Mayor Mamdani’s “Parent’s Night Out Scheme”

During working hours, I meant, as that's when many British parents find childcare during the summer holidays is expensive and/or hard to come by.

That's basically what it is, near enough, sort of. But it is in city parks, not a holiday camp.

Oh you’re right, I missed that, apologies for misleading info

A lot of British parents would probably rather have four hours of free holiday camp activity for children during the summer.

The park membership is free for kids. According to the official website I posted above.

The offer is available to people who have some kind of membership for the park facilities - think it was around $150 annually.

So presumably they will sell new memberships, which could have a positive knock-on effect of getting more kids into the parks, running around and being active.

Also the scheme is doing a great job of creating loads of awareness for free.

I've been a single parent to a disabled child for 20 years. He's too old for this scheme but I literally cannot imagine what I'd do with an evening off. My last was in 2015.

And there is the $37.85 trillion national debt the USA has. $3.25 trillion of that added by Trump in a year and a half. His first term added $7.8 trillion. So what's that, Trump owns about 30% of national debt ?

So yup, a single afternoon of organised play events for kids in the park are right off the table.

Alternatively, thay could try what the Mayor wants to do. Can't really be any worse than what Trump is doing.

I am not sure how I feel about this guy. A lot of people seem to love him but he is proposing short term goals at the cost of long term cuts. I believe he is shifting debt further out but reporting on this is very scarce.

He won’t, he’s pushing the liabilities out further, it’s an accident waiting to happen. Smoke and mirrors. I’d be really pised off if I were a new yorker. His current plans means that they will have an additional 7 billion in interest costs. Absolute charlatan.

Increased property taxes on vacant properties and properties worth over $5M and savings on city worker overtime and dodgy contracts. Supposed to bring in an extra $500M a year. He’s also set to wipe out NYC’s deficit in two years.

Nice idea but he’s able to do this for NYC which has a smaller population than London. This couldn’t be rolled out nationally.

As long as parents pay the babysitters I'm fine with this.

Not sure why the local government has to get involved though.

I imagine it’s a scheme aimed more at people into restaurants, than a scheme aimed at helping parents

I think 13 is too old! A 13 year old could be left for a couple of hours at home!

Also presume this would be in the week! Most people don’t get home from work till 6pm!

my kids wouldn’t use it cos they have sports 5 nights a week between them! As do a lot of kids this age range have clubs/sports etc.

it’s just another one of them things that someone puts out there as wow aren’t I doing something great when actually it wouldn’t be used

Most British parks are free, you’re probably just paying for the car park and an ice cream. There’s several in my area that don’t charge for the tennis courts or outdoor paddling pool.

I agree with others that this wouldn’t really work in the UK. On weekends we take our own kids out, to parks, farms, whatever. Evenings with little ones you’d want them tucked up in bed early, especially as they start full time school here at age 4. School days, after school clubs and homework are exhausting, especially for a 6 year old. I don’t see how it’s practical.

NY has had to restructure the city’s pension fund to meet current spending, it will add to long term debt. This is a stupid idea, he’s basically just showering people with money they don’t need at the cost of long term financial stability. It’s populist and harmful. He’s an idiot.

And no we shouldn’t do this because we can’t afford it either.

I wouldn’t want my kids to go to a childcare centre in the evening. Especially with people they don’t know. I’d want them in bed. They’ll just be tired and grumpy and ruin the evening out. Also if we go for dinner we’d want to have a drink (I know not everyone will) so we’d need to either not, or get cabs to pick them up.

how do they decide which 500 gets it?? I doubt it would be working parents who pay into the system!!

I think it’s just not thought through enough really. For the UK and my own family. Perhaps for others it’s ok.

Nah I wouldnt want to pay for someone else's social life. If you choose to have children you stay home and parent them yourselves

I agree with this. It doesn't sound very cost effective compared to people sorting out their own babysitter or a family member to babysit.

Do brit parks have recreation centers and staff as parks in NY does?

I can think of a few that has facilities such as tennis courts. So a UK equivelent would be making that free for kids on a Sunday afternoon.

I can't see how mony spent on that could solve prison places or NHS dentistry.

But the OP was saying we should have something like that here. So people are responding about why they either agree or disagree with that. I don’t think many people care what America is spending its money on.

The amount of tax paid on good and services purchased by the parents could easily be similar to the tax the parent would have paid working in a few hours and we accept that.

The question was whether we should have it in the UK. So my question stands.

I'm not "against" it as such, but 500 families for the odd night in a city of 9 million people? It's a gimmick.