Should women / carers be paid for caring for their 'own' kids?

I think it's the difference between normal care and special care. I care for and parent my average intelligence, average fitness DD, but she does not need any special care. I think 'care' is one of those words with more than one meaning - I care about you and I need to care for you are two different things.

Back to the original issue - I don't think parents of 'normal' children should receive compensation for it, but parents of 'special' children should.

I have an additional issue as a Childminder that we could not get the tax breaks of childcare. I asked if my DH could pay me with childcare vouchers, so that we could get the tax breaks that all the other mindees parents receive and I was told 'No'.

Everything nooka said.

But Custardo, I planned to follow the career path I followed AND I get personal fulfilment out of it. I still quite like the fact that people pay me to do it.

Why is there a "your decision your bill" distinction? There's a lot of people out there who'd argue that children represent more of a benefit to society than lawyers!

I think that the state should support children, and that it should adjust taxation and welfare services to encourage people to have a reasonable number of children so as to sustain the country (attempting to avoid unmanageable population bulges etc). It's in the interest of the state to have children well cared for and educated, as that's what is needed to be competitive, if nothing else.

But it is parents responsibility having decided to have a child to care for it, and I think it would be a very bad idea, with lots of unintended consequences to whittle away at that.

So making sure that good quality childcare is available (whether directly or indirectly), providing good maternity and peadiatric health care, making sure that schooling is available etc are all good, but direct intervention into family life except where it is essential (neglect/abuse) or needed and asked for (any sort of additional needs, whether the parent's or the child's) is in my opinion not the way to go.

Most people on deciding to have children or finding that they are on their way are aware that the high costs come with high rewards. Both costs and rewards should be shared within the family. The state should support parents not seek to take over, and any additional support should go towards carers who should get a huge amount more support - equipment, funds, options (respite, specialist provision etc) and emotional support too.

but in this utopian society that we are theoretically discussing here, all children should be planned.

why then, would i as a tax payer, pay for other people to stay at home witht heir children? If you plan it. pay for it.

I think that's self-defeating martyrdom.

And based on my recollection of a hospital bill in the US for a bog-standard delivery of one baby, without anesthesia of any kind, I doubt many UK taxpayers pay enough to cover even a fraction of the cost of delivery of a baby under NHS care ($24,000 USD for me plus another $6,000 for the care the baby received). There are different child allowances and tax credits available to parents of children too -- not too many eschew them based on the principle of personal responsibility for their own children. Is something lost to the state by availing of subsidised state education?

I think much of the resistance to accepting a stipend for being a SAHP is based on an outdated idea of what traditional women's work is worth (nothing, or less than traditional men's work). The state pays for something as fundamental as healthcare and emergency services...

I do pay for the NHS of course. Indirectly, but I still pay.

I do see the arguments. I appreciate that I was in a fortunate position for a SAHM. But I still think then when the state is paying for something as fundamental as looking after our own children, we are losing something to the state that I do not want to lose.

I tried to argue this on another thread, and I still think it's a great idea. At the moment SAHPing is looked at as a worthy occupation, with all the sentimentalism and moral trappings that go with that attitude. It's a sentimental glorification of martyrdom, and it encourages a completely outdated view of women and of mothers.

Meanwhile, mothers who choose to work for pay outside the home are still considered less than committed to their children and also less than committed to their jobs, purely because the model of the selfless woman doing all that work for free exists. And SAHPs who end up divorced or abandoned or forced to rely on the pitiful court ordered support of an ex partner are left depending on the handouts of the state because they haven't had an income to put away for a rainy day, and can't afford to retrain for a job, etc.

'I am repsonsible for my own choices, and my own children.' People in the UK choose to have their children but they don't pay the hospital bills if they use the NHS, nor do they pay the HV or the myriad other services that support parenthood.

No-one would say that parenting isn't important. It is possible though, to care for your children, to wean them, to love them, to educate them etc etc without you being present 24 hours a day.

My knee jerk response is to say no. And I'm trying to work out why. I agree with the second argument made in the OP. But I don't think that's the reason for my knee jerk response TBH. I think there is some kind of moral imperative in ensuring good care for your children, and by that I absolutely do not mean necessarily caring for them yourself 24 hours a day. And I'm not sure you should be paid to fulfil that moral imperative. Offsetting the cost of care against tax paid (which is how I think childcare subsidies should work) is a different matter. But to be paid to do something that is my (and my DH's) responsibility seems to be passing that responsibility over. I chose to have my children. I choose how they are cared for (and I do outsource some of my children's care). I am repsonsible for my own choices, and my own children. For the state to pay me to look after them would seem like a diminution of that.

Not sure it makes sense. Thinking aloud really.

But I have seen a few times on here, people saying that looking after children isn't a caring role. But it is, isn't it, just not according to the definition applied by the benefits agencies. I'm worried that if it gets into the common mindset that looking after children is not caring for them, it will push parents even more to one side, and devalue the job of raising the next generation even further.

Do you see what I mean? Language and concepts are very powerful, and if the language surrounding parents caring for children starts to exclude any words which conjure up images of work, then arguments for cuts to support and services for parents are easier to make and more readily accepted.

Darn, I knew it was too good to be true that someone was agreeing with me for a change!

ISNT, I don't think anyone is arguing that looking after babies isn't caring for them. But as it's something that pretty much everyone does (most people do have children), I don't see why any special recognition needs to be given for doing so.

Other way round. Agreeing with riven not annie. I do not accept that looking after children is not caring. They can't look after themselves, can they, someone has to care for them. People who do it for money are said to work in childcare. Yet when a parent does it, suddenly anything that implies any kind of work is removed.

It is that and the structure of our society which means that this important work is undervalued, and that which the OP was trying to think about.

Language is important though.

If it becomes accepted that looking after babies is nothing to do with caring, that means that support can be withdrawn from those doing it. It removes the selfless aspect, and backs up the idea in the popular press that having children is basically selfish.

I was agreeing with annie not riven.

I don't see how anyone can say that looking after an 18 month old is not caring for them.

Sorry, new word invented, not new work. We all have quite enough work to do without more being invented!

It's about the possibility of holding down a job at the same time. Of course people care for their children. But in the context we're talking about here, 'caring' is used as a term to describe care above and beyond normal parental care. Perhaps there should be a new work invented, but for the time being, I do think you're being somewhat pedantic.

I would say I 'care' for my dcs but not outside the normal standards so it shouldn't be recognised as something special that I should be compensated for, the same way as if I throw a steak in a pan for dinner I don't expect DH to get £17.99 from the govenment to give to me for my hard work. Its just normal living, not a job.

I have the choice to return to work and I choose not to. If I had a child with complex medical needs then I wouldn't have that choice so it becomes something special that should be recognised.

Yes that makes sense!

I think it's a shame that people have taken this thread as a straight question rather than a theoretical exercise IYSWIM.

Ah, but ISNT, we are paid to care for a newborn. It's called maternity leave. And once the highly-dependent stage is over, there's no good reason why people can't go back to work and use a CM or nursery. There are plenty of reasons why parents of disabled or sick children can't do that.

It's the daily mail thing - being at home with a baby can't be work - and caring for someone sounds like work - maybe it should be renamed "sitting in a house with a baby in it" or something like that.

Certainly a lot of the perception of motherhood seems to be that you watch jeremy kyle all day and the babies magically take care of themselves.