Primary schools and childcare arent designed for 2 full-time working parents

[Greywall2]

In 2019, 7 out of 10 households with dependent children had two working parents - ons survey . After covid and with the cost of living crisis, it's likely there has been an increase.

Primary school opening times are between 9am and 3pm (give or take 15 minutes), but a standard working day is 9 till 5. For children with 2 working parents this means that without wrapping around childcare or very flexible working agreements in place, both cannot work full time hours.

Reasonably priced wrap around care is in place for some schools, but in many schools the only option for out of hours care is to employ a childminder or kids club to care for children out of hours. Nurseries tend to be open 8 - 6 and give more flexibility and by secondary school children are able to go to and from school by themselves.

AIBU to think that the government should assist primary schools to allow them to provide wrap around care? I am NOT saying that teachers should be available between 8am and 5 or 6pm, but that there should be a childcare option available.

Children are (rightly of course!) are legally required to have an education, but the timings of the provision mean that parents can't work in certain jobs and financially support their family. The parent/parents who can't afford wrap around care may get fired for not being at work on time and the parent/parents who don't drop off and pickup their children on time are punished as there is no one to look after them (of course as teachers have gone home).

Of course life is unfair and people should budget for childcare costs, but unexpected things happen such as the rise in energy prices or interest rate rises and the childcare options for primary aged children are seem very restrictive.

You haven't actually read what I wrote, have you?

Just what I was going to write.

Ha! And that's even before we get on to elderly women talking about "trouble downstairs", men with their "back passage" and "passing water" or "I can't get it up".

We need home grown HCPs, carers, and school staff and where we can't grow them all, we need not to assume they can parachute in and be ready for action at a day's notice. Overseas HCPs and social care/education staff are brilliant but it's daft to rely on them and assume we don't need any new well-educated adults coming up any time in the next 40 years, and we don't need taxes from their parents.

I've increased my hours at work this year (because I'm lucky enough to have a DH WFH more or less full time and when he has to go into the office I can cover the slack) and my additional income is more than the increase in childcare for DD for whom we can actually get childcare. It's more than the increase would be for DS if we could get it for him as well. But I'd work more efficiently if we could get that, as well.

All the kids I know that were brought up like yours are confident, happy and outgoing children. It can’t be a coincidence that the kids I know who were at home with a SAHM are all a bit clingy and nowhere near as confident. I was brought up by a SAHM and was so so clingy and used to get homesick and have to come home early from sleepovers. I wish I’d have been exposed to nursery or more social stuff away from my mother!

Agreed! That’s a really unhealthy proportion of their week spent in a school…

Typical school day in China is 7.30-5. That’s actual school, not wrap around.

So right, so refreshing to see someone else say it

So right and so refreshing to see someone else say it

This wasn't meant to be a stand alone statement - I'm new here...

Many council officer jobs and probably other public sectors too. 10-4 core hours doesn't mean that's the extent of the working day. It might be 8-4 or 10-6 or 10-4 with the missing 2 hours a day made up for some other time like evenings or weekends.

I never wanted wrap around care, I wanted more time with my kids than that and I still think 1 wage should be enough to provide for 4 people. But it isn't. Needs must - I'm about to start sending mine to breakfast club 3 days a week and I know its the thin end of the wedge - they're on the waiting list for the other 2 days and after school club too. So all the people here talking about how their kids are thriving on it are giving me some hope that it will be ok

Agree with this.

No, you're left with literally thousands and thousands of office-based roles across a multitude of industries including many of the ones you have mentioned which have an army of office workers that mean the customer facing workers can do their jobs!

I work across the local authority and NHS and not a single role I work with or know of offers that flexibility. Yes core hours are 10-3, but the reality is that work is 8.30-4.30 or 9-5 and not flexible, even if it is WFH. I'm lucky that my manager gives me a very high degree of flexibility but if other people found out about it, it'd be taken away, my manager and I have to work below the radar with regard to the flexibility we afford my team.

Do you have any stats on Chinese children’s mental health at all ? My daughter was out their doing year three of uni and basically the kids even more fucked up than they are here which is saying something.

It's 30 plus years too late.

The baby boomers could not/would not have enough children to replace themselves, for a multitude of reasons.
Now they are moving into retirement, liquidating the capital that they put into our economy.

There are not nearly enough young working age adults NOW to make up for the loss we are going through as the baby boomers cease to work and pay taxes, and become service users.

Our economy is not going to improve. We've had the best of it.

The boomers will have to liquidate their assets if they want their children to survive basically that’s what’s being forced upon us, it’s nothing to do with having their arses wiped quite simply just isn’t gonna happen they gonna die before they get to that stage.

@RunningSME so where do these older people live if they sell their houses to help their adult children?

They release the equity

As opposed to the neurotic, anxious kids that can't even pick up a pencil at school because mummy who cares about them more than any other mummy in the world couldn't possibly let their precious baby out of their sight for 1 second to learn some independence.

(No I don't for a second believe this is representative of all SAHMs but a shitty comment deserves a shitty reply)

Well i do believe it’s entirely representative of the types who try and convince themselves their children are “confident”, the parents aren’t even confident themselves hence yaking on about it so its no surprise the mine are oh so bright brigade crack.

But that's got fuck all to do with childcare does it? Pushy parents can be SAHPs or working parents. Pushy parents that take it too far are not representative of the average parent, working or not. To suggest working parents drive their children to suicide is just sick. Honestly one of the most disgusting comments I've ever read on here.

Why bother having kids if you’re not raising them? It makes no sense.

please STFU
my children are raised by their parents
peruid