Childcare costs- someone talk me through the outrage

[Suzietwo]

Is it just me or does it seem a bit grabby of mothers to be getting cross about the change to child care rules?

I thought the rules were being changed to try and encourage people to work. Ie to give them more choice and be option generating aka A. Good. Thing.

But the stay at home mums voice in the media just sounds a bit self important.

Don't misunderstand me, I am entirely on favour of people and families making decisions which suit them. This isn't about that. It's about people being a bit....indulged? Make a choice, stick with it. The more choices which are available the better so if the gvnt can help (a different argument about whether they should) by offering money to assist people go to work, then fab. But don't demand it for making the choice to stay at home.

If you could get exactly the same salary and hours your husband works would you go full time and allow him to be the SAHP if he wanted to swap?

Happy oh I'll be working the system.I will go back to work and I will get my tax allowance even if I don't work much over it.Kind of silly though I'll pay no tax but get help with 3 x dc in childcare.

Obviously I've got to retrain and find transport first?

Oh and re dp he isn't want to be at home for those formative years as much as I did.Yes he does uber hours but he is at the top of his field,tip top cv and well thought of.Don't think he's done so bad.

Single working parents should receive more childcare support. That's different to childcare for SAHP.

Sweet kitty- in the single parent scenario there is still another parent to that child who can work and should be contributing to the joint expense of childcare. And yes, I know some fathers don't always want to cough up, but the principle is still the same. Its not the tax payers responsibility to do what the father should be doing.

^Don't think he's done so bad.

And yet still you whinge about tax free income.

Little yes if I had a decent career and was at his level however I'm not.

Kazoo, if you think it's unfair then get a job and enjoy the tax allowance.

If you don't think it's worth it then dont do it.

Is it really worth it having one person working all hours if the day, never seeing their children, to enable the other parent to stay at home?

"And yet you still whinge about tax free income"

Solve when we had our children one of us had to take a back seat,it was me.My career has ended,his has taken off. He has been enabled to put everything into his career.Before we had children I even supported him financially whist he did his Masters and other exams.We are a unit and support each other.

I would love to get back into work but it isn't that easy paying to retrain,childcare,fund a second car etc.It will happen but will take some juggling.Not sure how we'll finance it though.

Facilities to help women/men back into work should be there.Most of us don't have much time out.

Kazoo, both DH and I are still in career jobs, we each see the DCs more than your DH does by the sounds of it, though less of course than you do.

There are choices we all make about work and families, and they aren't easy choices, and any choice involves giving something else up. But the playing field on individual taxation hasn't changed in the timeline of my choices or yours (though CB has of course) and it's absolutely been a factor in our career decisions.

Working parents are also a joint unit. They too support each other as all families do. My DF and I work long hours and we both travel but we make it work and have quality family time too.

The reason I believe it's a choice is simple. If I were to quit now and choose to be a SAHP for 5 years I would know that would end my career. So to do that I would want to ensure we had enough savings and my DF salary covered all our financial needs as a family. There is also the pension issue. I wouldn't be counting on the state considering by 2030 they will be nearly twice as many pensioners are we have now and fewer tax payers.

We do have help staying home with children when they are tiny though - statutory maternity pay is now paid for 9 months. (And I think MA is too although I don't know for sure as it is outside my experience.)

Ok it's not enormous but it is a surprisingly high proportion when you compare it to 35 hours a week on NMW.

Janey, you keep saying, ' these people' and speaking for all SAHP.. That would be like me saying, 'these WOHM...' Everybody is different, please don't make assumptions about all SAHM.

Majority of people are glad if people make choices that work for them and their DC whether that is work or SAH.

Sorry should have clarified - 'these people' is not referring to SAHM as a
whole group; I refer to the people who have chosen to stay at home but want tax policy to change to suit their circumstances. I completely agree that many SAHM are happy with their choice and dont expect some sort of special treatment because of their choice

I get the impression that these arguments are all well rehearsed and you've had them many times before.

But

Is kazoo ReAlLy arguing that (a) her dearest wish is to stay home with her children until the age of 4 and all mothers should want to do so because its so necessary for proper child development; and (b) she'd like financial donations from the gvnt to buy child care to look after her children for a few hours a day?

Really?

Heh

Suzie. I cant speak for Kazoo But that's very much the overriding thyme from most of those (historic threads) that want the benefits for SAHP....

I think any help with childcare is a brilliant thing.

I dont really understand why kazooblue wants wages for sahms if has such an extremely high household income, which is higher than most households in the uk.

suzietwo

Yes well debated, as in at least 2 threads a week since announcement was made.
Very heated debate, lots of name calling.
You can be forgiven if new, otherwise very boring as going over and over and over the same comments from exactly the same people as previously.
Had to say something, as can't believe there's yet another thread.

It's a bit sad really though.

The availability of welfare has stopped people taking responsibility for themselves.

Decisions of this nature involve a multitude of factors, including a mature assessment of the financial implications of one decision over another.

So much of what I've read below is about trying to equalise that element to make the decision making process easier. Why don't people want to take responsibity any more?

Also, I note certain posters a rather prolific on here. Suggesting (a) ample time away from their charges which could be spent on something more enterprising (b) no need for additional state funded child care; and (c) that perhaps they aren't as enamoured with their life choices as they seem to be saying they are.

Yes more than, I am new.

I presume the irritation over another thread is that it results in unkindness. I have noticed a lot of that on mumsnet, generally. It is not a welcoming place.

Even though ot costs the government in childcare they do it as it helps people help themselves. Helping with childcare for a bit means both parents stay in work, and contribute to the economy either through taxes or through providing a valuable service.

Additionally often if both parents are woh then they are working hard as they are doing 2 jobs, and have no one to help them, whereas if you have an sahm you only have the house/children as your role.

I think any help with childcare costs is a great idea, and hope one day it will be stated funded like some of the other countries.

Suzietwo

It is ok apart from anything that plays wohp's against sahp's/ reverse.
It is an emotive subject and everybody has their own tale. One straight yes its fair or no its not fair doesn't exist as there are always exceptions to the rule.

An example.

Ok suppose there was a general consensus that sahm's shouldn't receive subsidised childcare.
There are probably several scenarios where this could be seen detrimental to a particular section of sahm's.

Those attending job interviews, who have no other help for baby sitting / childcare.
Those children where it is deemed by professionals to benefit socially from access to childcare, for their well being.

There's 2 scenarios already. There are just as many arguments for and against and people get upset when their point seems valid and others don't just disagree but find their point unworthy. Hence, bun fight and thread ends up being nasty. With much angst directed at the OP.

"Solve when we had our children one of us had to take a back seat,it was me.My career has ended,his has taken off. He has been enabled to put everything into his career.Before we had children I even supported him financially whist he did his Masters and other exams.We are a unit and support each other.

I would love to get back into work but it isn't that easy paying to retrain,childcare,fund a second car etc.It will happen but will take some juggling.Not sure how we'll finance it though."

Kazoo, if i had not read any of your other posts, from the above it would seem that you settled for stayng home and would actually like to work. However that doesnt tie in with your other posts that mums need to sacrifce the early years for the sake of their chikdren and get paid for it by the state.

All the reasons you state re getting back to work are reasons why women return after maternity leave. Taking yeas out of the job market makes it so much harder to return as employers want recent experience. Thats why some only have one or two childreas childcare is expensive.

We all make our own choices, its then down to us to finance them rather than moan that the state wont or doesnt value the choices we make.

That was kind of my point earlier, morethan, when I was talking about WOHP who get free childcare from relatives. That's been raised by several posters as a 'reason' against helping WOHP with childcare. My point is that you will always find individual cases that dont 'fit ' policy, but you cannot tweak legislation to allow for every individual circumstance. Yes, it might seem 'unfair' that a fairly high earning couple get free childcare from granny and get to keep their CB, but families are free to give of their time - you can't legislate against that ( no personal axe to grind here as we always paid full childcare out of our net income)

Your point about people needing childcare for interviews... Well, again, there are all sorts of parallel circumstances. One that springs to mind when you are a WOHP is when you take your second (or third) maternity leave. You usually have to continue to pay childcare for dc1 even though you're not on full wage (or any wage). When I went on second ML, we had to weigh up whether to pay full fees to nursery to keep dds place
open (even though I was home and didn't need nursery) or risk giving the place up, save a few thousand pounds but perhaps not getting it back later.

Those are the sort of tough decisions we all have to make. Sometimes you need to make a short term sacrifice (such as organising childcare for an interview) for the sake of long term gain.

This seems to me the core of the issue. People need to make decisions and accept that every situation has pros and cons. The thing which I find most distasteful in the media stuff on this is the self serving nature of some of the people quoted- eg the barrister turned SAHM who wants to rewrite the tax rules to suit her circumstances now. I wonder whether all these SAHM with well off husbands will still be clamouring to be taxed as one person if they start to earn again? I bet if they start a little part time job and don't earn much theyll be quite happy to remain as one, but the moment they earn more or step back into full time work, they'll have a sudden urge to be taxed individually

Sorry but policies don't work like that. The govt doesn't tweak legislation to suit individuals at whatever point they happen to be in their life