Sorry Xenia...

Lol.

It's taken you almost 16 years to acknowledge the apology 🤣

Oh dont worry poppet

Xenia - some people get over their childhoods (or are just born more resiliant) and some don't - my partner's brother did not survive but my partner is pretty down-to-earth. He certainly, however, does not wish to repeat the excesses of his own generation and childhood. He's a very, very, VERY talkative person - not a bottler-upper in any shape or form. So that probably helped him get a lot of perspective

And some employers do provide a lot of help where it is the only way to keep good staff, some off 3 months full paid leave etc. too.
I think the French can be more kind of hard because they suffered that emotional disturbance as children may be.

I think I would be worried about a relationship with a man who had had that kind of early trauma age 3 and sent away for holidays.

karen999 - i am not complaining about the high cost of childcare, i am complaining about it being so difficult to work in any kind of professional role due to the cost of the childcare.

I know it sounds like the same thing but it isn't actually. If the govt wants women working they need to do something to subsidise childcare. I am sure in the next 10 years it will become tax deductible.

When you work it out per hour, it is quite reasonable. I have nothing but admiration and respect for the nursery staff - and think they are underpaid. It is just that wanting to work, and the govt/corporations not wanting to lose skilled talent, is not doing anything to make it easier.

Xenia - the concept of "proper care" is different... but yes, I do think that French adults in the circles I move in (professionals, business people) often had a very tough childhood by some measures when I compare it with my own and that of my English contemporaries. Hence, perhaps, the very thriving shrink industry.

My partner and his brother were sent away on colonies de vacances (camp, ie without parents) every holiday except the summer from when they were 3 and 5 , and that was completely standard among their contemporaries. I could give plenty of other examples...

Yesterday I was at the check out at La Grande Epicerie and the woman ahead of me in the queue struck up conversation. She was a retired French lady who had worked as a scientist for Boots, so had travelled extensively to England. I asked her whether she was enjoying her retirement/grandchildren and she said - "Oh no, I'm bored - but of course here in France we don't have those lovely houses and all those domestic and gardening activities that you English can enjoy".

The infrastructure of life is different here. So people turn out differently too.

So does this affect French adults when they grow up - lack of proper care when children? I wonder if most people in a culture are brought up one way and someone brings up their own chid differently does it then make it harder for that child to fit in because say it's the only child who wasn't sent to board at 7 (UK, old days) or only child who had loving parents or whatever.

As we had so many children it was always cheaper to have them looked after here at home.

In some countries childcare is cheaper - I was talking to someone in Finland. The annual childcare was I think one tenth the cost of the UK but tax was over 60%.

Childcare cost in the UK is high and to be quite honest so it should be. You are leaving your children with these people so why shouldn't you pay for it? My mother worked in a nursery (which made a lot of money) however she was only paid £4.00 per hour, despite being qualified. She used to laugh at how some parents complained of the high cost whilst driving up in their Mercedes. Some used to ask her if the nursery was open on Christmas day!!

Having children is expensive on many levels...however if you wish to put your children in full/part-time child care then perhaps it isnt worth many mothers/fathers working. I dont see though that it necessarily follows that many should complain about the high cost of childcare. I know some mothers who complain about the high cost of childcare, who live in expensive houses and have their nails done once a fortnight. I have no problem if this is the kind of lifestyle that they want, but why always make out you are so hard up because of child care costs....they're not....they are hard up because of the lifestyle they have chosen.

I am all for women choosing what they want to do.....but what gets on my nerves is when they moan about it.. Xenia is right about what choices you make in life. I was on a low salary for years and for me it was not worth going back to work. I wanted to go back and have a decent job, with a decent salary, so I put myself through uni......which is great because I now can afford childcare. And I dont moan about the cost of it.

That was only slightly tongue-in-cheek, because I do know of scenarios like the one I describe .

I think French/Parisian concepts of a thriving child are somewhat different to English concepts of a thriving child. You know, as long as the children are getting 18/20 at school (pretty easy, standards aren't high for clever offspring of clever parents), doing tennis, ballet and music lessons satisfactorily and learning to ski in the holidays, tout va bien. And if tout ne va pas bien, there is, of course, le psy .

blueshoes - they will have one or more nounous, and perhaps a student after school for homework who they may or may not have actually met. It is not really considered necessary to meet the people who care for your children in person...

Interesting, Anna. If nounous are as prevalent and unqualified as you describe, wouldn't the result show up in the happiness/wellbeing of the child? If the child is not thriving, do their parents ignore it?

I must remember to speak to my Parisian colleague about what he does for childcare, as he and his wife are high-flying lawyers and, from his conversations, enthusiastic and loving parents of 2 little girls.

Elfriend - I once shared a flat with an astro-engineering student who said - with a straight face - that the reason they didn't let women become fighter pilots is that they "leak" at high G. Makes you wonder how they're padding the female shuttle crew?

blueshoes - no. The standards for paid childcare are just lower here.

There is no gap in the market - parents are not prepared to spend much on childcare (as, indeed, they are not prepared to spend much on school/education).

I have friends (English, Canadian) who have imported qualified nannies from England, to whom they paid English-level salaries. I'm sure they were kind, well-meaning employers but they ended up with miserable, lonely nannies who felt they were looked down upon by society here.

amidaiwish, I read 'travel' as 'commute', rather than travelling for work to other countries. And £70 is ft salary rather than prorated. I see the problem - any job that requires regular travelling really balls thing up childcare-wise. Glad you at least can work those 2 days.

So for student children picking jobs if they do intend to work and have children at the same time they might like to consider whether they could afford child care when making those career choices I suppose.

Not parrots. I took as close up photos of the birds that I could last month. They seem quite small and scrawny, some kind of sea bird. We could find and eat the snake I suppose but the main thin people go to that area for is that it has some of the best fishing in the world and there are crabs definitely although I've not seen one as big as you see in shops.

blueshoes, i know, it would cover the cost but only just. doing 4 days a week would net just under £3k. then the nursery fees are still £2k even with the discount DD1 and nursery grant. It it was a 9-5 job then yes, it would be worth it. But it involves a fair bit of travelling, impossible to leave at 5 everyday to get to the nursery without a high level of stress. If my dh had a 9-5 job then we could juggle it between us, but he doesn't - he is away a lot in the US and Far East.

Anyway it all sounds like excuses and i am lucky in that he earned (just) enough to enable me to leave work and start up my own business which only just covers the 2 day nursery fees i currently have.

My point was that even on a very good salary like i was on, it wasn't enough to cover the breadth and flexibility of childcare that i needed if you take into account the other associated costs of working (travel, clothes, lunches, etc etc.)

If anyone is coming on the island it ought to be a man, I'm afraid. I suppose I could hire it out for people to lose weight on - no chance to eat junk food, just fish, rice, veg we brought on to it. No rabbits, sorry. It has a bird colony on it. I wonder what those birds taste like.

anna, I am a bit surprised about there being no option if France (or do you mean Paris) of parents paying for quality children. And that they must either use unqualified nounous, grandparents (if they are lucky) or stat-at-home. Something does not sound right. Or you might have spotted a gap in the market.

Duchesse seems to think that there are good creches outside Paris (I am sorry but I am not familiar with the difference between a nursery and a creche in France).

I am sure in Paris it is more difficult to find good childcare, as it is in London re: nurseries/childminders. But to not even have a choice of paying for or putting oneself down on the wait list for a good creche/nursery seems to consign swathes of dedicated mothers who prefer to work p/ft to SAHM. Is that what is happening?

Aha! Another example of why our destiny is not yet in our hands.

I can see the sanity in bailing OUT of a system that wants us to clean the plane but won't give us our own goggles.

(Looks sideways at Elffy and briefly wonders whether past bouts of roundabout sickness had anything to do with fondness for hipflasks. Tears leg off fennel with teeth)

amidaiwish, £70K is a good wage. At top rate of tax, you still bring home around £3,500 a month. Nurseries for 2 children will cost about £1,000 to 1,200 X 2, but that is likely to be less because the second child is usually over 2 and it gets cheaper £800-1,000, and surestart grant kicks in after 3 to give about £160 savings. Your rail ticket will come up to, I don't know, £200 a month max? That still gives you at around £1,000 a month disposable after childcare and work costs. That pretty good, I thought.

Like Xenia says, the high childcare costs are frontloaded. It will generally cheaper, although there is the big question of whether you want to go the private schooling route. So just hanging in there, even for little or negative disposable initially, could work out in the long run, if working is what you want to do.

Actually, I got all arsey about the astronaut thing when my Dad informed me that they didn't let women become fighter pilots (which I thought I needed to do prior tobecoming an astronaut). That outraged me so badly I dismissed the whole idea.

As it turns out, roundabouts make me feel sick, so not sure I'd be so good at the whole lack of gravity thing. I'll now have to wait until they invent inertial dampeners a la star trek!

Would still leap at the chance to go into space though, were it on offer to me.

(resumes singing Kum By Yah and slides along log toward MrsMattie's rum flask...)

EVERYBODY!!!!!

Kum by yah, m'lord, Kum by yah...

(stops shocked)

the astronaut thing is OFF the table???? but you've still got the legs for it! what are you thinking of?

i'm looking at the posts about going to parisien nurseries. i'm thinking there's a WHOLE big world out there that still needs exploring.

(resumes singing)

woooohooooo, kum by yah...

Ta!