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

Why should I pay for parents to have a night out? They chose to have kids, they can sort their own childcare. Surely when you have kids you accept you won’t be going on as many nights out as before. Ridiculous concept.

This - I wouldn’t take his input on anything to do with child rearing - he is an absolute horror

It is trained park staff in existing park recreation centers.

From the official website -

"Children’s Activities
The program is for children between the ages of 6 and 13. Kids can enjoy:

• Sports & fitness activities
• Arts & crafts
• Media programs
• Nature exploration
• Free dinner and snacks

Official website here.

Parents' Night Out! : NYC Parks (nycgovparks.org)

Seems a good idea to me. Existing facilities, existing staff. A bit of staff overtime at most. I imagine the biggest cost was the lawyers drawing up the waiver. But then again, this is NYC, and they will have gangs of lawyers on staff already.

I cant see it making a dent in the pay packet of a wall street trader, forcing them to move to Dubai or wherever.

And it's 4-8 pm on one Sunday, Not 11 at night.

Worth a trial I would have thought.

The OP got the premise of the scheme a little wrong. Quote :

"The premise is pretty simple - 500 families get 4 funded hours of evening childcare. Childcare centres will be paid by the city to look after kids aged 6-13 for four hours, the kids will be fed dinner and entertained."

It's not Childcare centers. It's NYC Parks centers.

"NEW YORK – Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura announced the launch of NYC Parks’ first-ever Parents’ Night Out, a free, one-night drop-off program that gives parents and caregivers the opportunity to enjoy an evening to themselves while children participate in supervised fun at select NYC Parks recreation centers across the five boroughs."

Seems a good idea to me, worth trying out. They have the parks, they have the trained park staff. At most it will cost a bit of overtime. It is not the government paying childcare centers.

And I think it is worth considering that many of these sort of projects will not be " Socialist Mayor imposing socialism". But will be staff led ideas. In this case, it looks like NY Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura played a big part.

Here is the NYC official link.

Mayor Mamdani Announces First-Ever NYC Parks “Parents’ Night Out,” Giving Parents and Caregivers a Free Evening Off - NYC Mayor's Office

As others have said I’m not sure how many parents would want to leave their young children out until late when they would normally be in bed. So it would only apply to a very small amount of people with children young enough to need looking after and old enough to not need to be in bed by 9-10pm.

The other issue would be what if parents were late picking them up? At nursery you need to pay if you’re late. What if the parents went out and got carried away and were half an hour late? An hour late? Because I guarantee the staff will not be paid overtime like they are in nursery.

The only way is to state run nurseries the same way they do schools. Its how this us achieved in european countries. Otherwise nursery chains are run at a profit with super swanky facilities at unecessary expense

Except you then have one less day of annual leave to use in school holidays meaning you have to pay for more childcare

People dont want their kids in some random childcare centre till 10 or 11pm. They want a sitter who comes to the house & puts the kids to bed.

If people are really struggling to afford this they can offer childcare swaps with friends etc

The problem is the cost of dinner out etc is high.

The UK has always been parent unfriendly - that's not why the birthrate is falling. Sweden is considered incredibly parent friendly, but it's birthrate is dropping too.

Where are these qualified and trustworthy child minders coming from?
Who (if you live in a city) wants to be ferrying small children around at 10 or 11 at night?
And again, who is paying for it and why should others fund it?

I’d like to see the nursery funding properly funded first. It’s an absolute farce and a full time nursery place now costs more than it did pre funding.

This would line up with my view too. British parents really have it pretty hard in comparison to where I live.

We also have good maternity leave, ability to take shared parental leave (though the employer needs to support that). And 30 hours of free childcare for preschool. And the right to request flexible working. We’re not at the Scandinavian stage but I don’t think we are parent unfriendly. But the cost of living and the difficulties in getting on the housing ladder are contributing to a declining birth rate.

I think the majority would just stay in and enjoy a quiet house tbh

Baby sitting circles achieve the same thing, ensure your children are cared for at home by people they know, and don’t cost the tax payer a penny.

Regarding the proposal not mad about it. Would prefer they just gave vouchers to spend at existing businesses and have people pay for the childcare they choose.

I was deeply uncomfortable with the way he and the media, most notably CNN, framed the narrative around the isis supporters who threw IEDs at the white supremacists protesting outside his house. Was very weird.

My kids preschool in the USA did this once a term, no additional cost either was part of the package.

As for the proposal it sounds interesting, I would like to see what comes of it.

That's not true, he doesn't support Netanyahu and wants him arrested. Quite refreshing to see a politician with balls.

He’s Muslim. And your point is?

I despise trump. I still think he's an Islamist Hamas sympathiser.

This is basically unheard of as a service in the UK which i think shows there's no demand for it, or someone would have a profitable business.

UK kids tend to go to bed too early for this to be useful, maybe.

parents night out programs are common in my U.S. city. They are generally offered by trusted childcare centers or children’s activities. The parents pay the fee. It is cheaper than a babysitter, but more importantly, it’s generally at a place where your child is already comfortable mostly with people they are already comfortable with.

it’s a common December fundraiser at schools too. The high school students can get in some of their volunteer hours. Drop your kids off from 5-9 so you can get dinner and shop.

Im not really seeing why this needs to move from the private to the public sector.

I mean yeah, i think you're backing my point even more! To have a childcare subsidy cliff edge at 100k pre tax (and you lose a huge chunk of that after tax and NI etc), means that it's mostly only very high earners or people topped up by UC who can have more than two kids, not families in between.

That's an odd kind of social engineering, suppressing the birth rate of the middle classes.

If it led to less couples getting divorced I think it would be a good thing. Stable home is better for children. Divorce often leads to mum needing to claim benefits which costs a lot more than a bit of free childcare. Childcare centres would create jobs. If people did eat out that helps the economy. If the centres had toys/experiences/books that lower income families didn't have access too thats also good. So I can see lots of pros to it but it would cost a huge amount to get started.