RETURNING to work after having a baby is a serious business, as I have found out recently.
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This month I have dared to dip my toe into the job market and look for a job outside of my home.
As fun as working from home is it doesn’t pay as much as I’d like it to.
Besides, I think I probably need to get out there amongst some adults and talk about things that are not related to toilet training.
However, accommodating parenting and work hours is tough.
I’ve got a lot of time to give but not necessarily at the time an employer wants it.
I’ve been a stay at home parent for a couple of years now, and this (despite having half a dozen children) is a relatively new experience for me as I’d always had a job of some kind to go back to up until I had my second last baby when it became time to quit.
Still the prospect of returning to work is daunting.
Getting a job is the first obstacle, but the biggest hurdle is managing your home and children once you do get that elusive job, and then there is the cost.
New study results* released this past week have shown that the second income earner in a household, which we all know is probably us mums, are penalised for returning to work.
Turns out the more you earn, the more you lose in government payments.
Your family tax payment is cut in a big way.
Add in childcare costs for two kids, and a parent is looking at only bringing home 20 per cent of their wage. So where is the motivation to work?
Stay at home and get paid only a little less than you would earn if you go to work, with fewer bills. The net effect is that parents are discouraged from returning to work.
My biggest motivation for wanting to work is that my superannuation isn’t going anywhere while I parent.
It is clear that my retirement isn’t going to be as rosy as my husband’s.
Sure I will get to benefit from his super, but who is to say he’ll still be my husband at retirement?
However divorce isn’t on the cards for us... yet.
My point is that we can’t assume we will have support once we get to retirement age.
See how unfair this mothering gig is? Sounds selfish I know, and really we don’t have it as bad as our mums did.
There once was a time when women working in the public sector had to leave their jobs once they married, and this went on right up until 1966.
I’m not putting up a very convincing argument for returning to work and frankly I don’t know what to think either.
Especially when I came across another study (really who thinks of all these studies and why?!) which told me that mothers who went back to work just before the baby turned six months old, were warmer parents than those who stay at home longer.
Well doesn’t that just tear it.
Stay at home too long and we become cold, distant (not to mention poor in retirement) mothers, and it went on to say that we will also be more distressed about it.
Who are they kidding with this result? Of course working parents are warmer to their kids.
This is because they get to spend around eight hours a day away from them.
I could waffle on and say this is because they feel every moment with their children is precious and valuable, but really we know that they’re warmer parents because they got to go out and have adult conversation and go to the bathroom on their own.
That would make any parent happy and sane. I think I’d like to see a study on these studies.
When all is said and done, of course it’s all worth it in the end and we all know how good it is to have your mum home with you at the end of a school day.
I’m pretty sure there is a study on that too.
*Grattan Institute