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.

Surely the change coming for families with a sahp (who as ihate points out are also worse off as a result of changes) is that married couples should be allowed to transfer their tax allowance?

Can we then please have a whole mumsnet vigorous head nodding in approval session when EVERYONE gets something that will help them make the best choices for their family??!

Chopping and changing all the time allows no-one to make good choices. The key to making good decisions for your family is some degree of predictability in your financial/tax situation.

I don't think it is the proper role of government to reward families for specific decisions on working/childcare/marriage. Childcare in the UK is wildly overpriced, and that issue should be tackled at source by reworking the childcare model for the long term.

Who really wants an annual medallion worth £150 from Dave & Nick for being married?

I am the main earner. My DP is on a zero hours contract. We fight a lot because I would love to have more time with dc's and he feels bad. He was due to work 25 hrs a week for the next 6 months, was just told it will only be 7 hrs. We can't chop and change nursery place so have to commit to what we think we will need and they pay by cutting back.

I haven't had a pay rise in 7 years, I return back FT and was not given any flexibility and made to feel bad for asking.

I am asked a lot why I don't go PT by colleagues, my DP has never been asked. Every time I'm asked I feel judged and sad.

This is how our life is, our 'lifestyle' choice. This is how it is for many families out there. I don't judge others and have been very supportive of staff who approach me for flexibility. I believe that women should support each other, have empathy and understand that we are all different and have different pressures in our lives.

I don't feel bitter towards my friends who staff at home, even the ones who bank their child benefit etc in savings accounts because they can afford not to use it. Staying at home is hard work and can be very lonely.

Let us live and let live hey? See this as a progression for women and stop the back biting nastiness.

Re: janey68 Tue 24-Sep-13 07:28:36

Yes. agreed.

Surely good ideas should be recognised by all sides and implemented ASAP.

Not "only if you vote Labour" in two years time.

It seems the age old "divide and conquer" policy is still doing well.

ihategeorgeosborne, sorry about the awkward phrasing, I did understand it's not childcare help you're looking for :)

the issue though is that it seems SAHP are ending up complaining about a policy proposal that is good in its spirit (if not in practice). I feel that if the complaint was phrased in a less divisive "us vs them" way (something like, "great policy, but generally speaking government help should also be extended to SAHP, who also deserve it"), there would be much less of an argument.

No Bonsoir, I'd rather have my CB back. £2500 vs. £150, hmmm let me think

Oh and btw, as my dp's income sometimes falls below minimum wage on an annual basis, we are not entitled to benefits and he's not recognised as a second earner....

They could just give us back our CB, or make the cut fair, and you won't hear another peep from me anaotchan

Why exactly is your lifestyle representative of a progression for women, Tweet2Tweet? You sound quite justifiably rather disappointed.

I'll be looking for work shortly. Because of the childcare costs of a nearly 3yr old and baby, my jobs search criteria is:

Local as need to drop off DCs when DH unavaliable.
Nursery hours as no childcare back up when DH unavaliable.
3 days a week for max financial gain. The subsidy of 15 hours makes the extra 2 days deplete my income more.
Must be same salary as I was used to for a viable financial gain. Recently looked at a support role on £18,000/yr (which would have been nice for work/ life balance) but we'd have lost £3000/yr after taking into account additional costs like daily usage of car.

That'll be easy won't it! Especially when there are few part time jobs in my field, and few jobs locally that I can drop the DCs off at 7.30 and get to work on time.

DH is in a decent job that covers the basics, and paid sufficiently well to lose half our CB (my working situation is irrelevant to that), but the fact that he frequently and randomly works away, places huge compromises on my employment opportunities as we have no back-up options when he's not avaliable.

We appreciate that we are not talking about survival, but we are aware that we will have minimal support in our retirement, so my ability to work is very influential on our longe term survival/ comfort.

Improving the costs of childcare makes a massive difference in my ability to find a worthwhile job. In the meantime, I'm a SAHM and rather frugal with my spending which isn't doing the economy any favours.

I am not disappointed with my life, that would be indulgent. I am disappointed that as women we can't stand together. The progression for women is enabling women to be able to work if they want/need to.

If there were less social pressure on women needing to be the ones to do the majority of child care more men may feel less 'demoralised' at doing it. I'm not saying that's right, but stating a fact that some men don't want to or feel it is right that they do the child care. Note I say some and not all as I am not making a gender generalisation.

Two questions, relating to childcare as a national issue rather than a personal one.

1. About 10 years ago the Bank of England reported that increasing numbers of women joining the workplace, especially qualified ones of childbearing age, had increased GDP substantially and was therefore extremely important to the national effort. Does this also apply after the events of 2006?

1. What would it cost to provide universal free childcare, like in WW2, and would this be more of less completely offset by related economic growth?

Discuss.

I think it is all wrong for women to "stand together" while being collectively ripped off!

I don't think any developed country that we might wish to emulate has managed to make universal free (or very highly subsidised) childcare work for babies under 12 months. It's always more effective to have a parent stay at home.

In France, subsidised crèche for 2 month old babies is reasonably widespread. Maternity leave is short here (4 months) so babies need to start crèche early. There are all sorts of nightmare hidden costs to this, most particularly in terms of babies' health (long term outcomes are not so good for babies who went to crèche at 2 months).

Ok bonsoir, what about after 12 months?

my ideal solution:

• decently-paid parental leave of at least 12 months (ideally shared equally between father and mother, but you can only give incentives for that, not force people)

• then universal free childcare.

Easy peasy

I don't know why it is seen as an ideal for both parents to compromise their careers and earning potential by sharing leave to take care of a small child. It sounds like economic suicide to me.

Bonsoir, that's because if it became widely accepted in society that men go on parental leave/part-time schedules/etc just as much as women, then there would be no rational point in discriminating against women (or men).

That being said it always depends on specific circumstances, a Swedish couple I know well decided that the husband would take most of the 16 months paid leave, because the wife was the higher earner with the more demanding career. Makes perfect sense to me. As long as there is at least a choiceof who gets to take the leave, I'm happy.

I cannot understand the small sightedness of people and the lack of concern about the whole picture.

This will be used to force the vulnerable into those lownpaid zero hours posts and nmw posts.

It's not going to increase employability and will create in the long run more social divide.

It needs to be considered hand in hand with their policies towards those with a disability and all the other policies they have marginalizing those most in need of help.

Current political thought seems to want to turn our children into little independent machines.

If this is implemented it will be followed by a drop in the age at which they force parents (or either gender) into work.

They was everyone working, with no care for the cost to health.

Maternity legislation is covered by the EU but I know people including my own family, who are working longer hours (unofficially) because they are covering the work of those made redundant - for free

And who can't speak out because "there's the door).

I vantage understand why anyone trusts anything the major parties say.

In my locality - the "free" 3 hours gets you £6 a day reduction from a £42 bill. Hardly free.

woodlandwanderwoman - WOHPs don't have any issues with SAHP except when they come on threads like this whining about "not being valued". I don't care if people SAH or WOH, you make your choice, don't expect a pat on the back for it. It's your choice, what's best for you and your family - it's of little or no value to anyone else.

WOHPs aren't getting a pat on the back from the government, they're not getting validation or being told they're of more intrinsic value than SAHPs. It's about finances, pure and simple, there's nothing personal about it. It is of financial value to the government to fund childcare for working parents and it is not of financial value for them to reward SAHP.

It's pointless to try to read more into it.

You can see it as compromising two careers or you can see it as two adults, both equally capable of earning, caring for children, cooking, cleaning etc, both living a life which enables them to utilise this range of skills in a balanced way. Living a fulfilling life is usually about balance rather than about pursuing one particular activity at the expense of something else

namechange - why are you so sure this policy is to force people into work? There's no obligation to take it up if you don't want to. Work, don't work, you choose. But if someone does want to work (and is lucky enough to actually find a job in the current market ), but can't afford to take it because of childcare costs, this policy can only be a good thing.

Zero hour contracts (which Labour have also pledged to tackle), low wages and protecting the disabled/vulnerable/sick are different matters altogether, which I agree with you, are in desperate need of change.

Lots of people don't want "balance" eg doing many things at half-mast - they want to excel at one thing. And thank goodness, because that is the heart of value creation.

then let's agree in saying that parental leave should at least have the option of being shared equally between men and women, should they want to!