I need to have a rant about the cost of my childcare

[MGFM]

£2200 a freaking month!

This isn't a stealth boast about having enough money to pay out this much in childcare and I also want to say I feel lucky that I used to have plenty of disposable income and I feel lucky to have two wonderful children and I don't think the state should help me pay for their care (although I most certainly have signed up to the tax free child care) but oh my fucking god , I want to cry every time I think about it!

We will have enough left over for food and fuel and clothes when desperately needed and the odd treat but it is going to be freaking miserable.

I was in an outlet store yesterday and tried on a beautiful pair of skinny grey jeans. They were soft and luxurious. I thought they were only £29 but then I saw they were £50. Hung them back up and left the shop. I have just lost all my baby weight ( I put on 3 stone - it is now all gone and I am back to my not al size so I am desperate to buy some new clothes and now can't afford any) I need a tiny violin to play for me somewhere as I feel so pathetic.

I just need to rant about this really and I have moaned to real life friends but they might get sick of me droaning on about how broke we are

It wasn't he only issue. I just didn't want the threat to become about that. I really couldn't have left them there. What if something did happen to her? Doesn't bear thinking about.

I went back to work for the first time 13 years ago. The difference between working and not working then was small (I remember working ft shifts for £500 pcm). BUT now we are so much better off than we would have been had one of us stopped working. That translates to a better quality of life for all of us and more opportunities for the Dteens.

It's crap isn't it? Our childcare costs are about £1400pm for 1 under 3 and one at school - I calculated I'm working for £5ph after childcare - actually it's less as I typically do about 10 free hours of overtime a week.

Hanging on because childcare should reduce to about £6-700pm when both at school and also can't afford another career break after 2 maternity leaves.

This is such depressing reading. The undercurrents of hate for mothers who work and the ignorance related to why a society require new generations paints a picture of a still very misogynist British society. A male oriented culture where mothers are the ones responsible either way, whether that is to pay for the childcare or to pay long term by giving up their careers. Men have children too.

I decided to have a gap of 5 years between mine but as it happens I left the UK for work in Norway due to the recession. Norway has many limitations but the society understands the value of supporting both parents in working and therefore subsidises child care. My bill for 1 child here is £280ish per month. I used to pay 1700. Working hours in my industry are still long though better work life balance is the norm. School for eldest is free, wrap-around childcare provided at all schools for same price as nursery.

We may well return to the UK - we do miss it - but I love the refreshing cultural attitude to families and the equality between the genders is much better here in Norway.

The UK still has such a long way to go.

OP I sympathise but can offer no solution other than to stay in your job for the longer term benefit to your financial future.

It is bollocks isn't it?

I keep contemplating opening a nursery. One that opens at 7 am!

Well put Snupp 👍

Rant away MGFM; that's a lot of money.
Go back to the outlet store and stroke the jeans again. Are they definitely beyond the budget?

"But surely you looked into the costs beforehand?...One of the many reasons I chose never to breed."

So you think "you made your bed, you lie in it", then you go on to actively state that you chose not to have children specifically because of the cost of childcare?

Sad state of affairs.

That's very expensive OP. I wouldn't have much left after paying my mortgage if I had that sort of childcare bill. I was lucky not to have to pay any childcare costs, as my parents looked after my ds when he was primary-school aged and younger. But that's because we have that close-knit Asian family culture, and I'll be experiencing the flip side of it in a few years when they get older and they'll be moving in with us!

"sometimes, I wonder why people have children when all that is happening is that they are being brought up by a nursery."

Seriously, why do people say shit like this?

People don't have children to bring up toddlers. It's a much more long-term view than that. That child will go on to become a school child; will anyone be bleating on about how they are being "raised by a school"? What about when they are teenagers? Or young adults, or 50-year olds, looking after those "negligent" parents, who are now elderly and in need of their help?

Why are the toddler years considered the only "important" ones?

I also find this depressing, considering that I am a childminder and really, all things considered, make very little money. The costs of running a business in childcare are so high, as the standards are getting higher, we get next to no support from the local councils, training is more and more expensive, the cost of insurance, food, utilities keeps on going up. The amount of paperwork we have to do is staggering and adds about 8 to 10 hours a week to my work, for which I don't get paid - I can't see myself doing paperwork when toddlers are around! - and the cleaning, the endless cleaning.

If I were to count all my working hours, I would make significantly below minimum wage, and well below living wage.

Many nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are closing down since the announcement of the 'free' 30 hours of childcare, which doesn't cover the actual cost of childcare for providers.

The system is broken, with parents unhappy about the cost of childcare and providers unable to find a sustainable business model. Large nurseries are doing very well (and many of them are now recruiting 'apprentices', who get paid £3.50 an hour) but smaller providers are really struggling. Nobody is winning.

Snupp - indeed!

And whilst I did source all the childcare - DH does just as much dropping and picking up. Was at the CM this morning for the settling in session and knows that when they go to school it is just as much his responsibility as mine to do pick ups etc. All money is family
Money and he would tell me to go back to the shop and buy the jeans. He is a good egg.

Just a little shout out to my husband there

Snuppeline brilliant post.

The people who genuinely can't understand why society should support people with children - it's really depressing.

Knitted fairy - I could transfer money from savings. But when I got back to my size 12 , I brought down all my 3 year old clothes from the loft lol and there are some decent things in there. Forgot I had some of the stuff so they really are a luxury. My husband on be other hand only has one pair of jeans, his shoes are 3 winters old, his tshirts are all shrunk (not by me in the tumble of course) . He really needs some new clothes! He might need to be a priority!

PerfectlyPooPoo Piss off yourself, I am entitled to my opinion, and if you really must know, my DP and myself weighed up the pros and cons and we decided that I might as well say at home, and yes, it is such a torture for him to be at home near me that he pops home for lunch most days.

I put my children before a career otherwise there wasn't really much point having them. I did the career thing and quite frankly its not all that it is cracked up to be , when they say you can have it all, you really cannot.

Have been paying £1200 per month last 2 years. So glad one has started school and the other is using the 30hrs.

Rant away OP. It’s a lot of money 😫

PashPash

Totally agree, I love my career and after 10 years, think i'my pretty good at it, am appreciated by my clients, feel like I make a difference and would be difficult to replace. I love the contrast between days at work and days at home with the kids, and they love nursery. It's such a sweeping generalisation that all mothers should wave goodbye to their careers once they have children... bearing in mind many are working for very little once childcare is deducted, it shows motivation and commitment beyond the paycheck.

I do also have maximum respect for sahm's because I couldn't cope with that tbh.

Just a shame so many families have their choices taken away by unworkable economics and that childcare workers themselves are paid so little...

I don't know what the answer is

PashPash Tue 19-Sep-17 20:50:39
Some of the responses on here really fuck me. Off.

Always in these type of threads anyone dares to mention the difficulty or cost of working and loads of people jump on the OP with comments like 'you should have thought of that' of 'why have kids to put them in nursery' etc.

The economy relies on people working. We train for jobs and it makes no sense on the wider scale for (mainly ) women to be economically forced out of the workforce especially those who have had a lot of training. Imagine if all the trained GPs packed it in once they had kids.

We need to push government for legislation to encourage flexible working, for sensible working hours policies for subsidies on childcare for those who want to continue working. Your career shouldn't stall if you chose to have children and want to carry on working.

We won't be able to lobby for that if the default response of parents themselves is 'it's all your own problem'"

Another excellent post

Gosh Julia I can't believe you let school raise your children, why did you even bother having them? You should have home schooled them to ensure you could cherish every moment. I'm spooning my 32 year old right now until he falls asleep lest I should miss a second of making memories.

Childcare costs are one of our main reasons that we've decided to only have DS and no more children. He is 2.5 and we are counting the minutes until he is 3 and things get easier moneywise. I have a constant sick feeling of dread in my stomach when I think about our finances or lack of.

For those who say things like 'we shouldn't have to pay for your kids' and 'don't have kids if you can't afford them' - only a small minority can actually afford it. The cost of living far outstrips wages. If we all stopped having children where would we be as a society?!

Oyster

Not to come over all Xenia but the better you educate yourself and the higher you earn, the better your children's lives will be

Bullshit.

Not to come over all Xenia but the better you educate yourself and the higher you earn, the better your children's lives will be

Bullshit.

So wrong I had to say it twice 😀

It's true I suppose not knowing OP we can't say it definitively on an individual level, but the research is as conclusive as can be that the better educated a mother is, and the wealthier she is, the better the outcomes for her children.

Aiming to be well educated and financially secure in your own right is more important when you have children, but women often completely abandon gaining qualifications and/or advancing in their career or earning any money at all - and it isn't better for their children when they do so. Children do best with well-educated financially secure mothers.