AIBU to be annoyed by this headline stating that a mother only earns £2 per shift after childcare when the article mentions the childrens' father who lives with them

[ASandwichNamedKevin]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63904607

I know childcare is expensive but surely it ought to be a shared expense when parents are living together?
Is there any way to challenge this perception that it's the sole responsibility of mothers?

I'm not intending this as a criticism of this individual family but of the reporting.

If you don't want to click the link, it says the mum earns £73 and pays out £71 so only 'makes' £2. AIBU to think she 'makes' £37.50 (please let my maths be right!)

I don't think it matters, the point is they are only £2 better off no matter who pays it

The point is that at the moment she is only working 3 days a week and her husband is working 6 days. The article is about her wanting to work more than she does at the moment so the comparison between the extra she’d get paid and what the extra nursery fees are is valid.

It’s starting from the status quo. It is talking about the family as a whole - the family as a whole would only have £2 more a week if she worked another day.

Childcare should be subsidised. It is ridiculous it’s like this.

And yes it’s our choice to have children. But without them your would have to permanently import people for our pyramid scheme.

I think it's also really short sighted to just consider the sums now - by staying working, you are investing in your career, your future earnings are likely to be higher if you don't take a career break for childcare.

But they probably get top ups or tac free childcare etc
Childcare has always been expensive its a reason many stayed at home years ago
When you have kids you know you need to pay out
I worked evenings , dh days 20 years ago as that was what made financial sense
My mum worked and paid childminders when we weee younger too, no free 30 hrs or anything like that fhen.or help.
Its a short period of time and something you know is expensive , if you have subsidised childcare ,who subsidises if? The tax payer so ultimately your paying another way via your taxes and so are people who don't even have childcare.

if you have subsidised childcare ,who subsidises if? The tax payer so ultimately your paying another way via your taxes and so are people who don't even have childcare.

This thinking betrays a huge lack of understanding of economics. Free/ heavily subsidised childcare pays for itself, hence why most developed countries have this policy, not out of the goodness of their hearts. The UK is an outlier, with the highest childcare cost: average salary ration in the developed world.

More people working = higher tax take, lower child poverty, lower demand on services/ benefits, better health, high productivity, larger economy, more new businesses set u and growth opportunities, better long-term outcomes in terms of skills not being wasted/ unintended long-term unemployment as people struggle to rejoin the workforce at the same level, better equality between the sexes which benefits societal stability, reduces the percentage of marriages than end, reduces child poverty, increases social mobility, also a better balance of women and men in senior positions results in better governance and higher profits for companies therefore again more tax revenue... etc.

The question is simply do you want a positive reinforcing spiral upwards, or a negative reinforcing spiral downwards?

That's not really what I means I don't think. DH and I split child care cost obviously not
Comes out of the joint account. But in this situation if I earned £73 and childcare was £71 my wage is only contributing £2 to the pot. What's how I see it.

I'm on mat leave now and have looked at returning full time (currently three days a week after previous DS was born) and with two full time children in nursery even with DS 'free hours' I would contribute and extra £20 to the pot for full time vs part time so just not worth it

That ^^ is exactly the problem and a major factor contributing to our economy being in such a state.

See also: taxing by individual rather than household.

And your thinking betrays a huge lack of understanding of child development. Do you honestly believe a child is better brought up hy a nursery than its own parents?

And your thinking betrays a huge lack of understanding of child development. Do you honestly believe a child is better brought up hy a nursery than its own parents?

Children who attend nursery are not "brought up by nursery".

Interestingly the international data over a significant period of time proved that countries that have free/ almost free childcare have better mental and physical health outcomes for both adults and children and lower childhood poverty rates, and high overall standards of living, than ours. How does that fit with your narrative?

Oh, and to boot they have better sex equality, less poverty in general, higher productivity (which raises everyone's living standards) and that in these circumstances - with proper parental leave policies etc for men also - parenting and household work is also generally far more equally shared.

In short it's a no brainer. Better for children and all family members and the country as a whole.

That is why sensible Governments fund it. They aren't basing their policies on decades old sexist and debunked nonsense, rather on actual, current, undeniable data on a huge scale which proves that this is beneficial for everyone.

Every family should have access to high quality affordable childcare. Subsidies would pay for themselves in terms of immediate economic benefit of having more people (mothers) working, as well as the longer term benefits that arise from fewer children growing up in poverty and more children benefiting from quality early years education.

We also need to reward the people (women) working in the childcare sector, and pay them at a level that reflects the skill and importance of what they do.

The whole system is fucked, basically.

No nursery "brings up" a child fgs.

And there are way too many variants to to even begin to try to compare the two situations between nursery and staying home with a parent.

Some children will have an amazing SAHP and will have a life of wonderfully enriching experiences. Some children will have a shit home life with a SAHP.
Some nurseries are fabulous, some are crap.

Some parents can't afford to have a SAHP, some parents find that the cost of going out to work is prohibitive.

Can we all just make it that we accept that everyone's situation is different, and that the majority of parents are trying to do their best?

But what about the future? Surely you will get pay increases and promotions that you might not get part time (although you should).

This. Pension build up, career experience, and so on, are all very important.

It irritates me when women in relationships bleat that they can’t return to work because ‘their’ salary will go on childcare. It’s a joint cost that comes out of both their incomes (And going back to work has other benefits too). Why should the nursery cost be seen as the mother’s? Ugh.

It's incredibly short-sighted. And these women end up 15 years later wondering what happened to their life/ career/ pension when the marriage breaks down. Or even when it doesn't!

With such a huge sample size, I'm sure someone has done a major study proving that children who attend nursery in their early years have worse outcomes than children who stay at home with their mothers.

Can you link to it?

For what it's worth, my son does a huge range of age appropriate activities in his (state subsidised) crèche (in an EU country) that he would never be able to do at home with me.

I completely agree with you OP. It’s a symptom of the fact that society sees it as a woman’s responsibility to make changes after she has children, whether that’s paying for childcare, giving up work, going part-time or something else. Whereas men get to carry on like they did before.

I think childcare should always be presented as a joint expense.

How do you know they get top ups? Not everyone does.

Yes you are 100% correct, this attitude is echoed on here thread after thread. My exh had the same attitude.

If you reposted in the feminist section you'd see the difference in responses!

Agree.
Child is both our responsibility- so both our costs.
I did actually drop hours due to the cost of childcare, but that could easily have been my husband dropping days too.

Well studies show a lot of 2 year olds are actually - it's why there are free hours for 2 year olds in deprived areas, to close the development gap between them and their more affluent peers.

Technically it is a marginal expenditure though, the household only gains £2 as a result of the second parent (whichever they be, though it's usually the mother) returning to work. Therefore it's barely worth the second parent doing so. That's the real issue.