To be appalled by nursery funding for children living in poverty

[Crunchyapplez]

Re. The Times today:

If you work for less than 16 hours a week on the living wage (ie your children are being raised in poverty), then you get only 15 hours of free nursery hours.

If you are a 3 or 4 year old, living in poverty and on a child protection plan (when a child is regarded as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm), then you are STILL not eligible for more than 15 hours of funded nursery a week - even when it is formally recognised that your home is not always a safe place.

BUT a child whose parents earn as much as £200000 a year is eligible for 30 hours a week, fully funded by the government.

Please vote:
YABU: I find this an acceptable funding structure
YANBU: I find this unacceptable

What you’re doing is assuming anyone who works less than 16 hours is a failure as a parent. Why is that?
Threads about nursery at 2 always seem to end up being about how all those kids are living in poverty with terrible parents who are either thick, disinterested or abusive and kids would be better off away from their parents / lazy, disinterested and send the kids to nursery because they can't be bothered to parent them

I'm not convinced what the take up would be like tbh. Maybe that means it could be offered universally on the assumption uptake for the out of work would be low.

We qualify for the 30 hours from 3, I don't work so can't imagine sending them in that many hours. They'll do half days and that's plenty. I think it's good prep for Reception esp as it'll be at the same school, good socialisation beyond what we already do and I think they'll actually love it. But all day five days is such a lot when I'm not working so am home.

I often sent mine for 20-25 hours whilst on mat leave or working as I worked 14 hours for a bit (but earned over the threshold). However I only work during term time so feel I have ample time with them!

I still claimed for the 30 hours so the school nursery could get the maximum funding despite not always needing it but it gave me flexibility.

@ToykotoLosAngeles

Very few of those who choose to be SAHM in those circumstances would use all of the 30h just because it was there. With my older child I used the 15 hours at the local school nursery class then added a couple of afternoons in the final term to help with school readiness for my August born. We did other activities in the afternoons because we had the financial opportunity.

I could afford to have DS in 5 days a week now but have chosen to prioritise a paid music class one morning - and he does other paid activities 2 of the afternoons he's not in nursery, which I wouldn't want to change just because of free nursery hours.

Free universal 30 hours would be unlikely to be heavily "exploited" by the SAHM by choice demographic!

You can really see on these threads who knows what poverty is really like

There is a grey area between perfect parenting and needing to have your children removed where most of us exist

Many homes don’t need their children taken away in order to be better parents. They just need somewhere to turn to before they break

Take my friend A for example.

She was a care kid herself so didn’t receive the nurturing she is now supposed to know how to demonstrate to her children.

Being a care kid though she’s no family support and like many care kids she had to breed her own family and now she’s permanently over stretched with an older daughter who stil needs her mum, a missile child whose additional needs means he gets 99% of mums attention and a younger child got has got used to this set up.

She loves her kids, keeps her house does her best to be everything they need

But she is one person, with a back injury just struggling quietly along

She doesn’t need her kids taken off her for their outcomes to improve but in the 24hr nursery place system if she was admitted to hospital in the middle of the night her children could be taken (as if they had family) to a known and trusted care giver until she could collect or visit them instead of into emergency foster care

When she has bad pain days and can’t function she could pop them in a taxi to somewhere safe

Having been raising my daughter entirely alone for a decade I have taken her to private medical appts, dentist appts, she has seen me breakdown in tears and running manic highs, I have cared for her when I haven’t slept for three days, when I’ve been up all night with d and v, when Im off my face on post surgery pain meds, I’ve cared for her entirely alone while having to crawl to the bathroom to wee

Not everyone who is struggling has kids who would be better off in care

There could be a better system, kinder to everyone and Thats brings kids out of poverty through education, early years intervention and by directly providing the support that families need.

But who would the posh twats feel superior to then?

@ToykotoLosAngeles

I know 3 mums who are SAHM because their husbands earn enough so they don't need to work (which doesn't require a £100k salary as they don't live in Mumsnetland). Should we be funding them for 30 hours as well? If not, what's the salary limit on which families should pay to top up from 16 to 30 hours?

Yes… all children should be entitled

Regardless of their parents circumstances

At the end of the day yea some people will stick their kids in childcare for long hours because they don’t want to bother parenting them

If that’s the case then their kids are better off with qualified Children’s workers who will engage with them, teach them the share nicely and use a spoon, encourage them to paint and express themselves and do all the things their parents should want to do

Because the children deserve these opportunities even is their dad earns 100k and their mum is a lazy sahm and can’t be arsed with her kids so just leaves them to fight and watch tv for 5 years before school

It’s not and never should be about wether the parents are entitled to it

The kids are entitled to it

It’s not and never should be about wether the parents are entitled to it

The kids are entitled to it

i agree

in the 24hr nursery place system if she was admitted to hospital in the middle of the night her children could be taken (as if they had family) to a known and trusted care giver until she could collect or visit them instead of into emergency foster care how does this actually work though? You can't have building say open across the country with staff waiting for anyone to call cos they need a midnight babysitter. If it was an on call thing you wouldn't have one person per family because they need time off too. If she was taken into hospital and kept there 24 hours would you expect the same person to keep them and then drop them home at a sensible time or are they passed between people every 8 hours?? That's why WHEN it works well emergency Foster care is better than childcare, because it's a home environment not a creche.

Should people have better access to support? Yes. But I don't see how in reality you can offer everyone 24/7 childcare outside of SS

The kids are entitled to it
Kids are entitled to access to education and all the rest of it but why 30 hours at 3? Why not 40 or 20. Or, as is the case, 15. All children aged over 3 are entitled to 15 hours of education. Beyond that some parents choose to put their children in to childcare for their own personal reasons. The Govt "supports" this by providing extra hours of childcare free where its needed (ie no one else to have them) and things like tax free child care.
Why aren't all children entitled to childcare from 7 am - 7 pm 7 days a week and if we're deeming it something important enough that they should all be able to access to, why don't we make it mandatory?

If you work for less than 16 hours a week on the living wage (ie your children are being raised in poverty), then you get only 15 hours of free nursery hours.

How about working more hours so that your children don't live in poverty? Or, you know, do you own childcare of you don't work much?
Why do taxpayers always have to pay for everything?

but why 30 hours at 3? Why not 40 or 20. It's essential the school day so makes sense to have the same rhythm.

How about working more hours so that your children don't live in poverty? Or, you know, do you own childcare of you don't work much?

Because it's that simple 🙄

Why do taxpayers always have to pay for everything?

that's what tax is for.....

Why are children getting reduced (or privileged) access to education based on what their parents earn? We wouldn’t accept this for primary or secondary school children
And yet we regularly have threads about how being a sahm is best for young children and that FT working mums are trying to do their best when they don't have a choice, but ultimately, it's never as good as being at home with mum so which is it?

@dorkfink

How about working more hours so that your children don't live in poverty? Or, you know, do you own childcare of you don't work much?

Because it's that simple 🙄

Why do taxpayers always have to pay for everything?

that's what tax is for.....

Oh yeah, not that simple 🙄 Lazy people always want more handouts. They feel entitled to it, because "that what tax is for". Let someone else work and provide it with that tax, while they spend their time watching netflix and moaning how hard they have it. If you don't work, you should get nothing.

So best get those toddlers back up those chimneys

Think I found boris on mn

If you don't work, you should get nothing.

Yes that's great for society as a whole! Some people aren't capable of work.

Lots of people work but aren't net contributors anyway, should they get nothing?

It should be abhorrent to us that rich children are entitled to more nursery education than poor ones, though (shouldn’t it?).

When government policy treats rich and poor children differently in the same educational setting, what do you think that looks like?

But they are not being treated differently at that point. All children are entitled to 15 hours early years education from the age of three. All parents who work certain hours and earn a certain amount are entitled to 30 hours free childcare. They are two separate things. All children need an education, but not all parents need childcare. 3 year olds don’t need to be in an educational setting 30 hours a week, few people choose to put them in nursery or preschool for that long if it isn’t necessary. It is in most cases simply because they need childcare.
Children in poverty are actually the ones who receive the ‘extra’ education (as they should to balance out some of the inequality they face) because they’ve been entitled to it an entire year from the age of two before the other three year olds.

@vivainsomnia

Why are children getting reduced (or privileged) access to education based on what their parents earn? We wouldn’t accept this for primary or secondary school children And yet we regularly have threads about how being a sahm is best for young children and that FT working mums are trying to do their best when they don't have a choice, but ultimately, it's never as good as being at home with mum so which is it?

Nursery isn’t statutory, but schools leaders are increasingly worried that children are not school ready, and nurseries are instrumental in addressing that issue.

I was a SAHM until my children were nursery age. That doesn’t have any bearing on my view that dc’s friends, who had ‘poor’ parents, got less nursery than my dc did.

Basically, what I have learned from this thread is that a lot of people view ‘nursery’ as ‘childcare’, and that ‘nursery’ is unappreciated as an educational setting.

Literally no one has said anything even remotely like that. You may as well have a conversation with yourself OP if you’re just going to interpret bollocks out of what everyone is telling you.

"in the 24hr nursery place system if she was admitted to hospital in the middle of the night her children could be taken (as if they had family) to a known and trusted care giver until she could collect or visit them instead of into emergency foster care"

Or with a childminder, who will also provide this service.

In fact, no-one seems to be considering childminders, who often offer the same funding and are working to the same curriculum as the nurseries.

Have you read the thread @Rosesareyellow? I wouldn’t go so far as to say my interpretation was ‘bollocks’, but thank you.

You aren’t quite right about the two years provision, by the way. Children who are eligible for the two year provision do not then become eligible for the 30 hours. Depending on birthdays, there will be many wealthier 3/4 year olds who will have been entitled to far more by the time they have started school.

Rich children?

How have you jumped from parents working full time to rich children? We both work full time and our children were entitled to the nursery hours.

We would have had to sell our home if I couldn’t go back to work after maternity. At times despite working full time before the free hours at three I was left with £380 a month that wasn’t spent on childcare. Not bills, not mortgage, not council tax, not food, not clothes, not savings, not holidays - childcare.

How in any way are the children of working parents ‘rich?’

@endlesssighing

I'm with you. We are also both working parents earning above the national average who are by no means "rich"! I wish! A huge proportion of our income is wiped out by childcare for our 9 month old. And that's with the 20% tax free childcare amount, too.