The depressing cost of childcare

[Juicylychee]

I’ve been reading about March of the Mummies yesterday, I didn’t know about it in advance to go. I have an almost 2 year old and pay £1k a month for three days of nursery. Really wanted another baby close together but we just cannot afford it. It’s maddening.

You would not lose Nursing skills in 2 years, you only have to do the revalidation every 3 years and it's pretty easy to keep up to date and meet the requirements even if taking a short time out of the workplace. I was a Nurse for many years when my kids were young and we had 4 in seven years and paid very little in childcare. DH did 9-5, I worked weekends and nightshifts and grabbed a few hours sleep whilst child went to a childminder for a few hours. I never worked 2 weekday nightshifts together. To be honest this is what most my nightshift collagues did with young kids to get by. I understand obviously some people are in jobs that cannot be worked around a partner but many can. My kids are early twenties and teens now but when they were young most of the mums I knew worked around partners - they did work in care homes, residential homes, they worked evenings in a supermarket. It's not easy but we had no choice really. School holidays were covered by us taking separate leave most of the time. I guess I was lucky I had flexible employers.

Also childcare costs have risen dramatically, but wages haven't. My mum paid £1 an hour to a childminder in the nineties and was on £4.60 an hour. I am on £10.21 and pay £7.90 to my childminder.

@Babyroobs in our place there's not enough weekend and nights to go around for this reason. People are not permitted to never work earlier or mids ever.

But at least some of your shifts must be weekends and nights. I found a flexible childminder who didn't mind if my shifts changed each week, so I guess I was lucky in that respect. I hope you manage to find a solution.

@Babyroobs it's not my situation, but when I hear people lament about the NHS and nursing crisis, yet not supporting subsidised childcare, I am staggered that they cannot see the correlation.
You say you had four children so I ask how you would feel if you had one and there was a forum of people telling you that you were wrong to even consider a second. And that this was due to something largely out of your control.
This is not someone flippantly having children and expecting the state to pay. This is two working people waiting to have second child who find that due to rising costs they're unable to:

Yes I agree it's awful on this forum people saying not to have another child. We didn't entirely plan our last one so our own fault. Our first two were born abroad in a country where I did not even qualify for maternity leave and there wasn't even anything like child benefit so I guess I thought it was all quite good when we returned here and there was 15 free hours at aged 3 and tax credit help. Some countries are better for providing help, some worse. I had to go back to work when my second ds was 4 months old despite him being born prematurely as there was no maternity pay until you went back to work and then you were given a lump sum equivalent to 6 weeks wages ! I was lucky I could put him in a hospital creche so i could breastfed him in my breaks.

I think it would be better/ easier to increase maternity leave to 2 or even 3 years. Many European countries do this and it works.

The current provision is inadequate and can have a real impact on health for mother & child. Often not recognised as things come to a head many years down the line. -I am taking about burn out, depression anxiety, ...
Placing older children who can talk and walk into subsidised childcare will have a positive effect on the finances as less staff is needed, plus children will benefit from early learning and mixing with other children.

I am lucky to have a good retirement pension. Most of my friends have and can afford multiple holidays, endless meals out and clothes , lovely homes and cars.

Yet most feel justified in using free transport and prescriptions and heating allowances, most mortgage free and pensions index linked.They mostly don’t accept my argument that we, the well off pensioners are not paying our share.
I pass excess to next generation to help with child costs, but the situation is laughably unfair.

So unfair, I support help for pensioners on pension credit, but not the minted baby boomers. The working poor with children are subsidising wealthy pensioners. I live in a poor area of the country, so the problem is not just wealthy Londoners. Government too scared to take them on

@Heatherbell1978 was this a council run nursery? Because with my eldest when she turned 3 we got the free hours but still had to pay 10 pounds a day to cover food and the free hours are term time only so wouldn’t give you 3 full days all year round for free?

Just think through what you’ve posted:

wait until you/your partner find a better paid job such that you can childcare and then return to the workforce?

How does that work for all the professions listed above - teacher, nurse etc. when none of them are getting inflationary pay reviews let alone the time it takes to progress and pay ceilings. If they all decide to leave for these higher paid roles, GUESS WHAT happens? There will be an even greater shortage of people in those professions.

There is nothing “logical” about that line of thinking and as for the government intervening - I think I see a 🐖 flying out of my window.

@Lostintuesday For what it’s worth, I have told the Government how awful the situation is. I took part in a march regarding childcare provisions and unsuccessfully tried to lobby my useless MP to raise the issue.

I currently work in the Tech industry and help run the local chapter of an organisation that specifically targets women returning to work after having children with help in upskilling their tech skills so they can work in this field. The training courses are free and I do it because I know that this line of work can offer well paid, flexible hours since a lot of Tech jobs are now remote/work from home and many can be done part time. And before you roll your eyes, of course I know this type of work is not possible for every woman but I’m trying to break down the idea that well paid jobs are ‘mythical’ and you must have connections or a posh accent to earn well.

My advice around waiting and finding a better paid job was aimed at younger women. Obviously if you are 39, earning minimum wage and desperately want a child then I’m not going to recommend you delay trying to conceive.

I don’t know where in my posts you have detected that I’m a believer in eugenics when it comes to having children (I’m a Black working class woman so I’d have to rule myself out if I followed that reasoning) . I haven’t made any comments about well-paid people making astute choices. I have a highly paid job but I didn’t get here because I’m particularly intelligent or because I made clever decisions.

It was luck that although born into a very low income family we lived in London where resources were pumped into schools in the inner city area where I grew up. University was free. All of that was good fortune. I then chose to have children at a point in my life when I thought it made sense. I understand that is not a choice everyone is able to make. I still maintain that if you do have a choice then planning your finances before having children is a good idea.

This is the whole point though. I don’t keep having children. I can’t afford it.

Do you not get benefits to help with the cost?

No a private one. The free hours covered 3 days and I didn't need to pay any extra. For my DS (8) we got some free hours but not as many so I had to make up a shortfall while he was 3 onwards.

Also I only used term time hours as my eldest was at school. You're right, if she was there all year I would have had to make up a shortfall.

@HappySalmon I don’t even know where to start with this.
Firstly, nobody on here ‘keeps having children’ and is frustrated that it’s hard to afford childcare for their 8 kids. Paying for one child in even part time childcare is a significant monthly outgoing.
With regards to ‘why do women keep having children they can’t afford’, well, they don’t. Did you know that 60% of women who have abortions did so even though they were a wanted child BECAUSE they didn’t think they’d afford the childcare costs?

I really think you need to ask yourself what sort of society you want to live in? One where we go back 100 years and women stay at home solely to raise children (don’t even get me started on how unaffordable this would be now)? Or one where we don’t expect the government to provide any support to the public - no more state schools, no more NHS, no more state pensions or benefits? The point is not that it should be free for all but that it should be fairer, more balanced, within the context of the rest of Europe and other government subsidies, AND that there is a clear economic argument for it.
It’s also very good for children’s development to have time in different settings and not just being at home with parents for first 4-5 years of their life.

I’m not suggesting everyone on this thread keeps having children, It’s just I often wonder why some people keep having children when they can’t afford to feed them or put a roof over their heads and that those people feel that the government should help them more and on the other side of the coin I feel similarly about people who have a child or children and then complain that it costs a lot to pay someone else to look after that child and the government should help them out.

What sort of society do I want to live in? One where people take responsibility for their life choices. There should of course be a safety net for people who find themselves in difficult circumstances due to matters outside of their control and these services should be funded.

It’s great that society has moved on and mothers now have the same choices as fathers to go out to work outside the home while someone else looks after their child. The trouble is it has transpired that people got greedy and now it’s the norm for both parents to make that choice and that leaves nobody to actually take responsibility for being there for their children at home, which I think is really important.

I think in an ideal society both parents would share the responsibilities at home between them and sure, pay for the odd bit of childcare but I’m sorry I don’t think children benefit at all from being outside their home for 40 hours a week because both their parents are working full time and there’s nobody there for them.

@HappySalmon You're the tories wet dream! If you can make systemic failures personal failures then you can pretty much absolve the government of any obligation to do anything to the benefit of society.

But I agree @HappySalmon That nurses and teachers have to use food banks despite actually being hugely important roles in society and many women having to give up work because of the extortionate cost of childcare I too think they should have just made better life choices. I don't want my taxes funding some layabout's 8th kid with yet another unsuitable man.

I am talking about people who are in £2 million houses complaining they have £3000 childcare bills not nurses and teachers having to use food banks.

@HappySalmon its more that the government barely helps at all. Properly funding childcare is not prioritised because women (99% of the time) can be relied upon to take responsibility and pick up the slack. But there are real negative knock on effects from this that could be avoided.

Do you have children? You come across as someone who is perhaps 60+ and/or has never had kids.

Interesting I come across that way as yes I do have children and I am well under 60.

Oh and I’ve never voted Tory in my life!

Surely this is on those individual women though? I was happy to take a career break and financial hit to look after my children when they were young, if I hadn’t been happy to do that and my husband wasn’t happy to do that then I wouldn’t have had children.

@HappySalmon cant help but assume then that you either have a good amount of family money or a high earning partner so that you could stop work, or at least cut back significantly, to spend more time with your children and seem to feel virtuous about this position. Now on here happily sharing your judgement without a shred of empathy for people who might not be in a similar position to yourself.