Child Care & Tax for Working Or Allowance for staying at Home?

Spendless

Broken_hearted wrote:

His grandmother, she loved it and he loved it. I stayed with my Nana when I was young as both my parents worked so I have no problems with working mothers.
I chose to work as I enjoyed working, I was brought up to believe that it was my responsibility to work and earn my own money. If you want a nice house, cars, holidays and such then you need to work. Infact these days both adults need to work just to get the house.
If you want to stop working to stay at home then you need to accept you are going to have less, not expect other to pay for you to do it.

What sort of hours did you work if you don't mind me asking? I went to work part-time evening/weekend when my eldest was 7 months. An unforeseen financial crisis made me need to look for work. There was a gap of around an hour from me going to work and hubby coming in so my nan helped out. She offered. it was nothing to do with the child being pawned off. She had recently been widowed and has said many times since that my son (her 1st great grandchild) gave her reason to live. I packed in due to ill-health in my 2nd pregnancy and for a few years was a full time SAHM. Last year I got offered some relief work as a dinner lady, eldest was in full-time school by then and nan stepped in for the hour I was at work. As daughter became old enough to go to pre-school without me, I started thinking about work once she's in full-time school. Technology has progressed so much since I left full-time work so I've gone back to college and my daughter is at nursery during the time I am there.

Miss_Cinnabon

vodkaqueen75 wrote:

Thats a bit harsh isnt it? so you are saying that because i want to bring my children up myself pre school I am encouraging 2nd and 3rd generation benefit claiments? how? I am going to go back to work when my children are in full time education, I will never get these years back with them.I chose to be a mother and im going to be a damned good one, thank you.

Too true, we need to give our kids the best in life and they lead by example.

I am also going back to work once kids in full time ed as i believe the first 5 years are the most important. I am also doing studying at home with the OU

Spendless

kyle wrote:

I didn't say i blamed childcare etc i said parents, if a parent does not give children attention they will rebel. If parents are out working all day then when they get in they are too tired to bother with their kids then trouble will start.

Parents have to spend one to one time with their kids regardless if they work or not we have to make time as we became parents for a reason!

Oh right with you. I'm pretty certain that my friends son will have been one of the trouble-makers down my street last week. No friend doesn't work but she's at home in the next village not particularly knowing what he's up to and on the occassion he's been spotted he's always denied it. Guess who she believes:rolleyes:

Spendless

Broken_hearted wrote:

All well and good if you have a partner working, would your point be the same for single parents. They then have the right to live off the state for five years.

AFAIK parents are able to stop on IS till their youngest leaves school without having to attend interviews etc. I've said before if I was to find myself a single parent I would do whichever benefitted my family the most. Having said that money goes down when the children leave school so I would start putting steps in to be financially able to support myself when that day came. At what age I'd start that process I don't know though.

garyrjb

I didi not want to get into the single parent issue with this thread. I just think that the government has got it a bit wrong. To promote family values you dont encourage both partners to go to work you try to encourage people to take parental responsibilties. I actually just wanted to know how many people have had to return to low paid work where big companies force them to work weekends (This particularly happens in the retail sector) therefore for putting extra stresses on the family. Remember family pressures are not just financial. and would the government be better directing some money towards the stay at home hardworking house person who are very often doing extra courses to prepare themselves for future employment as one of the replies said. so lets go back to the original questions I asked. but thanks all for replying so far it is interesting to find out other peoples views. Also i would bet that studies would show that their would be a financial advantage to giving housepersons some sort of benefit on a social scale.

Spendless

garyrjb wrote:

and would the government be better directing some money towards the stay at home hardworking house person who are very often doing extra courses to prepare themselves for future employment as one of the replies said. .

Well that was my answer (I think) but I am helped by the government to do it. That's because firstly the course fee was heavily subsidised and available to all. Daughters nursery fees were only affordable because hubbys employer started offering childcare vouchers which are tax and NI free upto £50 a week and she's about to qualify for funding for turning 3. It's been a struggle till she gets the 3+ funding but we've just about managed.

You mentioned working in the retail sector. I knew if I didn't go back to college then I would only be able to look for shop work (no disrespect to shop workers), and I knew that would mean evening.weekend/bank holiday work, times I all prefer to spend with my family. This is why I'm gaining qualifications now, so hopefully they are all in place in another 18 months time and I can job-hunt once youngest is at full time school.

Something I would love though is if hubby could use my unused tax allowance. Due to the company car he has a whacking negative code whilst I have an unused one.

battybird_2

as a married mum of three both my husband and i work we are very lucky to be able to juggle our shifts so that our children always have a parent at home to look after them now that two of them are at high school and the youngest is in primary "mummy"
is always their to drop of and pick up at school i do the reading and after school chat about their day and start dinner when the husband comes home i go to work
we all win 2 pay packets, my independence, and a good relationship between my kids and their dad if only we were all that lucky

Broken_hearted

Why should working mothers be demonised, we all make our own choices. I am not a bad mother, I was a working mother. Both my children love and respect me. I am teaching them the values of working. They are both boys and will be expected to work when they are older. My parents only had girls and we had the work ethic drummed into us. Both my sister and I went to university, we both own our own homes, have children and chose to work.
The welfare state is not a magic money pot, it can only pay out if people pay in. If every mother chose not to work there would be no welfare state.

filigree_2

In my child's lifetime I've had a fulltime job, been a SAHM, had a school time only job, and now I have a 26 hour/week job. Shortly I'll be a single parent so I can try that role on for size, but I fully intend to work if I possibly can. I think I've got at least a bit of an idea what the alternatives entail.

This is just my personal situation and I appreciate that we're all different:

Shortly I'll be a single parent and I chose to find work with child friendly hours. The tax credits will help us to survive on my low wages, in fact the system is benefitting my son - if I had to earn that money I would be out of the house for longer hours and he'd come home to an empty house. Paid child care doesn't exist in this area for his age group so it's Mummy care or the latch key. I sincerely hope the WTC doesn't botch my claim because we will really need the money.

There are two considerations that I don't think anyone has mentioned :

If I decide to be a full time SAHM for as long as I darn well feel like it, there is an obvious cut off point - he won't be a child forever! One day I will HAVE to find paying work. When he's 18 I'll be 45, and I don't want to find myself struggling to live on whatever pittance IS pay to single adults. I already had 8 years out of the workforce and I don't fancy my chances of finding a job if I left it much longer. I won't always be Mummy inna Pinny and I have to think about my long-term welfare (again, I acknowledge that not everyone's situation is the same as mine).

Secondly, Despite the unemployment figures there is a staffing crisis in a lot of key areas - nursing, teaching and social work to name a few. The majority of people in those jobs are women and a fair few must have dependent children. My son's primary school struggled constantly to recruit enough staff, and if the working mothers in the staff room got bribed to stay at home then I don't know how the school would have coped. 40 kids per class, anyone?

Women go out to work for a number of reasons and you can blame or cheer them on for that choice, it's up to you. Don't forget that work does more than just generate money - a lot of these women make a valuable contribution to society and that can't easily be replaced if they withdraw their labour.

black-saturn

Broken_hearted wrote:

Why should working mothers be demonised, we all make our own choices. I am not a bad mother, I was a working mother. Both my children love and respect me. I am teaching them the values of working. They are both boys and will be expected to work when they are older. My parents only had girls and we had the work ethic drummed into us. Both my sister and I went to university, we both own our own homes, have children and chose to work.
The welfare state is not a magic money pot, it can only pay out if people pay in. If every mother chose not to work there would be no welfare state.

How are you going to feel then if they end up as a single parent on benefit or can't find employment?