To think we should be protesting

[Jessieabs]

For affordable childcare.

Why are we letting the government get away with the absolute joke that is childcare in the U.K.

Over 2k per month to send 2 kids to nursery seems like madness! There should absolutely be reform to this crazy state that we’re in. Surely a huge majority of the voting population have children/have grandchildren or plan to have children, but this issue is rarely talked about at election time!

@Kpo58

I think that the government should properly subsidise childcare. Think how much better the economy would be and amount of tax the government would get if most people could be in employment rather than a large amount being priced out of it due to childcare costs.

Agree.

People say taxes would need to increase to subsidise working parents childcare.

This is incorrect. Subsidised childcare would mean more skilled workers in the workforce who would generate income tax. Thereby covering the childcare subsidy and improving the economy!

“ Which costs the childfree. Including childfree women.”

Should we stop paying for car accident victims treatment ? Not everyone has a car

@AICM

I thought women would be more supportive of other women.

This thread has surprised me.

isn't it a parents responsibility though....why just women?

I do sometimes wonder how much parents are prepared for the reality of parenthood.

I don't really get the point. The only money the government has is the money it takes. People who are not working or on low wages already get assistance with childcare via universal credit. If most people have kids (which they do) and you're not accepting a cut in other forms of social welfare, you're just asking the government to take and spend the money you would have spent anyway (albeit over a longer period of time).
Unless you think you're being price-gouged by the notoriously lucrative profession of childminders and nursery teachers.

@EasterIssland

“ Which costs the childfree. Including childfree women.”

Should we stop paying for car accident victims treatment ? Not everyone has a car

Car accident victims are treated on the NHS and we all have access to it.

So that's a false comparison.

@Confiscatedpopit

Bet those who are saying it’s fine have grandparents on tap/ trust funds. In other words don’t have a clue.

I’m with you OP.

I have a job that pays more than enough. I got it by working hard and not making stupid life choices. If I'd had a child when I was 20, I wouldn't have been able to get to that point. But I'm not a mindless animal in heat, nor am I incapable of understanding how birth control works, so that didn't happen.

As for grandparents, my mother was a single mother (on purpose) who waited to have a child until she had a job that was stable and paid well enough. In a perfect world, she might have liked another child, but because she's not a selfish twat, she didn't have more than she could afford.

Why do you think that no one who doesn't have a trust fund is cognitively capable of reasoning all this through before having a child? And if you really believe that everyone who wasn't born into wealth functions at the mental level of an eight-year-old, why on earth would you encourage them to have children?

I really do think a return to starting your family younger would be a better choice for most women. Start your career after the children are at school.
I also think that. It is definitely something that I would be discussing quite openly with my daughter once she's a bit older. To consider starting her family while still at uni (fine, let it take 6 years instead of 3) and while I am relatively young and can help out, both financially and physically. Consider maybe an older and more financially stable partner. Ten years ago I would have probably been aghast at my own views now, I was firmly at the "you can have it all, career then house then marriage then kids" camp.

Where does it end though? OP is a high earner and still have the cheek to ask for handouts from the government. Where does it end? People being paid minimum wage are being taxed so the MC OP can still afford to live her MC lifestyle. I know, why don't we ask nursery staff (who earns significantly less than the OP) to take a wage cut so OP can pay for childcare for the children she chose to have. What do you reckon? £3 an hour? That suit you better OP?

I am a “childfree” woman (would not usually define myself in that way though) but I’m not an island, I’m part of our society, I need and want it to function better and more equally, and parents, especially mothers, having the option to remain part of the workforce regardless of income level would be a major boost to the economy and society as a whole I believe. My politics are not just “what is best for me as an individual”, how selfish would that be.

“Gender” SEX pay gap is obviously intrinsically linked to cost of childcare being a major obstacle to women progressing in their careers.

@AlfonsoTheDinosaur

So disgusted that so many on here think that only the rich should have children, or that it's a lifestyle choice that should be funded like an expensive car.

Actually, no one said either of those things.

Amusingly somebody straightaway compared this to a Chanel handbag tax.

And nobody said only the rich should have children. But it's ridiculously privileged to think that a family can absorb £2k childcare costs (or for one person to lose their career and their income for X amount of years) if they are not wealthy.

Childcare is not 'free stuff', it's a public good. Who's going to nurse you after an operation, keep the supermarkets running, care for the elderly, or teach your kids, without decent, affordable childcare? Where are all the taxes going to come from that pay for everything else if a disproportionate amount of talented women (mostly women, of course) are knocked out of the workforce because it isn't worth their while to go to work, and so they no longer pay into the system? Honestly, I can't even believe this point has to be made in 2021.

Look at Sweden. Look at France. There are a million ways to do this that create a better world for everyone and don't bankrupt the public purse.

But why should I subsidies the car accident treatment ? It’s a lifestyle at the end of the day ?

Should we stop paying treatments for those that caught COVID over the Xmas lunches ? Not everyone decided to have a family get together …

Just because it’s nhs doesn’t mean we should be paying for everyone that has made a lifestyle choice according to your way of thinking or does it only affect when people decide to have children?

If you can’t see that by subsiding childcare people manage to work more and end up paying more taxes / spending more …

I agree with you. You are not being unreasonable to expect childcare for two children to be affordable - many other counties manage it. Mine costs me £3k a month. Although my husband and I are on decent salaries (more than 110k per year between us, which I consider good), I may as well not go to work as it doesn't quite cover childcare after tax etc.

To those moaning about how tax papers shouldn't be funding people's life choices etc... that's a very simplistic way of looking at it, and doesn't take into account wider impacts upon gender roles in society. I find the fact that despite a salary of more than £60k a year, I would be financially better off by giving up work and staying home with my kids, ludicrous. Yes, I can just afford to do this, and we saved for this exact circumstance. But money is tight and not everyone could afford to do this. So what we see, time and time again, is women giving up their careers to be the stay at home parent. And yes, of course men COULD do that instead, but we all know that it is more often than not the women who do (for a wide variety of reasons). So crippling childcare costs are contributing to women's career-loss and perpetuating the gender gap of salary.

Somebody blamed a poster for having two children close together. We did. Why? Because I wanted as little impact on my career as possible and wanted to get pregnancy and maternity leave 'out of the way', so to speak, so that I could go for promotion and potentially have more chance of getting it (especially as the promotion was a full time job and I wanted to be part time while the babies were under 1). We all know that despite the fact that it is illegal to discriminate against women of child bearing age, it happens all the time. I actually made clear in my letter of application that my family is complete. It's terrible I felt the need to do that.

It's not as simple as being angry at people for their life choices. ALL women pay the cost of sky-high childcare in some way, whether we realise it or not, because of massive knock on effects.

It's not just about 'you chose to have kids - you deal with it'. It's about getting women back into the workplace. If someone is giving up work or going part time, 95% of the time it's going to be the woman. Childcare in this country is extortionate, and women disproportionately pay the price for that. So we can't really get up in arms about everything being governed by men, and then at the same time declare that women just need to suck it up because they chose to have kids so should have had a plan.

The biggest chunk of our tax at the moment goes towards welfare. And I bet that a lot of single mums would not end up relying on benefits if childcare wasn't so expensive. It's a cycle.

I don't think hiking the taxes of low and medium earners is the answer though. I don't really know what the answer is tbh, but it is a problem.

12% or salary already goes on education.

How much more are childless people supposed to stump up for childcare?!

@parentinghelp1

Also isn't childcare already free from age 3? How much free shit do you want 🤷‍♀️

No, it is structured in a really weird way, and not even remotely covering the actual commercial fees. This free 30 hours allowance, for example, decreased my nursery bill from £1800 per child to £1400 per child. It was very welcome, of course, and I was very grateful for it, but was not a life changer. It is in place for 1 year (min) or 2 years (max), depending on where your child's birthday falls within the academic year, and then the eligibility expires and the wraparound childcare costs start.

@WhoIsBernieBrown yes yes absolutely!

12% of tax on salary, that should be

But the NHS is a system open to all. We all get to benefit.

You seem confused

@Autumndays123

Where does it end though? OP is a high earner and still have the cheek to ask for handouts from the government. Where does it end? People being paid minimum wage are being taxed so the MC OP can still afford to live her MC lifestyle. I know, why don't we ask nursery staff (who earns significantly less than the OP) to take a wage cut so OP can pay for childcare for the children she chose to have. What do you reckon? £3 an hour? That suit you better OP?

Exactly even minimum wage people will have to pay for childcare and many won’t be able to afford it so give up their careers.

Or maybe subsidise it according to the salary like they do in many other countries.

Not sure where you got op is a high earner. They might have to give up their career because they can’t afford 2k/month in nursery fees.

Ps don’t forget that high earners pay as well taxes … so they also deserve to receive something back from the society. It’s not only paying into the pot.

Car accident victims are treated on the NHS and we all have access to it.
So that's a false comparison.

Hmm, no comparing a proposal for universal childcare with currently existing universal healthcare…..seems a fair enough analogy to be honest.

@Silverswirl

No one should be subsidising childcare. You chose to have the child and childcare has always been expensive. It’s not like it suddenly massively increased in the last 3 years. Enough kids get shunted off all day- sometimes for very long days to some nursery with randoms. A child feels safest with their primary caregiver who is the same person both day and night for most of the week, every week. Many don’t like to hear that and say that little Johnny loves nursery and would get ‘bored’ at home but most are just saying that to make themselves feel better about their child being away all day or because they want to buy unnecessary things or because they actually find parenting boring and repetitive

@Silverswirl I've got to disagree. My daughter (8 months) has been going to nursery 3 days a week for 9 hours a day since she was 6 months old. She loves it. She is so happy when she sees her keyworker and the smiling photos I receive through the day prove that too.

The other two days are with grandparents who she also adores.

I'd love to give up work and spend more time with her but unfortunately, bills need to be paid.

Jesus. What depressing responses. Society needs to repopulate itself or there won't be enough workers to support the older population. I presume all of you who 'peach' about how much money you are owed by people who have kids would still like a nurse to take care of you in your old age ? Or should we just rely on immigration for this ?

Having kids for many is a natural, biological decision. It's not the same as choosing to buy a Chanel handbag or a selfish lifestyle choice. It's human nature. I'm sure many parents would like to stay at home with their kids but it's simply not an economic possibility in a country with such high living costs and sadly your career would be punished harshly.

My childcare costs £1650 a month for one child. Our mortgage is £1100. If I worked less than full time I wouldn't be eligible for that mortgage anymore (even though we could afford it). It's f@cked up. I live in a 2 bed flat - not a palace. My husband and I are both professionals and have made sensible choices but it irks me that even with all these advantages we struggle to get by. Perhaps, you childfree evangelists should do some research on how much it costs because only a tiny percentage of the population can comfortably afford to have two kids in full time childcare.

The result of this is that middle class people are putting off families until later in life and too late sometimes, less wealthy people are stuck on benefits because work simple doesn't pay and financial pressures on families are horrendous.

We also need to address the fact that it's women's careers that suffer the most. We are more likely to be offered / take up flexible hours and part time jobs. Sadly these options are often seen as second rate. The gender pay gap is primarily because women are still held responsible for caring responsibilities and seen as unreliable and uncommitted by employers. This perception must change.

So yes, we should be bloody well protesting. Protesting for people if all genders to be equally responsible for caring for the older and future generations. We should protest for work places that recognise that work and life are not separate entities. We should protest at the high cost of childcare and cost of living that is stopping people having children and reaching their potential outside the home. We can do better.,at the very least profit free childcare should be available.

@parentinghelp1 childcare free from age 3? Wow, no, that's a massive misconception. It will make a small difference to us. A few hundred pounds a month difference. Which is a lot, but a small proportion when we are paying £3k a month in total for the two children (and this is cheaper than where we used to live - we moved recently).

I'm in two minds about this. I have one DC in nursery. We actually get quite a lot subsided already, 20% from when they start nursery and 30 free hours from age 3. I also think other areas need better funding first such as the NHS and schools, and also think that all costs should thought through before having children, including childcare, and dont have children or multiple children if you can't afford it.

On the other hand childcare is really expensive. We were shocked at the amount and we have two decent salaries. I really don't know how people on low or average salaries afford it. I also don't think taxes should be raised to cover it as so many people are struggling right now. I have no idea what the solution is.