Affording to start a family when female is breadwinner

onlyroz

Scorpio33 wrote: »

Yes, but the incentives should be aimed at the companies, to provide better parental leave pay to dads.


The incentives should not be aimed directly at the dads.

Well yes of course. By "incentives" I did actually mean incentives to employers. But it follows from this that if employers are given incentives to provide better packages for male staff, then the employees will have more incentive to take up those packages on offer.

onlyroz

ViolaLass wrote: »

I toyed with this but idea of having to get my head around my job again with a baby at home who still wasn't sleeping through the night AND spend my spare time at working pumping seemed daft.

I'm sure it's worked for others, but for me, it was a lot easier to stay at home a bit longer.

I never got on with pumping. It's hard work, painful, and it's not uncommon for a breastfed baby to refuse a bottle regardless of what's put in it.

jtr2803

I'm the main earner by a significant margin and when we were ttc my work only offered smp. We saved £6k to cover me being off for six months, this meant we'd have enough to pay bills and have some disposable income left, unfortunately, just before we found out I was pregnant we realised we need a new roof so bye bye savings.

Very, very fortunately, my annual bonus got caught up in my average earnings assessment for smp so I get more than £7k in additional smp, on top of that work are going to bring in three months full pay so overall I'm going to earn as if I was still at work, otherwise things would be difficult.

I'm taking around 7.5 months, hubby may take the remainder, still deciding!

sweetilemon

I'd have loved it if my husband could have taken longer off while I was still off (as it worked out he was only at work a week as our baby took ill so he got compassionate leave) but for future children it would be great to have him around for longer although not possible with the 2 weeks. If we could take the shared leave together we may have done that but me back at work while he stayed off? No chance! I carried her for 9 months, I went through the labour - the time off is mine.

He tried to convince me on the shared leave, I won on the grounds of enhanced maternity for 12 weeks although I earn slightly more. It didn't work out how I hoped/ expected but tbh in future I think I'd struggle to return to work at all although it's the most sensible financially. I loved breastfeeding on demand and would definitely try to keep that up exclusively for the recommended 6months. Somehow the money for extra things become insignificant against spending time with your baby so I think as long as you can afford the basics but I saved before maternity and even though I've lost my baby I plan on taking my full leave.

Mercenary

Anywaaaaayyy....... back to this thread.....

I can't comment on the work/pay part of this thread, but I can offer this advice (obvious though it is ) from my many years of experience:

There is never a best time to have a baby. You can plan all you like but something can always happen to change circumstances...ie unexpected job loss or jte2803's roof repairs, etc.

You must ignore all the modern social and advertising pressure that tells you that you NEED expensive specific equipment to change the baby's nappies on plus a device to hygienically seal used nappies away, fancy items to bath them in or to sit/lie in. For example -newsflash - nappies can be changed while the baby lies on a changing mat on the floor! Which is exactly what you end up doing for convenience

Yes, it would be lovely to afford every last time-saving, beautiful object that manufacturers come up with to part you from your money, but all a baby needs is a safe place to sleep, to be fed, to be kept warm and clean...and, above all, be loved and interacted with.:)

I've watched my DiL spend a fortune on new useless gadgets and furniture that she eventually realised she didn't need and subsequently sold at a loss through eBay or Gumtree. It was useless to gently hint that the baby wouldn't require it all, but she'd fallen for the hype and found out the hard way. For her second child she is far wiser.

catkins

Scorpio33 wrote: »

I am flabbergasted by some of these replies.

Surely whoever earns the most goes to work full time and whoever doesn't, stays at home to look after the house? The sex of which person does what is irrelevant?

I can understand that the majority of companies are a bit behind the times in only offering extended leave to mothers post birth, and in these situations, I accept that it is best for the mum to utilise this as much as possible, but when it becomes unaffordable to stay off work, she would go back to work. As a dad, I would love to take 6-9 months off after my kids were born, but unfortunately the most I got was 2 weeks. After that I couldn't afford to take any more time off, so went back to work.

I just don't understand the assumption that the mother would go back part time when she is the main earner?

I was the main wage earner when we got married and earned quite a lot more than my OH.

When we were discussing whether to have children or not we talked about him becoming a househusband. He would have been happy to do that even though he loved his job. I knew though that if I had a child no way would I want to go back to work before that child was at least 2. Also my commute was 3 hours a day (ridiculous as we lived in South London and I worked in Central London) so during the week I would not see that much of our child.
We couldn't really afford to live just on his wages alone.

Jagraf

I think it's very difficult to plan. I think back to my 'birth plan' and have a little chuckle at the fairy tale it was! I don't think anyone knows what they want until it happens. I was going to be a sahm but preferred working and went back full time.

Personally I would look at the options for you as a family and be as prepared as possible, knowing it might work out differently.

Also some good advice on stuff you really don't need - we ebayed so many things and threw so many things away.

onlyroz

catkins wrote: »

I was the main wage earner when we got married and earned quite a lot more than my OH.

When we were discussing whether to have children or not we talked about him becoming a househusband. He would have been happy to do that even though he loved his job. I knew though that if I had a child no way would I want to go back to work before that child was at least 2. Also my commute was 3 hours a day (ridiculous as we lived in South London and I worked in Central London) so during the week I would not see that much of our child.
We couldn't really afford to live just on his wages alone.

Couldn't you have compromised by (e.g.) both of you going down to 3-4 days a week and perhaps using childcare for 1-2 days a week? Then you could both have spent plenty of time with the kids while still carrying on with jobs that you loved.

surveyqueenuk

Mercenary wrote: »

You must ignore all the modern social and advertising pressure that tells you that you NEED expensive specific equipment to change the baby's nappies on plus a device to hygienically seal used nappies away, fancy items to bath them in or to sit/lie in. For example -newsflash - nappies can be changed while the baby lies on a changing mat on the floor! Which is exactly what you end up doing for convenience

It's such a con isn't it! Babies thrived perfectly well for thousands of years before these devices came on the market.

catkins

onlyroz wrote: »

Couldn't you have compromised by (e.g.) both of you going down to 3-4 days a week and perhaps using childcare for 1-2 days a week? Then you could both have spent plenty of time with the kids while still carrying on with jobs that you loved.

No, I was a legal secretary and it was full time or nothing. I did the job for almost 30 years (different solicitors) and never managed to cut my hours in the slightest or get flexi time. Because I wanted to work part time by then I went into retail (which I regretted).

OH was a paramedic in the London Ambulance Service and, again, they would not entertain less than full time.

It didn't matter anyway as we decided not to have children but that was just one of the reasons why