In the news today! Rant alert!

DS starts nursery in Sept, 3 hours a day. It won't enable me to work, but gives me time to study. Unfortunately there's no way I could pay for more hours, it's a bloody expensive place, and we can't afford to lose the chunk of DPs income that would go on vouchers. It's a vicious circle, can't afford it if I'm not working, can't work unless I have it.

I would have chosen somewhere cheaper, but it's the only place I felt comfortable sending him to.

It's all ridiculous. Seems the government is just trying to make life difficult for us.

Oh we'll manage, but if 15 hours is useless to actually enable SAHPs to go to work (if that is how our esteemed Govt thinks it can happen), 10 hours is even more useless!

Gaelic, I'm sure you can afford it you won't have a uni account will you?

Just a quick point as I'm at work - it's 10 hours free provision in Wales for over 3's. We're counting the days, but we'll have to top up if DD is to benefit from more than one day a week.

And 3birthday - Good ole George - honestly women are really getting screwed over.

Just thinking through what has changed or removed and this is off the top of my head..

Pensions, pregnancy in health benefit, child benefit, trying to remove ccv and replace with their new scheme which will impact sahm, oh and the legal aid changes and the costs for employment tribunals who are most likely to be made redundant - women.

I had someone the other day delighting that her married boyfriend who is getting a divorce will be fine on the custody front because the mum of the young kids no longer had access to legal aid so she didn't have the legal help to pull him up on his earnings etc. Good old George!

Aa a sahp I'm not sure it's that big a deal ( have I missed something?) we get enough free hours IMHO. It only really affect you if you use childcare up to the age of three. Most sahp I know only used one day a week up to three anyway. It's not that expensive for 6 hours at preschool (£20) so the tax saving would not great anyhow.

I think the child benefit changes were a bigger loss.

I think his attitude stinks though. He doesn't value sahp, he's an idiot.

I'm waiting for them to means test the free hours. It will happen. hopefully not in the next twelve months

I could cry when I read the policies of this government. They just don't add up.

Massively reduce the tax credits threshold to below 30k.
No child benefit if you earn over 45k in one salary but still get it with a joint salary of up to 89k.
Childcare vouchers for people earning up to 300k.

I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Thank you. Its interesting to see the differing help and childcare provision there is in different areas of the country.

I think one of the problems is that good ole George is pointing the finger at SAHP whilst omitting to mention that his new scheme is also going to be excluding any couples where one earns less than 10K per annum, and any full time students. Their need for childcare may be just as pressing as someone earning £10001 per annum but there will be no help for them. It will dispropotionately affect part time workers.

(Good luck for you MA. My mum did the same & loved it )

Maybe.

But they're also advertising it as helping people back into work. It's helped me study but there's no way in hell that 2.5 hours is enough time for me to drop him off, walk into town, do any sort of shift and walk back to pick him up. So I think that part is misleading.

I live in the SE of England, in a large market town so am pretty sure the higher population density has something to do with how little hours are left over.

Classy - They arent wasting money though as there have been cases were social services have only picked up a family through them attending nursery with the 15 hours entitlemnt. Children who have experienced abuse that hasnt been noticed by health vistors etc, if they had not attended nursery it could have been missed all the way until the start of school.

Im not in banking now. I am a childrens centre assistant manager. I was doing that whilst finished my degree as was only in year 2 when had my first so I worked in a bank at the same time. Then started this role. I am applying for masters in a social work next year.

Lots of nurseries offer a choice of hours here, but most women need it to work as its mostly a low income area. Trades like waitresses, shop assiatnts etc change their hours week by week, and a lot of nurseries try and accomodate that if possible.

My nursery also said I could only have certain days/hours as it was jam packed so I had to take what I was given.

Yes but I don't think it means 'most' or 'nearly all' on benefits like Income Support are like that. Of course there are a few. It goes with the territory but if it was just for that reason then they're wasting a lot of money.

Wow that's good to know that you advanced your career.

I tend to know women in banking who feel that having children has been a disadvantage to their career.

But on the 15 hours - actually lots of nurseries specify how the 15 hours must be taken - so say 2.5 hours a day X 4 and then a longer 5th day.

I'm sure many women would prefer a 5 hour and 10 hour day but I don't know any nurseries that offer that.

I got a job in a bank with a 4 month old. I had a short maternity with her and had already gone back to uni when she was ten days old. With dc2 I got promoted to a management role in a different job one month after maternity. All in last 5 years.

We dont do in in 3 hours if you want it as ten hours, and five hours you can or however you want it.

Petey - when did you interview? I know lots of other women who still get questions that are inappropriate. And when they come from agencies if you complain then interview will dry up.

There was an interesting thread on mn about someone going into law and it was interesting how many people told the poster not be get pregnant until they had worked a number of years for the firm.

I don't know many professional jobs that allow a flexi 15 hour week to match nursery hours and quite how you would get to nursery, then get to work, work and then get back to nursery in a 3 hours window each day and somehow make money on that would really be very interesting?

At my child's nursery I know no one only using the free hours and working. So I don't see how they really encourage people to work.

When I was looking for work some of my interviews could take a full working day.

Its really not a myth classy unfortunately. Not saying all low income parents are like it, but there are some terrible low level neglect situations as well as poor parenting that may be passed on from the parents to the child, same as the parent recieved themselves. Som you can help and want help, and some you cant, but its good having the children in a place to help them and the parents.

If you only had it for some children on referral then lots would slip through the net.

I suppose it depends on the are here lots of parents use their 15 hours to work. They just say what hours they are working, and thats the hours they do.

I am surprised you have been asked those questions. Its never came up for me. I hope by the time my daughters are old enough childcare will be fully funded for all so they can keep working like me. I think the support you get nowadays is fantastic, but could be extended even further.

^The low income group are the ones recieving it as they much more likely to have chaotic lives, parents with alcohol and drug problems, speech and language difficulties, social services involvement etc, and it helps the children to be in nursery to learn new skills.

There arent even enough nursery places this year in many areas as so many children are being funded by the governmant. Its caused a sudden shortage^

See, most of the kids at this nursery are from a similar background to DS and despite most of the parents being on benefits, like me, they seem to be fairly stable, capable parents

I think that's a bit of a myth in all honesty and if it were the case, surely troubled families would get a referral to the nursery to save money by not giving 'stable' low income families the free childcare.

I also think 15 hours while a good start isn't really going to help people who are parents get back to work.

Many nurseries have say 2.5 hours a day and then allow one day where a child stays till 3pm.

Having looked for a job (after taking redundancy) I had to use my savings to put my child into FT nursery and then spend day and night applying for jobs and interviewing. It took 4 months full time effort to get a job that paid less than my previous one and cost me the full time childcare too. When my DH came home from work I then searched at night. I got lots of bull shit questions too - like "how are you going to work at a stressful job now you have a young baby?". Despite having an exemplary employment record and having had worked for a fantastic company previously.

I find it very interesting just how disadvantaged women are and how vulnerable they are as a group to govt cuts.