To be WILD at the news at 10 wording 'mothers who chose not to work'

[NotanOtter]

who are hardest hit by benefit cut

How bloody condescending...

Nip round here any day and 'choose not to WORK' looking after my kids

It's not an either or choice, soir.

Even if parents were paid to look after their children, some parents would still do a dreadful job and the state would need to intervene.

Anyway, if government was going to pay someone for raising their own child, then the government would be perfectly entitled to set down standards that must be adhered to and to check up on those standards. I cannot imagine any parent who would welcome that.

and that would add another layer of cost onto the whole thing. Home visits ? On going, regular assessments ? All the back office bureaucracy that goes with it ?

IME parents who are good, caring, nurturing parents are good caring parents ANYWAY. Regardless of income. They don't need to be paid to be at home to do it. And parents who are bad parents are like that ANYWAY. If they feed their children crap, don't listen to them or read to them, swear in front of them etc, they are going to do that anyway- they aren't going to suddenly stop when they get paid for it!

They did try this. In the original israeli kibbutizm stuff they took the children to a communal house to live and parents saw them for a few hours each evening. The kibbutz was collectively providing for them. In communist China originally and other places you had state provisions and state nurseries from birth and the like. We aren'tlike that. We are a capitalist society where people have obligations to provide for themselves with a basic welfare state safety net which in part has got a bit too cushy for some and a bit too generous given what we can now afford.

Tax credits were a retrograte step because they ensured huge numbers of people - 85% of families etc were claiming in effect a benefit for having children based on income. It made many more people than before dependant on the state and was a bad move.

if sahp were paid would they accept national standards of parenting,home visits,assessment of suitability to parent. cm and nursery nurses have to demonstrate abilities and competencies -so would sahp also present self for assessment? should the likes of Lizzie bardsley be paid for being sahp?what happens if the sahp is inadequate is their wage stopped

sahp is an individual choice.not requiring a salary because it isnt work.it is work responsible parents do

There are ample international examples of successful parenting-for-cash schemes, mostly in developing countries, which have a much lighter welfare legacy and can experiment more freely.

i don't expect to be paid for what i do
RECOGNITION would be nice

but we could all say that about our respective choices.im not so bothered about external approbation- i know in doing the right thing by my family.and i am used to the face regards working ft

scottish mummy - you are right and in a wise moment i need no more than that

BUT

when David Cameron does this i want to bloody burn my bra and scream Greer from the rooftops... i feel angry and hurt

i dont think this is anti-women,imo is financially driven not gender driven.

just an unlucky coincidence?

a planned move to pick away at universal benefits

Xenia -- do women choose jobs that pay badly, or do they pay badly because women tend to choose them?

Just a thought here -- wouldn't it be hilarious if Xenia's career was something to do with tax shelters?

Violethill, what's wrong with a growing population, or even a population explosion? Your argument is akin to saying there should never have been an industrial revolution because the steady incomes people were able to earn meant they could afford to have more children, or saying there should be a halt to the production of vaccines and most medical advances that have contributed to the decline in infant mortality because they only encourage the survival of too many infants. You can't have an economy without a population to drive it.

NotanOtter, I feel as you do -- I don't see it as a coincidence that something that benefits women primarily is the first step in dismantling the safety net.

What's next for the wrecking ball -- subsidised agriculture? (aka the system of guaranteed crop prices that enables thousands of farmers on unprofitable farms to choose to be farmers instead of getting real jobs and earning an honest living.)
Hardly likely.

They can come here and try a few hours with a couple of autistic kids and a toddler (and a tantrumming ds2 who does tend to get mised poor kid)

Buggers

(and anyway even if I could work- and I am looking- where is this miraculous job that fits school hours? I cannot seem to find it, as a grad who'd willingly take most things (except care homes, becasue I've doen that before and found myself very upset at where ds3 will be when I pass away)

Write a book for example.

Have you not seen my typing?

And any way, I am writing: assignments for the MA which should 'buy' me route to a job.

Doesn't show up on any Government stats though, and i could probably count the people outside my course who know about it on one hand (outside of MN anyway LOL).

I used to write; a lot, I had stuff published. But there's no point in me doing anything that needs me to then sell it as I am of that ilk that thinks all I do is crap: e-mailing university in my uindergrad days to ask for the resit dates so I can avoid going away then when I have in fact completed the apper with what turns out to be an A.

If I was bad then, several years of fighting the LEA etc has only made it worse.

I know what I am good at, what I am exceptional at, but it's going to be a drawn out road getting there. And all that time, whilst I have my eyes firmly on the goal, I am essentially SAHM / carer.

(there was emant to be a after the first line)

Arses, you are sadly right -- it is a non-starter here, more's the pity. And my head is sore from banging it on the desk.

Read this if you dare (warning; long pdf) -- a comparative study of parental leave policies in Denmark and Sweden showing that the net effects on tax revenue in the long run are potentially much better if family-friendly policies for both men and women are pursued.

Right now, the short sighted and sexist culture is prepared to countenance the loss from the workforce of thousands of educated, trained and experienced women every year -- a net drain on state revenue, as women who find it difficult to find the holy grail of school hours jobs afterwards do not pay taxes at half the rate they would if they could return to their old jobs, a drain on family life as men are forced to work far longer and less family friendly hours than they should be, and businesses and professions are left with the wasted money originally spent on training women, money that they will never see again, plus the cost of training the women's replacements. The current employment culture is apparently happy to pay what sexist logic demands, unfortunately for all. It is prepared to absorb the cost of shedding potentially half of the workforce during the most productive working years just because of biology.

family friendly policies isnt same as salary for sahp.family friendly policies are to maintain workers and encourage retention.

NotanOtter - can you explain why you feel this "when David Cameron does this i want to bloody burn my bra and scream Greer from the rooftops... i feel angry and hurt"

Is it because you see money for the children as women's responsibility? I understand that, in the 'olden days', CB was introduced to go to the woman to support those who's bad husbands didn't give them enough housekeeping money, but i thought those days were gone.
I think the people who fought for woman to be able to have a career and man to take responsibility for the children would agree that this is an issue for with both parents - not just the woman.
Perhaps i have completely misunderstood you - Don't have time to catch up on 12 pages on this thread.

Well, this thread has been an eye-opener!

I apparently shouldn't refer to myself as a 'fulltime mum' even though that is EXACTLY what I am (too 'fulltime' sometimes if you ask me). Housewife is frowned upon, 'stay-at-home-mum' suggests I have lost the door key and am stuck inside...

So I've decided to go with Domestic Goddess. think if enough of us use it they'd end up having to put it on forms as a tick box option when you have to declare your ocupation, how cool would that be?!

Oh, and if SAHP are paid for the work they do, do working parents get paid for the washing, cooking, homework help, etc etc they do when they get home from work?
Could be a nice earner.

i demand my salary for domestic duties when i get home from my proper job