Women: employment or child care?

[Bella Fortuna]

Gosh I envy people who have had the option of adopting a part-time work schedule (or who were able to stop working at all) as a solution to dealing with the childcare issue. Even when my son's dad and I were still married there was no way we could have survived on less than our two full-time incomes, and we were doing pretty decently for ourselves. Luckily, we were able to find a good daycare facility for the first few years, and then an excellent Montessori program that was really engaging for him (we stuck with Montessori, too - and next year he'll transition to "regular" school... gulp!)

On the other hand, as our child is an only child we grew to see childcare as a social experience for him. While we tried (and still try) to minimise his time spent there a little - such as leaving work a bit early to collect him a wee bit sooner - that time has become important to him to hang out with his friends, and he enjoys it. We never took it personally when he would see one of us arrive and be greeted with an "Awww! But we were just starting to..."

[Beatsong]

Beatsong, you bring up a lot of good points.

We have two young children as well. I share your feelings about the difficulties of bringing them up with two working parents, although in our case we are both self-employed, and I work largely from home, so that allows us a lot of flexibility in tailoring our work patterns around the needs of the kids.

Was tailoring work patterns sufficient before your children were school age?

Actually the youngest is just about to start school in a few weeks. She's been part-time in nursery (day care) for the last two years, which she's really enjoyed, and my wife or myself have looked after her the rest of the time. Over the last year it's been mostly me, and I've taught her to read and done loads of music with her.

I've heard of couples that simply work in shifts, but they end up never sharing time when the whole family is awake, which doesn't seem to me an ideal family situation. Does one of you have work that can be done while taking care of kids?

That can certainly be a problem - I'm not pretending our situation is easy and it takes a huge amount of detailed coordination of diaries in advance.

I can't really work while taking care of kids at the same time. Our oldest is old enough to take care of himself some of the time, and indeed wants to be spending some time on his own, so it's sometimes a case of letting him get on with it while I'm working but in the house. But whenever the youngest is home, as far as I'm concerned I'm with her and that's what my time is for.

My wife gets up early to commute, late afternoons, dinner times and early evenings we have the family all together and then I normally do the kids' bedtimes, read them stories etc. My wife then goes to bed pretty early and I can sometimes do some work at night. I'm a night owl by nature so on nights when I don't have to get up the next day I can stay up late to catch up on stuff if necessary. Weekends are normally pretty free and we do social stuff all together.

Works for us.

Maybe I have an unrealistic idea of norms, skewed by our own experience. But I can't help feeling your concerns are based on a lot of overly absolute assumptions.

To clarify, my concerns are not so much about how to manage the situation given current societal circumstances; I agree there are various ways of managing that, though I think it requires above average incomes to make them worthwhile, given the U.S. tax system. It may be easier in a system less dependent on a graduated income tax, and more dependent on a value added tax, which would discriminate less against working mothers. I certainly agree that the flexibility of being able to get by on one parent working at a time is a big plus, if you can get away with it.

Actually there's a point I hadn't thought of: If one person works long hours and earns lots of money, they move from the base rate tax bracket to the higher rate - in this country from roughly 20% to 40%. Whereas if two people do half that amount of work each, they might each remain within the base rate. Furthermore, each taxpayer gets a tax free allowance - currently c.6K but due to go up substantially. So two low-medium earners will get twice the tax free allowance between them that one high earner would.

I don't know how all this pans out in the USA, and it would of course have to be compared to the advantages in promotion chances etc. that come from working full time. But it does suggest a financial benefit, all else being equal, to having two part-time medium earners rather than one full time+ high earner, doesn't it?

Rather, my concern is primarily that by the time my daughter is an adult, factors like those I mentioned will have led societal norms in the U.S. to revert to "man works, woman takes care of the kids", with the attendant prejudice against women in the work place. If that's the case, setting an expectation on the part of my daughter that she'll focus on her career first and worry about kids later may be swimming against the tide.

Dunno. Here in the UK / Europe the social trajectory seems to be moving towards greater acceptance of women working and more part-time, self-employed and home working, not less.

Finally, you have no idea what sort of person your daughter will grow up into or what she will want out of life. Maybe she won't WANT children, and the only thing that will engage her is having a full-on high powered job. Maybe she'll find a genuine vocation, become a doctor and go to Africa to cure AIDS. Maybe she'll be gay.

Actually, I think we do have some idea. Furthermore, I think we have a considerable amount of control over it. Thus far we've managed to guide her into liking cars and not just dolls, and into having blue instead of pink as her favorite color - both of which are quite contrary to the attitudes of most girls her age. I think it would have been - and would perhaps still be - quite easy to brainwash her into thinking that the purpose of women is to get married and have kids, had we wanted to do that. I do agree there are lots of things we have little control over, but parents do have a lot of influence as well, even if they don't always exercise it consciously.

Sure, but do you WANT to do all that? Or do you want to give her options, and let her develop her own way of thinking about them and deciding what's best for her?

[Twoflower]

My parents owned their own business up until about 4 years ago when they sold it. Growing up my mom worked full time from home while watching my brother, myself, and at times my 5-7 cousins. However as soon as my dad got home from work and on weekends he was the one who would take care of us and my mom would take that time off. Both of my parents were very hands on with my brother and I.

[Warren Dew]

I can't really work while taking care of kids at the same time.

I just figured I'd ask. I keep hearing people mentioning the possibility, but it doesn't seem realistic with any work I'm familiar with.

Actually there's a point I hadn't thought of: If one person works long hours and earns lots of money, they move from the base rate tax bracket to the higher rate - in this country from roughly 20% to 40%. Whereas if two people do half that amount of work each, they might each remain within the base rate. Furthermore, each taxpayer gets a tax free allowance - currently c.6K but due to go up substantially. So two low-medium earners will get twice the tax free allowance between them that one high earner would.

I don't know how all this pans out in the USA, and it would of course have to be compared to the advantages in promotion chances etc. that come from working full time. But it does suggest a financial benefit, all else being equal, to having two part-time medium earners rather than one full time+ high earner, doesn't it?

If that's how it works in the UK, yes, it does suggest that - and perhaps that's part of why the majority of people in this thread with success stories about two working parents seem to be from the UK rather than the U.S. You do still have the issue of hiring or otherwise obtaining some child care, but the tax benefits might help compensate for that.

In the U.S., however, it works very differently. Married couples combine their incomes for tax purposes, and the tax bracket is based on the combined income. It doesn't matter whether one person makes all of the income or each person makes half of it; the couple pays the same total tax. You can theoreticaly file separately, but then each person's tax bracket goes up twice as fast - which incidentally is faster than unmarried people filing separately - so you almost always pay at least as much tax filing separately, and in practice few people do it.

So in the U.S., it's better to have one high earner than two medium earners; you pay the same tax, and the second person has much more time available for child care because they don't work.

Dunno. Here in the UK / Europe the social trajectory seems to be moving towards greater acceptance of women working and more part-time, self-employed and home working, not less.

Based on what you say about your tax system, that makes perfect sense. I suspect our tax system is driving our trajectory in the opposite direction, as any income from additional work by a mother here is taxed at the highest rate the couple pays, rather than at a low rate as in your system.

Sure, but do you WANT to do all that? Or do you want to give her options, and let her develop her own way of thinking about them and deciding what's best for her?

I think we influence her whether or not we intend to. I don't think there is really any way to give an 8 month old an informed choice with respect to what her first toy will be; it's up to us to select between, say, a car or a doll. The same goes for color choices in clothes; if we showed her an assortment of dresses at age 1, she'd be practically guaranteed to pick pink, since that's what 95% of the girl's clothes are at that age. At this age, our not making a conscious choice means the choice is essentially made for us, either randomly or by the manufacturers; I'd rather make a conscious choice where we recognize in time that we are, indeed, making a choice.

[hadespussercats]

Who cares if her favorite color is pink, or she plays with dolls? My favorite color is pink, and I played with dolls, and it never stopped me from learning carpentry or standing up for myself with boys or having my own career, or getting married and (hopefully) having a child of my own someday.

And I have to echo Bella when she indicates that it's something of a luxury to even be able to contemplate having one parent give up his or her career to stay at home with the kids. Most families need two incomes to stay afloat-- that's just the inescapable truth of the matter. Families are ingenuitive about how they deal with this problem, and what works for one family might not work for the other. Trying to develop a one-solution-fits-all is not only wrong-headed, but in your description of it, Mr. Dew, not a little sexist.

[Beatsong]

Actually there's a point I hadn't thought of: If one person works long hours and earns lots of money, they move from the base rate tax bracket to the higher rate - in this country from roughly 20% to 40%. Whereas if two people do half that amount of work each, they might each remain within the base rate. Furthermore, each taxpayer gets a tax free allowance - currently c.6K but due to go up substantially. So two low-medium earners will get twice the tax free allowance between them that one high earner would.

I don't know how all this pans out in the USA, and it would of course have to be compared to the advantages in promotion chances etc. that come from working full time. But it does suggest a financial benefit, all else being equal, to having two part-time medium earners rather than one full time+ high earner, doesn't it?

If that's how it works in the UK, yes, it does suggest that - and perhaps that's part of why the majority of people in this thread with success stories about two working parents seem to be from the UK rather than the U.S. You do still have the issue of hiring or otherwise obtaining some child care, but the tax benefits might help compensate for that.

In the U.S., however, it works very differently. Married couples combine their incomes for tax purposes, and the tax bracket is based on the combined income. It doesn't matter whether one person makes all of the income or each person makes half of it; the couple pays the same total tax.

Wow, that sucks

Doesn't that discourage people from getting married? I should imagine if I were a young open-minded person in a relationship and didn't care that much one way or the other about marriage, I'd be tempted to just stay living together and have a higher combined income. If people have children without getting married first, do they continue to be treated separately by the IRS? If so, do many people do that to save money?

Dunno. Here in the UK / Europe the social trajectory seems to be moving towards greater acceptance of women working and more part-time, self-employed and home working, not less.

Based on what you say about your tax system, that makes perfect sense. I suspect our tax system is driving our trajectory in the opposite direction, as any income from additional work by a mother here is taxed at the highest rate the couple pays, rather than at a low rate as in your system.

Yes, I can see how that would work. In fact it would certainly discourage me from working. My wife earns just into the upper rate of tax, and I earn base rate at a fairly average rate per hour. If my earnings were taxed at 40% because of hers, it really would hardly be worth our while my working at all.

[Kristie]

I'm a stay-at-home Mom. I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything. There isn't really a large enough salary that would make me consider not being the one that raises my children. My hubby makes a very modest salary, and it would be nice to have another income, but it's a sacrifice that we both decided to make. I tried working just part time, after hubby got home in the evenings, but it didn't work for us. Key word being 'us'. I'm sure it works just fine for some families, and I'm sure it works just fine for other families to have both parents working full time.
I don't trust day cares. Hell, I don't trust but a few people in my own family to watch my kids!

[Warren Dew]

Doesn't that discourage people from getting married? I should imagine if I were a young open-minded person in a relationship and didn't care that much one way or the other about marriage, I'd be tempted to just stay living together and have a higher combined income.

Well, it's kind of complicated, because the brackets are generally higher for married couples, but generally not twice as much as for singles. For example, there's a bracket that kicks in at $82,400 for singles, at $137,300 for married couples, at $68,650 for married filing separately, and at $117,650 for "head of household", which includes single parents. Ignoring children for a moment, two professionals both making, say, $80,000 a year would be better off staying single, but a doctor making $160,000 might be better off marrying a part time receptionist making $20,000. And yes, there are definitely people who don't get married because of tax reasons.

This situation is exacerbated by the fact that a married working couple both pay social security, but they don't get the spousal benefits that nonworking spouses get.

Once you have children, the "head of household" status makes getting divorced even more attractive, which seems like kind of a perverse public policy. Most couples with kids where both parents work full time would probably pay thousands of dollars less in taxes if they weren't married. It even works for single income couples: if you get divorced, a working parent can deduct alimony, which is taxed at the nonworking parent's lower tax rate, so getting divorced has financial benefits even if only one parent works. And people wonder why the divorce rate is so high in the U.S.

If people have children without getting married first, do they continue to be treated separately by the IRS? If so, do many people do that to save money?

That doesn't work. You don't get grandfathered; if you're married at the end of the filing year, you have to file married.

Yes, I can see how that would work. In fact it would certainly discourage me from working. My wife earns just into the upper rate of tax, and I earn base rate at a fairly average rate per hour. If my earnings were taxed at 40% because of hers, it really would hardly be worth our while my working at all.

Just keep it in mind next time you see an argument about "taxing the rich" in the U.S. "The rich" that would be taxed would consist mostly of upper middle class double income couples - say, two doctors or two lawyers - rather than the very rare individuals that make as much as two doctors or two lawyers put together.

[ficklefiend]

The good thing about pharmacy is it can be quite flexible. If I stick with it I can always work as a locum, although it's less desirable as a job (you rarely spend more than one day in the same place in a row) you either work for yourself and take on what you want/can, or work out a part-time rota with one company to provide cover.

My dad worked offshore so for two weeks he was always home, then for two weeks my mum was on her own. She worked short days and we were looked after by our maternal granny otherwise. It was good for me I think, I certainly have many wonderful memories with my grandparents.

My step-mum on the other hand hasn't worked for 10 years or something, apart from a brief stint of day-care herself when they had an enormous and lonely house. Dad now works longer periods away and her parents are in new zealand, so the circumstances are quite different from my upbringing. The youngest of their kids starts school in a year, so some kind of care would still be needed if she did work. I wonder what will happen when they're both at school, what she will do after such a long break..

[Thinking Aloud]

(Hi FF!!!)

[ficklefiend]

(Hi FF!!!)

(Oh hai thar!)

[Pappa]

(Hi FF!!!)

(Oh hai thar!)

Hi 2!!!!

[devogue]

Mrs Dev stays at home and looks after the children while I go to work.

We both feel incredibly lucky to be in a financial position to be able to do that. Our next door neighbours both have to go to work and their children stay with their grandmother.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

My Dad is currently having to look after my little Nephew 5 days a week as my Sister and Brother-in-law are both working now, however they've finally managed to sort out a nursery place for him (well, he's been at the top of the waiting list at the nursery for months now - but the waiting list doesn't appear to move very often) which he starts in October.

After that my Dad can start piecing together the remaining scraps of his sanity.

[DRSB]

[youtubeuk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxj1RDbp_iE[/youtubeuk]