8 Comments

I’m a “stay at home” mum after finding childcare unaffordable on my current salary for 2 children.

I completely feel this that the role of the stay at home parent isn’t valued. In the UK you get more childcare support financially when a child is 3 IF you are working. I get 2 full days for my 3 year old and we pay full price for my 1 yr old giving me 1 day i can work. This means as a stay at home mum I am having to work alongside supporting my family full time in a flexible way- I have started my own graphic design business. I can only work one day a week or at weekends and evenings so in a way my work as a parent feels undervalued because I still need to cover the cost of childcare through working evenings and weekends as well as being up every few hours in the night with the youngest. I am completely spent and yet I don’t feel like I am doing enough because I am not making much money. It is so tough after years of being financially independent to rely on my partner and to get out of the mindset that “work” is only work if it earns money. I don’t think about what i’m earning through not sending them to childcare and thanks to your piece that is something I will certainly have on my mind now. Thanks for offering a different perspective.

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Yes! Send me a message and we can coordinate.

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Hello at startup parent

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Just sent you an email. Let me know if you didn't get it.

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Oh my gollllyyyyy how much I love this. We are speaking the same language. Bravo. Brava. Keep going, please. I have a lengthy piece on the math of the hours of the week and why it's so important to have support and help during those 168 hours -- please enjoy, and let me know if you want to talk about this on an upcoming episode if it fits with what you're doing!

https://startupparent.substack.com/p/the-parenting-math-that-doesnt-add

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Sarah, I am so glad we found each other! Your post is SOOOOO GOOD. I love how you broke it all down to hours in a weekend and days that kids are actually in school. I would love to discuss on an upcoming podcast!

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I'm sharing this with my husband. We also have reversed roles, where I work and he takes care of the kids. He struggles with the "values" he was raised with and needs to see more from this kind of perspective. Thanks for this!

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I’m a little bemused that this has to

be spelled out as if the fact that childcare is costly is a shocking fact. (And let’s not ignore the reality that 60,000 fewer daycare workers in the system is surely related to typical daycare worker income - but if they get paid more…) These equations were routine back in the 80’when my cohort was having babies. Unless both parents had high paying jobs, the lower earner was highly likely to stay home with kids. (SAHD were rare but happened even in those dark ages.) We also based location/housing decisions on cost vs income.

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