To not understand why people are anti benefits to SAHP but want more help to pay childcare?

@reginafelangee

*Why?

Because one is paying you for you to stay at home and the other is helping you get out to work.*

They’re not just ‘at home’ though are they - they’re looking after their children. A task that most parents deem important enough that they’re willing to fork out significant sums of money for someone else to do.

This is partly semantics. You wouldn’t think of saying to a nanny ‘what do you DO all day? Why should I pay for you to ‘stay at home’??’ But you see it all the time in a veiled way.

What I did come on here to say is that much, much more should be done to enable mums and dads who have taken career breaks to reenter the workforce. Many of the most important skillsets are transferable and don’t disappear.

One is an investment, even if a potential one, the other is a net loss.

I don’t mean to denigrate SAHPs, but the difference from the government’s point of view is that someone going out to work is contributing economically. So they’re putting into the pot as well as taking out, basically. An SAHP on benefits is only taking out

Unless you are earning in excess of £40k p.a. then you are getting more from the government than you are putting in.

Lots of working parents don't earn enough to pay tax and/or get tax benefit and child benefit.

It's interesting that so many posters don't get that it is absolutely possible to be working, not earning enough to pay either NI or income tax and still receiving state help towards childcare. Seriously, do the maths. NI kicks in at about 8.5k, income tax at 12.5k, do people really not understand that there are loads of workers earning less than this? And there's really no guarantee that the people being employed to do the childcare will be paying any NI, tax or pension contributions themselves. Most childcare workers aren't paid much above NMW. If they only work a couple of days a week/bit more than that but term time only, hardly an unusual state of affairs, they won't be earning enough to pay NI or tax and the amount their employers will be paying into their pensions will barely be anything.

I'm still in favour of subsidy for working parents on a low income anyway, but it is absolutely possible to cost the state more by working than you will pay in. And continuing to work in those circumstances doesn't mean you're automatically going to earn more later, either. Some people just aren't ever going to be able to earn much.

@mamapants

Sure some won't be earning much. But many are earning enough to contribute will be. Not everyone is on the breadline or in entry level jobs.

And the ones who find it hardest are those who are not entitled to any help and who can't afford to stay at home.

everyone who pays tax is contributing. Whereas if you are choosing to stay at home on benefits then you are taking.

I think staying at home is great if that's what you want to do. But pay for it yourself.

Benefits should be for those who cannot work or a safety net for those temporarily out of work.

It shouldn't be a long term lifestyle choice.

If it all equates to the same amount roughly out of the public purse then neither choice should be seen as better than the other but you’re right ....sahp painted as lazier for that choice

I agree OP. I'm a single working parent and I get tax credits. And I don't pay tax because I don't earn enough.

I prefer being at work though but I didn't go back until DS started school.

I find it interesting that people often describe being a SAHP as being a "luxury" - but the vast consensus on MN is that it's harder being a SAHP than a WOHP.

Or that SAHPs on benefits are lazy. They would never say that to a SAHP who was financially supported by their partner. And a lot of those SAHPs on benefits are single, doing all the parenting with little help from the other parent. Far from lazy in my eyes.

And the folk needing help to pay for their childcare are the ones working paying taxes to fund you staying at home.

Why?

Because one is paying you for you to stay at home and the other is helping you get out to work.

I agree with you op.

I think staying at home with your kids or working a shitty min wage job to fit round school is seen as beneath a lot of mn.

Probably because those who go back to work and claim childcare help are still working and paying taxes to raise their kids and do their bit for society.

Is raising the next generation not doing your bit for society - unless you're a childminder and being paid for it?

I agree with you op, it's not a very fair bias. Honestly I think encouraging mothers or fathers to be able to care at home for their child extended is important and mostly likely better for the child.
Better support in both areas would be great

I don't really support either more subsidised childcare, or funding for parents to stay at home.

Rightly or wrongly I think both would be seen as targeting mothers so they would be pressured to change their behaviour whilst fathers get to carry on like nothing has changed.

I'd rather see incentives for employers to offer more flexible working, and better paternity leave and shared parental leave, so that both parents are encouraged to play a more active role in parenting during the early years. Too many of my friends are run ragged doing most of the childcare/house stuff and often struggling to work as well whilst their partners' lives seem to have barely changed at all!

Yes on a purely financial basis, it often makes little sense. If you are a single mum with two young children in a minimum wage job you could very well be getting far more in childcare subsidy than you pay in tax. It's ideological. Given that most women (And men) want to spend more time with their children I do think we should be have a more nuanced approach. Imagine if the government limited childcare subsidy to over 3s and put the extra money into increasing maternity leave/parental leave so that most families were able to mostly have family looking after under 3 year olds. It would be transformative and potentially improve career prospects as less women would give up work fully and they could get back to work more easily.

*£210

Tax on a wage that would attract childcare paid bus tax credits is going to be much less than £220 a week.

Well yes @Tanith. Sadly the rhetoric rarely matches the reality in uk government policy. Underfunded services are a real issue.

If you're working you're paying tax and national insurance, and generally childcare support would cost less than funding a family on benefits.
No not if your not a single parent. Childcare via tax credits is £210 a week, if the mother stayed at home the extra tax credits paid would be much less when her partner is working.

Decades of brainwashing and lose of value (can't think of the word, diminishing or something ) of parents being at home for the child rather than being shoved into full time childcare. Yanbu, at all. Our 'culture's as modern mothers haven't improved things at all.

The issue is segregation. Most mums (and many dads) would opt to stay home until their youngest turn 5 if they could afford it. Many can't.

So why do some parents deserve to spend more time with their kids than others or why are some kids more worthy to have their parrnts look after them 24/7 than others?

If all parents went with their wishes they're wouldn't be enough taxes paid to support everyone and the gambling public services.

Being a shp shouldn't be a choice unless it can be afforded.

@Woomawang You miss my point. I was answering another poster who claimed that the money going to the childcare provider was increasing employment.
In fact, by putting so many settings out of business, they are decreasing employment and driving down wages as we rely more and more on the big nursery chains.