Will Messrs Reeves and Raynor Still Be Around This Time Next Year?

Mollygo

^but however much people insist on taking it as a personal criticism and getting defensive will not change the fact that it is not.^
I don’t take it as personal criticism, I take it as a continuous criticism of anyone including me, who doesn’t fit with how you see as what people should do
and you getting defensive will not change that perception.

It works both ways Mollygo. Look back at the number of threads there have been on GN where posters smugly assume that staying at home while their children were small produces the best outcomes. Look at the nasty comments about selfish working parents and handing offspring over to baby farms - all intended to gaslight those who made a choice that the posters didn't agree with.

Absolutely growstuff.
It works both ways but are you saying that makes it right?

Mollygo

Absolutely growstuff.
It works both ways but are you saying that makes it right?

Not at all.

I have a DD who is a SAHM. She does, however, save the government around £14,000 per year by sending her children ×2 to private school.
I don't think she spends all day cleaning the house or polishing her nails. She does walk a neighbour's dog daily for them, and she collects another child from school whose mum works.

Once again another thread has become derailed because of the insistence that working parents somehow have to pay for a SAHP to stay at home and bring up their own children.

There hasn't so far been an explanation of how this works.

When my older DC were very young I managed to do a rather mundane but strenuous evening job four evenings a week, but it must have been below the threshold to pay tax or NI. Oh dear!!
The panic each evening wondering if DH would get home from work in time to take over childcare wasn't worth it.

Mollygo

^but however much people insist on taking it as a personal criticism and getting defensive will not change the fact that it is not.^
I don’t take it as personal criticism, I take it as a continuous criticism of anyone including me, who doesn’t fit with how you see as what people should do
and you getting defensive will not change that perception.

Agree totally👏🏻👏🏻

Allira

Once again another thread has become derailed because of the insistence that working parents somehow have to pay for a SAHP to stay at home and bring up their own children.

There hasn't so far been an explanation of how this works.

When my older DC were very young I managed to do a rather mundane but strenuous evening job four evenings a week, but it must have been below the threshold to pay tax or NI. Oh dear!!
The panic each evening wondering if DH would get home from work in time to take over childcare wasn't worth it.

I’ve always thought SATP are undervalued by society when it’s the most important job anyone can ever do, certainly up to the age of 5 or 6.
Those parents who choose to work full time from the time their maternity/ paternity leave ends are doing just that, choosing their job over taking care of their own child.
For those with absolutely no choice in the matter, and have to work, that’s another story.

I stayed at home when my children were young. It was nothing to do with being in the lucky position of being able to afford to stay at home, there was no nursery care available, none. My parents and parents in law lived 240 miles away and we had no family living nearby at all. Play school, as it was called then, lasted three hours in the morning and children went two or three mornings a week during term time only. We had so little money. Every month was a struggle, waiting for the next pay cheque. My husband took a second job, in the evening. I still couldn’t afford to buy my babies their winter coats, they had them as birthday, or Christmas presents from our parents.
Apparently this was a privileged position because we were able to afford for me to stay at home. What planet are some people on?

I think we were one of those families that Starmer says don’t have any savings and couldn’t afford to write a cheque!

Mollygo

^but however much people insist on taking it as a personal criticism and getting defensive will not change the fact that it is not.^
I don’t take it as personal criticism, I take it as a continuous criticism of anyone including me, who doesn’t fit with how you see as what people should do
and you getting defensive will not change that perception.

Exactly.

And the only way this could be changed into Doodledog’s idea of how it should be, is either a citizen’s tax to be paid by people who choose not to work (and can afford not to work for whatever reason) or by forced paid employment for a certain number of days which is something no government will be prepared to do. Governments will endeavour to get none working people into employment if those people are living entirely on benefits and are fit enough to work. Governments will not introduce a citizen’s tax, nor will they try to force people who can afford to support themselves into work. To do so would be either pure communism or pure fascism.

madalene

I stayed at home when my children were young. It was nothing to do with being in the lucky position of being able to afford to stay at home, there was no nursery care available, none. My parents and parents in law lived 240 miles away and we had no family living nearby at all. Play school, as it was called then, lasted three hours in the morning and children went two or three mornings a week during term time only. We had so little money. Every month was a struggle, waiting for the next pay cheque. My husband took a second job, in the evening. I still couldn’t afford to buy my babies their winter coats, they had them as birthday, or Christmas presents from our parents.
Apparently this was a privileged position because we were able to afford for me to stay at home. What planet are some people on?

I think we were one of those families that Starmer says don’t have any savings and couldn’t afford to write a cheque!

It’s always been almost all down to choice in the end. Choice about career path, choice about marriage. Choice about having children. Choice about where you live. Choice about husband and your jobs fitting around childcare. Choice about use of childminders, access to nurseries, family members who help look after children, gap between children’s ages. We all make our beds.

They don’t have cheques here anymore. Wonder how Starmer would cope with that ? Silly man, silly comment.

It’s always been almost all down to choice in the end
I disagree with that; as madalene points out, childcare was non-existent, life was not at all like it is now. There was no choice.

I just find the idea that SAHM were funded by the state puzzling. They are made out to be lazy women, leeching on society and not pulling their weight for the overall good.
It seems to be a recurring theme on every political thread thread and of course, posters should be entitled to offer a different viewpoint without being condemned.

I think the thing which angers some posters is that, for some time, the rôle of SAHMs was thought to be valuable by successive governments so they were, after 1978 (but *not before then*) credited with NI contributions so that the years they needed to claim some SP in the future was reduced.
They were not paid to sit at home (sic).

Now, of course, it is much easier for mothers to return to work because of the availability of nurseries and because the Government helps by providing vouchers to help pay nursery fees.

No different - swings and roundabouts, except that the nursery vouchers are worth far more than a few years' worth of NI credits.

However, those who run nurseries were in the news, worried about the increase in employers' NI contributions and in the new National Minimum Wage (3 x times the current inflation rate) and wonder if they can keep going.

The point was Casdon, that the only choice for some people was to stay at home with their children, or to have no children!
Perhaps you think that’s okay, but many didn’t, so opted for the difficult position of staying at home because there was no childcare. Not free childcare like is offered today, none!

I find your response rather callous to be honest.

It’s always been almost all down to choice in the end. Choice about career path, choice about marriage. Choice about having children. Choice about where you live. Choice about husband and your jobs fitting around childcare. Choice about use of childminders, access to nurseries, family members who help look after children, gap between children’s ages. We all make our beds.

😂

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

I should have interviewed DH in more depth before I said I will.

I find your response rather callous to be honest.

It's quite breathtaking!

Perhaps some people live perfectly planned lives.
It sounds rather robotic.

nanna8

We barely have cheques here anymore either, I was using pay cheque as a figure of speech. Actually, my husband was paid directly into the bank.

Although in the late 70s, people did have cheque books and write cheques.

gap between children’s ages
Good grief!! That certainly is a most astonishing remark!
😯

What part of the points I made about choice do you disagree with Allira, it was just a list of the choices every woman makes?
Childcare has never been non existent. Some women have always worked outside the home. There was less available, but progressively since the Second World War organised childcare increased. What caused it to increase was demand. Certainly by the time my brother was born in the mid 1960s nurseries were available and childminders were in regular use - my brother went.

Why is an astonishing remark to say gap between children’s age is a choice Allira, when it is? It’s commonplace for couples to space out their children so they can afford nursery fees!

Obviously you planned your life out meticulously, even down to when you could conceive.

No miscarriages, no problems, no thought of what other people might go through.

Choosing a husband who works 9 - 5 and is home every night.

Perhaps you never realised that not everyone's lives are like that. Just astonishing.

Depends where you lived at the time surely? If you lived in a village then finding an all day nursery and managing to get there maybe by public transport could have been impossible.
Many SAHP like myself went without on a regular basis of any treats or hols or clothes in order to be with my kids all the time until they were older and at school.My choice yes and the right one for the kids and the whole family but it wasn’t done cos we were rolling in it, far from it.

Casdon

Why is an astonishing remark to say gap between children’s age is a choice Allira, when it is? It’s commonplace for couples to space out their children so they can afford nursery fees!

😂and even more common to suddenly find you’re expecting.

There may have been a nursery or two but in the main there were no nurseries.

Allira

Obviously you planned your life out meticulously, even down to when you could conceive.

No miscarriages, no problems, no thought of what other people might go through.

Choosing a husband who works 9 - 5 and is home every night.

Perhaps you never realised that not everyone's lives are like that. Just astonishing.

You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, I don’t know why. I’m not saying I was the perfect planner, I’m saying I made choices - and although you obviously think it was the system, not your own free will, so did you. I’m not criticising you or anybody else for your choices, just saying that you did make them.

Oreo

Casdon

Why is an astonishing remark to say gap between children’s age is a choice Allira, when it is? It’s commonplace for couples to space out their children so they can afford nursery fees!

😂and even more common to suddenly find you’re expecting.

😂
Not to some on here, it wasn't in the long-term plan.

I heard of a woman who decided she wanted to divorce her husband and she sent him a message saying:
"You are not on my agenda for next year".
She is a high-powered career woman, no children.

She has made great contributions to society and is obviously a very organised planner.

Would that we were all so single-minded, perhaps society would be so much better.