This has made me so angry..working mums, we are the devils work

[sh1t]

I read this, and wish I hadn't

paid strangers to look after our kids

I sort of get the sentiment behind it, but the tone of smuggery just irks me, and the post is so skewed to mums, what about dads. The author claims she is a feminist, but I can't see it.

I think that posters need to understand that benefit claiments are being forced to take, care jobs, ta t they don't necessarily want to do and aren't trained for, which is going to lower care standards.

This will include childcare, also.

Whereas the flexibility in PL is a good thing, some of the other changes won't be. Not everyone is grasping the wider implications.

"duelingfanjo everyone is entitled to their opinions"

oh yes, I am aware that lots of people have very strong opinions about WOHM, for example, and feel the need to go around trying to make them feel guilty for wanting to go to work and pay for childcare. I haven't ever felt the need to make SAHM feel like shit for their choices so it often astounds me to see parents getting at eachother like this.

"I think that posters need to understand that benefit claiments are being forced to take, care jobs, ta t they don't necessarily want to do and aren't trained for, which is going to lower care standards.

This will include childcare, also."

you mean that in future childcare jobs will be done by people with no training in childcare?

I would totally agree that the author writes well, and eloquently. I could also see her writing sitting very nicely within the Daily Mail as it would create conflict and discussion, and I think that is a good thing. She could sit alongside Liz Jones quite nicely in her own earnest way.

I think what scottishmummy is saying about her "therapist" credentials and experience are giving weight and superiority to her choices is what pushes my buttons. I also think that what she is arguing for is inherently sexist and backwards.

birds can you link to some evidence that supports your claim that unqualified persons are taking jobs-not work placements- in childcare settings?

I visited a CM recently. She was a perfectly fine individual, caring, pleasant. Her home safe, clean. Her ofsted, all 3s, all adequate. Would I have sent my kids to her? Not in a million. That is frustrating, and scary. Her care would have been fine, average, but nothing like the triple A, super star care I have since researched and found.

DF you might not have ever made sahm feel like shit for their choices, but plenty of other people have.

We get all the shit about not contributing to society, not providing positive role models for our children, sponging off our DHs, being lazy/too thick to work, wasting our education etc.

You otoh, get the stuff about nursery = neglect, allowing your dc to be raised by strangers etc.

The fact is that some child care is very good and some is very bad. There are parents who think what they have is excellent, but the people who work there might hold a different opinion. Likewise, some sahp are not great either and their kids would be more stimulated if child care was out sourced. You can't complain about people criticising the nurseries where they have worked - if they weren't good enough then posters have a right to say so.

duelingfanjo as a nursery nurse you cant take a childs wringing top off until you have a crb, let alone a NVQ2 in ccld...

i think you have my post completely wrong and think you are being very unfair, read my other post..i am not against working mothers at all..i am one myself...

what i am trying to explain is most private nurseries are staffed by young girls, who think because they have spent a year or 2 in college know EVERYTHING about a childcare and they dont...others are less fortunate and taken on as students (mostly placement) where they earn around £90 a week for doing the job role of a NVQ3...

the private nursery i refer to as me being left with 17 children is a major one with many different settings.. it is a massive business..they have been barred by one student placement ctr as they received so many complaints on how their charges were mistreated...

thankfully this type of thing doesnt go on much but as i said earlier..the treatment of staff in private nurseries is imo disgusting and demeaning....

"The fact is that some child care is very good and some is very bad"

yep. and you have to include in that the fact that some parenting is very bad.

What irks me about these threads is that there's a tendancy for some people to use it as an opportunity to give anecdotal evidence about nurseries which is most definitely posted to make people who use nurseries think they are causing their children untold emotional and sometimes physical damage.

it's really quite cruel.

you mean that in future childcare jobs will be done by people with no training in childcare

In some of the more 'deprived, high unemployment' areas it is happening already. There are care home staff that have been forced by the job centre to take the jobs,or lose benefits. I was shocked to learn that this has been extended to hospitals. I know some of these people taking these jobs, from having been made redundant, they shouldn't be working in care.

Under universal credit, the government want everyone to be doing some work and this will be easily set up under that welfare system. Unless all of the nursery places are created, 65'000, the government have pledged, that won't work. They aren't tackling needing inexpensive quality childcare, they are creating a job scheme to juggle employment figures.

At first it looked good, split childcare for both mothers and fathers, but then why need the nursery places? If the other parent is doing the care? The original scheme only worked for two parent families.

What is now being propossed, is once what was, at the end of Major's time in office. Mothers back into work, whether they want to or not (if they are obn benefits), to show them a 'better use of their time'.

The author was trying tomake the point that childcare carried out by a parent, isn't wasted time,especially if the baby is going to be handed over to 16-18 year old nursery staff, who don't really want to be there, but need work.

NC said that education is important from the age of 2, the author was pointing out that mothers can provide all the education a pre school child needs, if that is what she wants to do.

It's good that women can have careers, but some women will have to leave thei children to do a shift at the local tesco, to suit a government agenda. The government want carers of adults to do the same.

"You can't complain about people criticising the nurseries where they have worked - if they weren't good enough then posters have a right to say so."

what is objectionable is the :

'I worked in a nursery which was bad' = 'your child is going to be damaged by being in childcare under the age of 3' mantra.

you cant take a childs wringing top off until you have a crb, let alone a NVQ2 in ccld...

You don't have nursery staffed with 14 year olds on day release from school where you live them, i take it? Or those, who cannot attend school because they are pregnant underage?

These girls are left in charge of babies.

duelingfanjo... if you read the first post i had made ..it will show you that is not to be the case... there are good nursery nurses out there like myself, who do care and look after the children and give the job role 200%...they love experiencing the high and feel the woes of the lows, as i dont care what anyone says you have an attachment with the child in your care ( from a professional view, not as a mother would..must get this in)

yet because i am mid 40's know right from wrong and know what RESPECT is, towards team members and dont like what i see..i am being lambasted by you...

no thanks, i think you need to climb down from the high horse you are on..as not once have i said anything against working mothers...

I think the article made some good points. I think it was directly aimed at Clegg and not at WOHMs. There are just as many people who make negative comments at SAHP as WOHM. I have been both and think it is up to each parent to decide. I wouldn't use long daycare myself now but have done with DD1. This is because of the things I have studied, read and experienced. However, I wouldn't expect everyone to have the same opinion, it doesn't bother me if they choose to use childcare for extended days. It does bother me if we were to move towards a Swedish model because there are many downsides to that and it should be about choice NOT enforced daycare for all. There are some WOHM that come accross as abit bitter though peddling their 'precious moments mamas' etc. which makes me take them less seriously.

I agree that it is a bad thing for people to be made to work in nurseries who do not want to. That is bad for children.

But I have no more issue with a 16 year old looking after a baby than a 40 year old looking after a baby.

bidsgottafly in all my years of childcare i have never seen a youngster on work experience being left in charge of a baby..that is through my professional experience, and if i did see or even hear of it..i would have no doubts to report it... i have kids and grandkids myself and would never place a child in a vulnerable, unsafe position

doormat

none of this is personally directed at you and I am not lambasting you.

I am just saying I don't like the idea put forward that one bad childcare experience = children in childcare under three is bad.

fair enough duellingfanjo.. apologies if i took your posts the wrong way x..
no i dont agree with that statement neither...
nurseries are positive places for children and their parents...they just arent for staff, especially in the private sector

I have seen college students in my sons Pre-school, on work experience, and they are supported by the other staff. The ratios work out slightly better as there is the normal amount of staff, plus the college student.

I see a bit a ageism creeping in now. Shame.

birds I have never seen nor heard what you describe. That is truly shocking. "staffed by 14 year olds" sounds like a dialy fail sound bite!

Totally agree Doormat!

duellingfanjo - I certainly didn't write about my experience in a nursery to make you feel bad and I was not being cruel.

Some childcare is crap in this country.That is a fact. I clearly said that some childcare is excellent and also that I was not criticising working mothers. If that has made you defensive then that is your problem. Whether you like it or not some nursery workers are rubbish. I have seen this for myself and I am not going to pretend otherwise so that you feel better.

Some of nursery nurses I have met on placements spent more time talking about being drunk the night before than looking after the babies they were in charge of. They were rough with the children and held the noses of babies to make them open their mouths so they could force feed them. Some young people are very responsilbe but these youngsters weren't. They were also paid a pittance.

Childcare workers deserve far more pay and recognition and in some cases the quality of care needs to improve.

duellingfanjo - You don't need to justify your choices to me and I don't need to justify my choices to you! However, I object to Nick Clegg implying that if I had have put MY children into a nursery at a young age that they would have had developed better educationally than if they were at home with me. I am not saying that all kids are better off at home or that all nurseries are sub-standard.

If people don't like the thought of there being a possibility that their childrens nursery is not that good, then protest about it to the government - rather than accuse people of being cruel.

colin where on earth has Nick Clegg said that you have to do anyhting at all?

Honestly, the article is so odd.
Neither Nick Clegg, nor anyone, has said that women may not be SAHPs if they so wish.

His plans are in response to the decades of demands by families for more affordable childcare.

Here on MN you hear the same things day after day. Women want to go back to the work place but cannot afford child care or cannot even find anyhting appropriate. These women have been been asking for, nay begging for a policy like this since the sixties.

Any SAHM may do as she wishes, but why would any of them wish to prevent others returning to work? Why would any of them wish to hinder the introduction of affordable childcare?

You. Don't. Have. To. Use. It.

YABU
I'm a SAHM and I do feel undervalued by society, but especially by Government.

It doesn't matter whether the politicians are red, blue, yellow or pink - I'm not filling their tax coffers so I'm more lowly than a Slug.

They don't give a monkeys that DH pays vast quantities of tax.

There is just an endless sniping about getting women back into the workforce.

I wouldn't mind, but now the DDs are at school I'd quite like to work, but non of this snipping actually produces good before and after school care, descent holiday clubs or anything useful at all

Duelling you're being hypocritical.

You think it's ok to proclaim that any parent doing cc damages their children ie saying that one bad cc experience = your baby is going to be damaged by cc.

However you object to this logic with a parenting choice you have made.

How on earth does the introduction of plentiful and affordable childcare (somehting that women and families have been campaigning for for decades) devalue what anyone does with their child?

Am I missing somehting?

Wordfactory, the news! You seem to be missing Nick Clegg's statements about how 2 year olds in families on an income of less than 16,000 will have to spend 15 hours a week in childcare and their mothers must work.

These articles are so ridiculous. And the responses are so personal. Perhaps I am naive, but I don't see the government's desire to improve childcare as a desperate attempt to get women to work so they can fill their tax coffers. I don't think there's ever been a suggestion that the government wants all children in childcare and that all women should work. I understand it to mean that they want women to have the option to work and they don't want women to be chained to the home simply because they're women..

However, this author very clearly thinks that's exactly what should happen - if you're a woman,and you have children, you should be at home, with your children because otherwise you will damage them.

And she can't be a very good therapist... a good therapist would explore why daddy going away for a busines trip for three days caused such anguish because clearly there are bigger issues at work here than that. Because if something that small is a problem forever, it's a miracle any of us are functioning, mentally healthy adults as I don't think any parent, no matter how brilliant, is ever perfect all the time.

Sheesh.

I read the Huffington Post for a while as I thought the founder was this great feminist. But I had to stop because the articles about families are so annoying.