as much to educate their daughters.

I'm just going to cry now.....

Anyone would think we popped out of the womb as WOHMs or SAHMs. 99.9% of us have worked in the past (100%?) and a similar proportion of us will work in the future, if we aren't working already. It isn't set in stone. You can - amazingly - decide you want to care for your babies yourself for a few years, then maybe get a two day a week or school hours only job or mix paid work and voluntary work for a few more years before rejoining the workforce in a full time or part time capacity later on. Why on earth do some people get so incredibly upset because women want to take a few years out of their thirty or forty years of working life? What's such an appalling role model about a woman who wants to do that? I took a year off with my second child and was glad to do it. I work part time now. It didn't make me a totally and completely different person or 'drain the state' (my bank account, yes). I don't think childcare is beneath me either. It's boring and stressful and draining sometimes, but so was my high-powered former life. I think there is less crying in my house with three kids than there was in my old office.
I think finding new ways to work when you have kids is an eminently sensible thing for all parents to consider.

Hear, hear Bibliophile! That is so true. We ALL have a choice.
Our children are only young once and once that time is gone it is gone FOREVER.
Kids are not that bothered about having the latest toys and gadgets, they just want someone to appreciate them.
Yes, i'm a SAHM and i have been working 12 hour days for 15 years before having kids.
I just see this as a "new chapter" in my life and when both kids are at school in 2008 then i'll go and earn some money.
And by the way as a SAHM there is nothing to stop us doing some voluntuary work every now and again.
Adele.

Ripeberry - have you read this thread?

The fact is that many people do not have a choice at all!

That's what pisses some of them off so much!

I know, I think the hardest thing in the world is to go to work every day hating your job and missing your kids but needing every penny. Going to work and enjoying it - fab. Staying at home and affording it and enjoying it - fab.

Bibliophile - the voice of reason

thankyoupoppe, this is the nub of it - some working mothers like me don't think the children are harmed in any way by our good quality child care. I also left 5 children to work but I was still a mother and spend lots of time with them. You think it's better if the mother is there. I don't. We aren't going to solve that on this thread but no working mother should assume she's harming her child because my view may well be right.

Good point whoever said it was a middleclass issue. It's angst when for many having enough food and avoiding death are higher priorities than whether you work or not and in some sectors of society getting those children into free day care is the best thing you can do for them given the homes some (not all by any means) live in.

Another issue, some stay at home parents are truly appalling to their children. Probably all of us have been there to some extent with our children, cross, shouting at them etc but all the time because they're frustrated at home - that is never good for children.

FredA/UCM there are still parents like that particularly those sending daughters to the very worst very academically poor boarding schools, girls in effect educated to marry well. I suppose one point of teenage girls and I've spoken to loads at careers events over the years is what they want in life. I also think they need to realise having babies is a time limited thing too so you need to build it into your plans, not put it off until you're 39 as often that in effect means you can't have babies. I am still glad I had our first at age 22 whilst all my contemporaries waited ntil they were about 35 and my brother is turning 40 now with 2 under 3s,. Some people space out their life like that - 15 - 20 years of work/massing assets, doing good or whatever and then the child stage. They almost make a career of the being a parent (poor over parented children I often think) or you do it more like me - children and career going ahead in tandem and rubbing along together which feels a bit more like real life. I'm not sure this putting your all into little spoilt emperors at home who can barely wipe their bottoms without mummy being there because mummy is making full time motherhood her full time activity and she must be the best at it... always does the children good. But working and non working parents are both good and bad so hard to generalise.

A lot of SAHM think that is best for their children. Some working mothers like me think it does children no harm at all if mothers work (and that indeed there are some advantages to the children - I'd even include financial here - aren't children who are loved with good nannies whose mother earns £250k going to have a better life in some senses at good schools with leisure and money better than if teh mother chose not to work and they lived on the husband's £16k salary a year... surely the money has some impact - poverty and various problems go together and are very well documented)...... Then again soime working mothers feel guilty (I don't feel guilt - I'm terribly lucky) and would prefer to be home and some SAHM hate it and wish they could work.

These are just as much father's issues. I will be happier when men are having long threads like this about these topics. Children have two parents.

As a stay-at-home mother to five 'spoilt little emperors' I find your veiws laughable and ill - informed.
Glad it worked for you - I prefer my way - at home with my babies.
It is very 'real - life' . I feel that in order to forward the status of women in society - an ethos of mutual respect needs to be established. Condemning the sahms as you do Xenia seems to do nothing but enhance the 'damned if you do and damned if you dont argument'
I do find you narrow minded

I am extremely miffed by this sweeping statement Xenia

"Some people space out their life like that - 15 - 20 years of work/massing assets, doing good or whatever and then the child stage. They almost make a career of the being a parent (poor over parented children I often think)"

I did the 20 yr career and then SAHM but I am most certainly not a 'helicopter parent', in fact my kids went to nursery part-time so that I didn't have to be with them 24/7.

Yes, it's always a choice between earning £250K a year or £16K...
For someone who doesn't like to generalise, you make a hell of a lot of generalisations.

a sad thread here about the reality of being a working mum for a lot of people

I didn't say all chidren of stay at home mothers are overparented. Some are. Depends on the personality of the mother. Some manage a bit of benign neglect and don't have that over zealous we must have the best costumes for the school play etc kind of attitude which isn't good for the children. You get some working mothers like that too. I was trying not to generalise but I don't see why we can't have freedom of speech and mention a few areas where children of working mothers might benefit just as SAHM go on so very much about how much better they think it is for their children. We all have our lists of benefits on both sides and many people have boots in both camps and lots of people have no choices at all.

This thread is so long now I can't easily scroll back up to see if there were anything else I wanted to say. The main point is it's difficult (and rewarding) being a parent and parents have more in common than they have differences.

Presumably studies could be done comparing outcomes in terms of psychological health and life outcomes looking at things like mother stays at home children in poverty, mother stays at home very rich husband, mother works etc nad then look at income levels. I suspect as long as you're not so poor you can barely cope there aren't huge disadvantages if the mother earns no income. But some things might differ depending on parental income in our rather unfair society in materialistic terms. Like children who go to private schools earn £XXX more throughout their lives or whatever that recent survey was. They might be hugely miserable with the extra income but then they may not, instead their lives may be easier because the mothger worked to afford the fees. Then look at all those chidlren shipped off to boarding school at 7 who then saw my father as psychiatric patients - that's parental neglect and amusing a lot of those mothers don't work but still send the chidlren away (for their supposed own good)

Really we should be supporting a variety of different ways to bring up children - there must be as many as there are children themselves. Most sensible, caring people know when they are getting it roughly right with their kids surely?

Most of this sounds like a huge guilt fest which often lands on mother's shoulders yet again. Isn't the problem more about the fact that men (rich, white etc)* have dominated and structured the work place for so long that it is hard to bend and shape this model to suit changes in society like women entering the work place? We would almost have to start from scratch to get it right so while change is slow, a bit of tolerance for a variety of ways to parent, please. After all, most of us are trying our best to strike some sort of balance.

*But I don't mean to exclude men from this debate at all.

yawn

custardo woud just like to say I agree with everYword of your post on Tuesday, 7 November, 2006 10:21:29 PM.....well said much more eloquently said than I can manage at the moment baby brain still very much in control here lol.

xenia, you are right, there is no way you and I will ever reach agreement if you think it is ok to leave five under 5's while to go to work for 12 hours each day.

For you to suggest that the kids might be better off like this because they are more likely to get sent to private school or because they will get bought more stuff, just plain weird!

I totaly disagree that this is a middle class issue (maybe from where you are standing). It is an every class issue imo.

This thread has made me think about this issue a lot, as it has many others. I feel really strongly about career women not given their basic women's right to be given the opportunity to raise their young without being penalised financialy and in terms of their carrer progression.

To reach this would be an incredible achievement for women.
It would also be great for the little ones.

COD for someone who is so 'effed off by this thread that they need to start a thread to make it goooooo' -you can't seem to keep away. how strange.

Men and women are equally penalised in some jobs if they take time out at crucial career moments. To give any special treatment to women just damages their work prospects. Parents can pick jobs where time out doesn't affect their work. Depends on the job and some women work for themselves anyway.

Money..... if the income difference is £250k or zero then I do think having that kind of spare money does help the children. They will be given opportunities and chances that they wouldn't otherwise have than if they were brought up on a council estate at a local school where getting A-C at GCSE is rare and few go to university.

If the mother would never earn more than £20k a year then the child care going to cost as much so hardly worth her working so I suppose the income level of the mother or father matters in terms of money and work. As well as all the other things on here like some parents work to retain their sanity.

The suggestion childcaer is a female issue at work is so damagning to women. It's when men are asking as much as women for reduced hours and to go home because the child is sick that we will get more fairness at work.

I hope I'd be happy earning very little. The thing I like to do like read, sing, walk, even go to church, think, dig the garden, yoga, they don't cost much money at all. But I do like earning quite a lot too because it gives me the ability to do things like pay for school fees, take us skiing, pay husbands huge sums on divorce (lucky me) ... etc... Also sometimes it makes me feel good, not in the sense I think I'm better than anyone else (I'm a Cathlic and think everyone is equal) bur because it makes the hard work feel better than if I were doing the same hours but cleaning the toilets on the early shift at Heathrow airport.

Can I just quote riab "How can you have 2 unplanned babies? one mistake I accept - we've all had a scare. But after getitng pregnant by mistake once how can you not ensure that it doens't happen again in this day and age with the pill/condoms et al?" Have you ever thought that it might not be that easy for some people? Has a condom never split on you then? Lucky old you eh!

Nothing is being achieved by this thread except to make people's blood boil. I've never heard so many Tory views condensed in one place before!

Wow I thought I was thick skinned but of all the views on this thread, it's actually riab's that has really got under my skin! Well done riab!

Are you going to the meet-up perchance?

xenia men and women are different and will therefore have different needs/rights to fight for. (men don't need time off to give birth for example)

Private school to council estate? there are quite a few people in between that spectrum btw.

You seem to bring it back to money the whole time, I guess money is what drives you.

I've learnt a lot from this thread (sorry if it has bored some of you ) jeremy vine on radio 2 at lunchtime today had a good discussion today on the sah debate. listen again online is available.

I have had 2 unplanned babies

believe me, if I, Mrs Anally Retentive can, anyone can

it could happen to any one of you

Hope it works out for you, I really do! Good luck mate!