Mumsnet Talk

I've been chatting with DP this evening and mentioned a post that's been doing the rounds on facebook. It's from a lady sending a message to This Morning about the cost of childcare - on the surface it's a powerful post.

To cut it down:

'I am looking to return to work next year and child care will cost 810 every 4wks - this is more than our mortage!!. The government should help with child care costs.'

DP and I agree with it's sentiment - that child care costs are crippling families, but not necessarily with helping for the costs - he said:

"This is why feminism should have laid down some rules. Both parents earning an income meant banks salivated and started lending for homes based on both. This has forced up prices to cover this as house prices are a function of the amount being lent. Society as a whole loses, bankers win. What should have happened is when you have kids, both parents should be encouraged to work part time so that childcare is shared - or failing that the higher earner whichever gender should have been the one to work. Problems like this wouldn't have happened."

It struck a chord with me - what do you ladies think?

Having fallen into the two income trap families are now discovering that two incomes are sometimes not even enough.

That's more a problem with the banks/government that the feminists.

I agree stuntgirl - it's a problem with the banks and government, but we all have to take some responsibility for going with it .

I'm surprised at making a connection between mortgage lenders and feminism that's asking for a flaming. The commercial lenders saw an opportunity for joint income mortgages and took it...

£205 per week is no mean a living wage to start with. Its also pretty bloody cheap if it was London full time. Inflation, living cost etc, dictate a wage and I couldn't live on that.

I do agree that there should be greater provision by the government for families especially with younger children, how it would be done I don't know increasing taxes isn't the way. ho hum... Good point just the feminism bit is a red herring btw I'm a bloke

I don't get the feminisim should have made some rules bit. Feminism is not one group or person.
Who would have made the rules.

In an equal society both those options would be available. And for me they were. Me and dh worked around eachother and the kids.

So the answer to over lending is to force one parent to stay at home?

What a load of tosh.

And more than a little bit of a stretch to lay this at the door of feminism. If you can't afford 800 per month for childcare on two salaries, how are you going to pay the mortgage and all the other bills on one? Or do women just earn "pin money" <vom> in most households?

I think DP's point was that when women started entering the workforce, this should have flagged up and thought about more. If everyone had said no to being offered the massive debt based on two fulltime wages, the banks would have been powerless.

I think, that way back in the 60's/70's when women were starting to re-enter the labour market, it was because many women wanted a more fulfilling life, equality, their own income and because they were educated they wanted to make use of their education. However this coincided with a time when capitalism was hitting a cycle where lower wage rates could be used to prop up falling profits. Capitalists seized on the fact that there was no longer a labour shortage, drove down overall wage rates, so while women campaigned for equal pay.....we have only achieved it only through wage suppression.

It was probably changes in the 80s to do with mortgages that didn't help.
Lots of rules changed compared to the 70s where lending came down to an interview with your local bank manager.

What rules could feminists make

another see what feminism has done just wrapped up in a less aggressive way

When did women start entering the workforce then? As far as I am aware women have always worked, both inside and outside the home.

think DP's point was that when women started entering the workforce, this should have flagged up and thought about more.

But in an equal society, men should have thought about this too.

Both people in a couple should consider this when buyng a house.

I think it's bollocks.

'Feminism' isn't in a position to 'set rules'. We have a government and a legal system, neither of which are strikingly feminist.

I don't think there was an iota of anti-feminism in DP's statement - he says that both parents should share the workload in the best case, or whoever earns more should be the sole income. It's not a rant against it

After the war many women went back into the home, this coincided with better pay over that period from 1950-1070 wages were rising.

I don't think your DP has really thought that comment through, has he?

Agree Pamela - both sexes should have thought it through obviously. But we didn't.

*I don't get the feminisim should have made some rules bit. Feminism is not one group or person.
Who would have made the rules*

this ^

Oh yes, It's all feminism's fault.

Could his tone be any more patronising? And ridiculous, it isn't only women's responsibility to think through what he is talking about. The patriarchy really should have had a conscience in the first place.

OK - it was poor phrasing perhaps. It's not about setting rules, it's more about falling into a trap.

How would both sexes thinking it through work, though?

The issue isn't that no-one thinks about this stuff, I reckon: it's that it's hard to implement changes from a fairly powerless position (ie., the one most of us, male and, especially, female, are in). We're individuals. The power is in the hands of the government and it is also cemented by hundreds of years of doing things in a way that makes it harder for women.

To blame 'feminism' is missing the point.

I agree LRD, I'm wondering when "we" should have made these rules and if we had, who the hell would have listened and exactly what power have women had to set the ground rules.

But it is an anti feminist rant op.

Because he is saying ' feminism should have thought about this' is blaming feminism.