To disagree with 3/4 year old children having more childcare paid for

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24199711

I feel the goverment should pay for education rather than childcare. 15 hours a week is enough to meet a child's educational needs for pre school. At a time of austerity, I feel there are bigger spending priorities. (Providing enough school places for children who are of complusory school age!)

If you choose to have chidlren then you should pay to look after them. I feel that labour's set of proposals are totally unaffordable and making the "banks" pay will damage the UK financial sector long term.

All these election bribes do not help the UK in the long term.

Think is though Ihate sometimes you have to do short term pain for long term gain.We're living in a town neither of us like(it drives me crackers).We're not living where we planned but one day hopefully we will.Living in this town will enable us to get something tiny where we want to be later.

Would the social wage apply to single mothers? Teenaged single mothers?

This thread seems to have got way off topic.

There is no way I'm going up the M1 to buy anything other than kendel cake.

janey68, er, what about child benefit should that be paid to everyone then incl those without dcs?

Might've been discussed up thread but why is there a complete void of support between 9 months (ie end of paid mat leave) and 3yo? That's nigh on 2.5 years to contend with.....

I agree Retro, but the dc are at school now and to be honest, it is a very good one. They are very happy and thriving. If I took them out and moved somewhere else they might hate it and be really miserable and I wouldn't forgive myself. I know it's all based on 'what ifs', but that's all I have to go on really. I understand that I don't just deserve to live somewhere because I want to, but it's very hard to up sticks and go when you have children who are very settled and happy.

Retro So, basically being paid by the government for your choice to stay at home?

They could just raise the tax free allowance to 15k and put 50% tax back on 150k+

Chickenlicken- I agree. I think the answer is that these things happen in small steps. At least the void between 9 months and 3 years is a lot smaller than the 3 months until starting school (2 weeks before dd's 5th birthday in our case- damn those September birthdays!!) which used to be the norm. Seriously, it isn't that many years since parents had to pay all their childcare for nigh on 5 years. And like others have said, even if you scraped along with one child, having two was often the point where you either worked for nothing, or jacked in your job. At least this proposal will help people at that tipping point of having a second child... They won't have to wait until dc1 is in school to be able to afford another

*Broken but what if they don't want to be a two income family and what about the other help already being given out to enable 2 working parents?

Then they can be a one income family and be like the millions of other families that won't benefit from this particular idea.

And what help are you talking about that enables two working parents? I don't get any.

I'm off to bed now so if I don't reply to anyone, I'm not being rude, I'm just not here anymore

Suggesting we pay SAHP is madness, will stop laughing on a moment. All parents run a household and parent, why should we fund those who choose not to work? Having a child doesnt render anybody incapable of working. What sort of message would that send to children? We want them to aim high and be the next generation of tax payers.

Without workers life would come to a halt so if there need to be subsidies then they need to assist workers. It would be far better to higher the personal tax allowance, less fraud and everyone is treated the same but childcare is probably one of the next best options.

Agree broken.

Out of all the things people can quite justifiably feel aggrieved about in 21st century Britain- pay freezes, pension cock ups, house prices and fuel costs, SAHP complaining about working parents getting some free hours childcare (which SAHP don't need or even want).... Doesn't really elicit huge sympathy does it?

Some posters are missing the point altogether wrt house prices. A starter home is not really any use if the first time you can afford to buy you are in your thirties with kids! Also 80k for a starter home is a 4 times salary multiple of the average UK wage! A starter home is what you should be able to buy comfortably on one wage!! House prices are mental and it is high house prices that are contributing greatly to increased cost of living which in turn prohibits one income families!!

So why then should we pay for care for children people choose to have?

Just why?

Seem to be a fair few posters that want to have their cake and to eat it.

I too am off to bed.

Basically some posters think their choices should be funded but not others.

Why pay women statutory maternity pay for the children they choose to have? I mean, why not let them sit at home penniless, after all, they chose to have that baby

Sheesh what a weird attitude that begrudges people getting a smidgen of help.

Just remember: those people who might get 25 hours of childcare for 3 year olds have already paid out at least two years childcare. Or if they haven't worked until now, it may be the free hours which provides that tipping point and makes it worthwhile. Either way, those of us who have worked with under-one year olds know that it enormously expensive- often the baby room in a nursery is a higher tariff than for the older ones, because of staffing ratios. Even though I won't personally gain one bit, I can see exactly why working parents could do with a bit of help.

We pay for others because we are a society (supposedly). It's reciprocal.

That is how it works. The children born now will be funding your pension, NHS etc. We need there to be children to fund that not least because our current overlords have mortgaged their future and they need to start the repayments soon

I'm a SAHM of 4 DC, I do not want or expect subsidised child care. I think this 25 hours a week is unworkable. I do not expect for one moment to stay at home and expect others to pay me for it, it has been our choice for me to give up work, a choice borne in part by child care being far too expensive. Nearly every single dual working family I know has grandparent help. 25 hours a week will not work in these, the majority of cases.

Sigh. So this has turned into a SAHM vs WOHM bunfight even though this has nothing to do with SAHMs.

WTF are some SAHMs damned defensive and sure that everything is a personal attack on your choice to stay home? Weird.

Stay at home, don't stay at home: no-one cares. But why on god's green earth are you whining because people who incur the business expense of childcare get help to pay for that business expense? It's not about you!!

If there were a particular expense incurred by SAHPs but no-one else, and this was subsidised by the government to enable you to SAH, that would be fair and reasonable.

But you don't have any extra expenses!!! So why do you want to be remunerated for a non-existent outgoing? How is that in any way logical?

We have to look after the young, they are our future. They need to have healthy foundations and have a balanced early life.

its ridiculous and so it 8-6 school opening hours to come out of schools existing budgets if you read it all

it totally undervalues the parental role and is beginning to remind me of the start of the rise of Nazi Germany

Re SAHM - I wouldnt want my 3 year old in school 25 hours a week, I dont utilise the full 15 hours, but at the same time, what are you going to do - throw some children out halfway through a session??

The voice of reason Annie!
I expect now we'll have some SAHP claiming the 'expense' incurred by them is the loss of their income. No, that's not an expense.

I agree totally with what you say Annie, and it's really bloody annoying and predictable that the same old, same old posters jump up in righteous indignation and accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being anti- SAHP. Like you say, stay home or don't stay home, it's no skin off anyone else's nose, just don't expect some sort of preferential treatment for your choice. None of you were begging to be taxed as a joint unit with your partner in your working days before having children: you just want the tax system to change now you've changed your circumstances. You don't need or want childcare yet you begrudge the little bit of help which working parents get, which believe me is a drop in the ocean of childcare costs overall.

How can society ever move forward if people can't get their head around people in the future having something better? It's so weird! I don't sit here wishing my daughter would only get 3 months maternity leave because that's what I got. Or thinking its unfair that my son will be entitled to shared parental leave- because my husband only got one day off. Why are some people so grudging of anyone else getting something which is better for society overall?

namechangeforareasonablereason - enabling parents to work is like the rise of Nazi Germany? Really?

If you were talking about the current government's systematic attack on the vulnerable and disabled; their campaign to make us see the disabled and the unemployed as "other", as less worthy and to be despised as scroungers, then yes, I might agree with you.

Has is never occurred to you that parents who work are also fulfilling their parental role quite adequately, thank you. How insulting to working parents to insinuate that only SAHPs have a "parental role" of any value.

Oh and as for that point about some dual earner families getting free childcare from grandparents... Well, all this proposal does is give another option " Parents won't be forced to use the free hours if they don't want to, but equally, if they've been using gp's because of the prohibitive costs of childcare, then surely it's better that they have another option which may be more suitable.

Anyway at the end of the day, what would people like to happen- for these grandparents to have their arms chopped off so they can't provide childcare lol? I mean, heaven forbid that anyone else should get some perceived benefit ....

sorry maybe i should have said more - I wasn't referring particularly to the 25 hours, or 8-6 - by rise of Nazi Germany in that this government is happy to shaft the vulnerable, decide for us how our children should be raised and try to control every aspect of our lives.

This is just the next step in controlling us.

And FWIW I am somewhat amused that you assume I have not been or am not a working parent.

I remember well the days when 80 hour weeks were the norm for parents, when mat leave was shocking, I don't just have young children and it is my view we are headed straight back there.

Employment rights are being eroded daily, employers don't have to worry about caring for their employees when we have a "work at all costs" govt, and a steady stream of vulnerable people being forced to take low paid jobs with poor conditions and little in the way of actual progression.