feeling that tax credits are totally biased towards working mums?

[Dragonhart]

I am a SAHM and I get the min working tax credit as my DH earns just over the min for getting more help.

I was talking to my friend yesterday who works 4 days a week as a teacher (their combined salaries are just below the top of the band of getting any money) and I was saying what I got now we have two children. I get just over £40 plus about £40 baby element. When dd is 1 and I have two under 3 I will get £40.

She told me that she gets about £160 a months towards childcare in vouchers on her and her husbands paypacket (not sure if this is classed as tax credit?) and £75 permonth for her only ds in tax credits.

I am not making a coment about whether or not people choose to work as I stongly believe that everyone should have a choice to do what is right for them.

I just think that I should be supported in the same way as working mums. Surely I am my childrens 'childcare'?

In a perfect world {lmg daydreams}

Childcarers/ nurseries/ nanny's etc would be paid by the government and then paretns could send thier children where they liked as long as registered care and get it "free" of course tax payers would be paying for it collectively but then everyone would start off on the same foot.

Those will higher paid jobs would pay more tax (like they do now)

All those who wanted to work could as long as they could find a space (this is one of the flaw's in my great plan) those could afford to stay at home could stay at home and childcarer's would be guaranteed to get paid on time and get a decent wage and it would all be roses and fabulousness!

Of course without childcare to pay for, pople would probably have many more children and then want the council to provide bigger houses - lets face its never going to be perfect and there are always going to people who are not happy.

Anna...most seem to use a combination of childminder/relative/nursery school as far as I can see at the moment...one colleague has a young girl who lives in but I think she is a relative rather than a nanny...are you thinking about your own return to work Anna ?
PS; would NEVER think you were setting me up.

mozhe - I asked you (genuine question) because I want your opinion. My own feeling is that most childcare (bar relatives) here in Paris is of low quality, and that professional women in France are prepared to leave their children in the care of people who I think British women would find too ill-educated to trust their children with.

Fortunately I am in a position to be able to afford decent childcare (and decent schooling) so it's not a particular worry for me. But I would not have contemplated any of the garderies/crèches I visited.

Sorry Anna didn't raelly answer your question ....as to the quality they all seem quite satisfied but to be honest I do not know any of my colleagues very well yet as imo french take much longer to ' warm up' and colleagues are more formal here, so don't know if a lot of moaning goes on about childcare, however have noticed that it doesn't take much for them to take a day off...and there doesn't seem to be a culture of resenting ' absent ' colleagues or even paying much attention to why they're not there !! Everyone will have to pull up their socks now that Sarko is in charge.....

amidaiwish - again, I leave the personal trainer and the beauty parlour to the ex...

mozhe - my feeling is that, since French women (men barely know their children, let alone the carer IME) are less demanding of the quality of childcare than the British, it is therefore much easier for them to return to work early. There isn't the perception, that there is in the UK, that childcarers/nannies need any particular skills or qualifications for the job.

Which is one of the myriad reasons that complicates comparisons of the UK and France on the WOHM issue.

For all that, you are undoubtedly in a great place to return to work early after the birth, and enjoy those easily taken days off while you can...

I haven't visited any tbh...though the private school my older children attend is supposed to be the best in the city where we live and I was shocked by the facilities/attitude/class size/general shabbiness of the place initially,( NOTHING like London prep school.....),but there again it is ridiculously cheap, and kids seem v.happy and all three can now communicate in french so it seems to be working ok...v.bureaucratic though and constant fussing about paper work...

Decades spent in NHS have conditioned me never to have days off,( though couldn't say that of all my NHS colleagues sadly...),and am far too old to change now...

I agree that most French schools have terrible facilities by UK standards. I'm lucky as we have the Ecole Active Bilingue at Parc Monceau just down the road, and my daughter will start petite section there in a class of 12, for 2 3/4 hours a day mornings only - this is the nearest equivalent to my English standards of early schooling that I could find.

My stepson, at a state collège in Neuilly-sur-Seine, only has Turkish-type loos in his establishment... so primitive...

quick comment on the op.......

from my experience WTC are designed to make you £50 per week better off if you are both working - certainly that has been the case for us regardless of how many children we have and how much childcare we pay.

If I work 16 hours per week (decent rate) with dh working over 30 hours per week we are £50 per week better off (after childcare,Tax, NI etc etc etc) so I have to decide whether working 16 hours per week is worth it to be £50 better off!

He MAY learn a lot though Anna aside from the obvious...obviously.

I passed up the chance of a career bacause my husband and I wanted to have our children while he was still fit enough to help bring them up. He had just lost his father, who was ill throughout my husband's childhood (dicky heart) and we couldn't think of any good reason to delay.

Boy am I glad I didn't wait until my late 30s to have children! If the past four years are anything to go by, I could have been waiting a loooog time. I have many similarly educated female friends who bought into the have it all thing, and now, in their late 30s early 40s, have only their career and look enviously on me (they have told me).

If it's any consolation, I will pay for this rash choice by not having a pension for the last 40 years of my life (going on life expectancy in my family) as I have never worked anywhere for long enough to accrue pension rights, and it is strangely difficult to save into a pension scheme when living on one salary.

I know women who've returned to work barely six weeks after the birth of their child to protect their pension rights. I am very admiring of women who could do that as I couldn't even let my mother in law look after our children at that age, let alone trust them to a childminder or nursery. I was still breastfeeding them hourly or two hourly for pete's sake...
As a teacher, it would be more than I could earn to employ someone to do our complicated school run. So I stay at home and translate from home, grow our veg, and look after my own children. We are on the lowest amount of tax credit available, if that cheers anyone up.

mumfor1, that must be hard but at least you've done the sums and I've found it's under 5s who are difficult to organise and work and indeed be home and have around. It's a tiny little period of your life even if you ahve 5 children like me when they are that age so if you've carried on working often it's then easier to do what you want in terms of work/life after that whereas for many woemn the consequences of giving up work are huge and lifelong (not all, some find the break from a low paid bad job just what they need to think of something better and others again choose never to work again etc).

mozhe - no, it's really not great. We're not going to send his brother to the same collège - probably stick him and my daughter in Ecole Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel, which is very progressive/academic.

Can I just repeat that I have realised that I was wrong in my op as to how much she gets towards childcare. I didnot realise that the £160 shes gets was the tax back and not just an amount given to her.

It does seem that it is as unfair to working mums as well.

I would, though like to say that I totally resent the idea that SAHMs have very rich husbands who treat them to all of life's luxuries.

My DH and I decided when we got married and bought a house that when we had children, we both wanted me to stay at home with them. We decided to move into a cheaper area and boughta smaller house that we could have on one wage so that we could afford the mortgage when I stopped work.

We do not go on expensive holidays (or indeed any holidays except to my dads and my PILs), we have an old car which is just about still going, my DH does not earn a huge amount (not a very low wage but as I said we are jsut above the lowest amount to get the £40pm), his salary pays for the mortgage and bills and that is it. The wtc he gets and the childbenefit pay for our food and everything else that is not a bill ie clothes, petrol etc.

My point is that I am not 'lucky to have a husband that can afford to keep me' but the only reason that we can afford for me to look after our children is because we planned it that way and we are willing not to have those luxuries for the short period that our children are very young. We decided to have our children close toogether so that the ammount of time I will not be working will be as little as posible.

When they are all at school, I plan to go back to work and will do so till I retire.

I am not having a go at those who choose to work, as I said I strongly believe that the right to choose what we do has been a hard won right. I am doing what is right for me and others should do what is right for themselves.

As someone who would just as happily work for the money as stay at home and live on child tax credit, income support and child benefit; I tend to consider tax credits as compensation for the fact that there just isn't enough well paid work available to justify the ridiculous amount I'd fork out in childcare if I were to work the hours required to survive beyond credits and benefits.

I've always reckoned that if you earn under about 16 000 pa then you might as well NOT bust a gut working and sending the children off to nursery from dusk til dawn, but if you stand to earn well over 16 000 by working then it is worth doing and losing the credits. The no man's land in between is that whole "I could work for this or be home with my kids for the same- which will I choose..?" thing.

I've got lots of valuable work experience and a DipHE but because I have always been a public sector employee my earning potential is rather dismal. So, to that end I have always worked less than full time hours for a low wage bumped up fairly reasonably by credits. Once I worked a 60 hour week for considerably more than 16 000 and I considered this heart wrenching (children) but financially 'worth it'.

dh but not all stay at home mothers are like that. There's one on another thread who has a nanny, house keeper etc etc and doesn't work. And there are many women who work like me who earn much more than enables us to get any of these tax credits at all.

True about the no man's land. In a sense we need our daughters to realise that career X has this consequence and career Y has this one and then you make an informed choice.

Is it really so bad to have a nanny, and a house keeper and not work? If her husband can support the family, and employ two people in the house hold why not?

... don't forget the butler and the chef....

I don't think having a nanny whether you work or not is bad for children at all. Often better for them so I obviously don't object to that. If you roll back 150 years it was a bit not on to work at all - even doctors and accountants (professional) who were above "trade" and millowner/businessmen were not quite right because they had to work and did not have a private income.

There are web sites and groups devoted to idleness as a virtue (The Idler) etc (and I'm joking slightly because managing people who work for you and a reasonably large house which I also do to some extent can take up time) and indeed I think it was Jesus who said think of lilies of the field who neither sow nor reap (i/e. they sit around doing nothing and God provides... funny how that doesn't owrk for most of though) so there may even be biblical support for doing very little.

But most people who had a great business/career and sell it cannot stand that not doing anything kind of life. I think my father a a psychiatrist found people who retire early often do get depressed so I'm not sure it really is good for most people.

Then obviously living idle off male earnings rather than contributing say £40k of household services and skills to match his £40k a year annual income which I suppose is more balanced is not politically a good idea.

dragonheart, you and your dh sound a lot like us, although we are earning only about £17k a year, so things are really tight

what I felt when I read your post was "god I hope she can get a job that fits round the kids when they start school", cos thats the things I'm up against now. I've been at home for about 8 years and have worked very part time round the kids, but now unless you are a teacher or want a classroom asst./dinner lady job it's very hard getting something that gives you school hols and flexability, actuall where I am not hard but impossible!

maybe you'll have more luck than me.

Xenia- just a quick side-note: there are parts of the country (Devon for example), where average wage is 18,000 a year, and 40,000 a year jobs are unobtainable (unless you're in local government) and viewed as fancy money. Many many families in this country really struggle- I think a lot of people don't know how much.

Xenia - actually, I don't think it is good for children to have too many domestic servants around. I know a lot of people in my generation who were waited on hand and foot as children and who have had a hard time adapting to less elevated circumstances in adult life - they just aren't able to factor into their day all the little tasks that contribute to being an organised, clean, tidy person around the home AND at work. They grow up thinking that they ought to live (and work) in a hotel, with all laundry, meals etc provided, no tidying or cleaning up after themselves.

I'm a great believer in some home help in order to do some of the large COLLECTIVE tasks that are impersonal, as this is great for reducing family tensions, but in not having so much home help that children don't have to clean and tidy their rooms, contribute to shopping etc.

True and people seduced by cheaper house prices in areas like that don't seem to appreciate they're moving to a deprive area which will have an impact even on their chidlren's jobs in due course. Bits of London may be a bit grim but that may be more valuable in job terms than a nice view of a Devon beach.