To be shocked that the resident parent has to foot the nursery bill?

I agree with you but I find the UK shockingly mysognistic when it comes to childcare and maintenance. It absolutely punishes women in a way that is shameful for a country that claims to be developed.

Yes absolutely they should contribute either equally or by earnings..

People have their opinions until they themselves are the single parent with the absent partner.

if you have a child together you both should pay.

Who else would pay for it? Well, the non-resident parent could pay half! Just because they're not living with their children, it doesn't mean they don't have to contribute towards their children's care. If the mother didn't go out to work then the children would be even worse off.

I would guess there are men out there who wanted more custody and so are bitter and/ or think the woman is getting enough. When I think of how dh thinks I spend too much on a day to day basis on the running of the house and on the kids and consider what we’d be like as a separated couple (on the way there sadly), I shudder. I think most men consider most expenses flittering money a way and think they could magically budget better/ get a cheaper deal (as someone said above why can’t your Aunty do childcare for free or sure can’t the kids just be at home those few hours? They’ll be fine). Totally different mentality
(Hence the reason we all clash if we can’t meet in the middle I suppose)

The father would need to pay for any childcare required on the days they have access.

I would think a lot of cases would end up in family courts, non resident parent saying emailing offered to have on X days, they wouldn't choose that nursery. Remember non resident parent doesn't have the same rights. Quite a bit of that (rights) came up in in a child benefit thread a week or so ago

But you could have a system where dads pay 50% of the fees after UC subsidy.

As a single parent on a low income, yes there are!

My daughters get funding (15 hours and 30 hours but will go up to both getting 30 hours from September) and I also get 85% paid by UC. In a 4 week month I pay around £200 of my own money (the rest paid by funding and uc). This is for 2 full days all inclusive.

But in many cases the resident parent can get help with nursery fees through universal credit, the non resident parent can't.
To look at a system, they have to look at it "gender free", that's what equality is about. Could be said the society isn't equal in terms of mothers being resident parent in X% ofncases and more father shouldn't be able to have full custody of the children.

Afaik, nursery is intended by the government as a dumping place for children so their parents can work and be economic units and provides employment for other economic units. Educational outcomes are not bothered about.

Nail on head. IMHO the government should pay the parents not the nurseries for 'free' hours, so that the parents can decide whether one parent stays at home, granny looks after the DC (hope granny is not me, because I have no intention of being a childminder for my DGC), or they pay a childminder, or they use a nursery.

Value of the place to be decided in court at the present time, I think.

I agree it's not fair OP, but then on the flip side maintenance payments are not taken into account for universal credit payments.

And how could it be enforced if payments were not related to a parent's earnings. They couldn't have to give over 70% of their earnings for example, to pay for childcare so other parent can work, then be left with not enough to live on.

I'm not sure what the fairest way is

My ex contributed in the maintenance and some of it went on the nursery bill.

Yes, this. Thank you. I don’t have the energy to argue out why the fact that more women do childcare and more single parents are women and more single parents have to pay for childcare or end up not working (and therefore more likely to be in poverty) is to do with societal expectations based on biological function so thank you for putting it succinctly. If it was a resident parent issue that mainly affected men, you could bet your bottom dollar that it would be sorted by now.

Here, nursery fees are determined by income. The resident's parents' income determines the nursery fee. Nursery fees are taken into account when determining maintenance. Children can only have one official address, so this is even when parents have the children 50/50.

You don't seem to understand what a sex based issue is (nothing to do with gender). When the vast majority of people impacted are one particular sex, then it's a sex based issue.

It begins to seem like a gender equality issue because of all the reasons you've laid out. Yes, women are the most badly impacted. But not because these rule penalise women.

The gender equality issue is that men aren't held to account in scenarios where the woman ends up as the sole parent.

The issue being discussed here is that the resident parent pays for childcare. What about 50/50 scenarios? Both mum and dad sort childcare out when required at the time the child is with them. Mum doesn't pay for dad's childcare, dad doesn't pay for mum's.

This is a resident parent issue, not a gender issue. All parents in those circumstances are treated the same in that they have to sort the childcare they need and pay for it. Regardless of whether they are male or female. It only becomes a gender issue because of other circumstances making it more regularly one gender over the other.

Of course it is an equalities issue. The reason most resident parents are women is because when in partnerships or marriage, women are the ones who do the most childcare, so this set up continues after separation. One reason for the gender pay gap because of care disparities.

I have been a single parent for years now and paid the vast majority of costs and done the vast majority of care. I am so tired now I don’t have the energy to argue about it anymore. But to say this is not a gender equality issue just because some men experience it too is a nonsense. At a population level, men earn more, are more likely to stay in full-time work than women, and are more likely to be able to afford childcare. (I don’t know about now, but historically men were also more likely to get married again sooner than women so there would be someone else to look after the children).

None of this disputes the fact that there are men who do the majority of the childcare but at a population level, it is women. (and it’s not just childcare, wait until they get to university and the loans and contributions are based on the resident parent’s income alone)

The patriarchy lives on.

For my 50:50 court order (that ex never used) it stated that mother had to do all sick/snow/inset etc days so that father didn't have additional costs.

Correct. Nearly right as well I think its about 85% RPs are women and 15% men

Well if a woman decides to get in a relationship with a man who has children, she should expect him to pay child support for children he already got.
If a man is not paying his fair share she will be first in line to experience the same.

I'd be ok with a bloke forking out 50% of nursery fees on top of other contributions as I would expect him to pay half for our child as well.

While 90% of the time the RP is a woman (don't quote me on the stat, I don't know it exactly), the rest of the time it's a man.

This isn't one of those things where women are being penalised. This is the resident parent being penalised.

It's not right but it's not a gender equality issue. The RP could be either parent, for any circumstances, and it's them that has to pay for childcare.

I think the argument is resident parent can claim UC and help with nursery costs. My dc nursery days are long gone but it used to be capped at domething like up to 85% of £700 for one child or £1100 ish for two or more. Even back then that was a good bit under what full time nursery would cost. It forces women towards poorer paid part time work imo.