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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Parents of university age children never got ANY free childcare

378 replies

Cliff1975 · 15/03/2023 08:05

Whilst it is great that the government has finally realised that free childcare is needed those of us with university age children did not benefit from this and we are now supporting them through uni at great expense. Maybe once these kids who are getting free childcare get to uni that will be free too? Just can't help feeling that we are missing out from all angles?

OP posts:
incywincyspidery · 16/03/2023 20:58

While this is true, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be changed now does it? Mine are 22, 20 and 19. When the second came along pretty much my entire wage would have gone on child care so we managed on just DH's salary, moved to a cheaper area and ended up changing careers and starting a business from home that we could both do while looking after the DCs ourselves. We no longer do the career we trained and studied for and that is in no small part due to the costs of child care at the start of this century. So rather than being jealous of parents these days I am relieved for them. I hope it is still the case if mine have children.

Messyhair321 · 16/03/2023 21:17

Yabu because I have a 22 year old & definitely there was free childcare. Not as much as was on offer now but there was at 2 1/2 until school age

PippEmma · 16/03/2023 21:37

Mine are long past uni and i got some free childcare when 3 and 4 years old, even against private school fees!

Albiboba · 16/03/2023 22:24

LovelyLisa2 · 16/03/2023 20:14

I have to agree with you. Older children are generally so much more expensive and you soon realise that nursery is nothing.

Perhaps if you paid for nursery 15 years ago.

It’s ridiculous to suggest £14,000 a year is “nothing”.
Most people are actually not spending considerably more than that on their older children.

Kteeb1 · 16/03/2023 22:24

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit. That's what's progress is. Should our ancestors have kept children in cotton Mills? Is a good thing.

Anotherturnipforthebooks · 16/03/2023 22:32

LovelyLisa2 · 16/03/2023 20:14

I have to agree with you. Older children are generally so much more expensive and you soon realise that nursery is nothing.

What?! A full time nursery place can cost £2k a month.

How much are you spending on your older children?

Iseestupidpeople · 16/03/2023 22:59

Yes and anyone with children that went to Uni pre 2000 also didn’t pay a penny to send them to Uni and their house cost 1/10 of what they do now.

PatientlyWaiting21 · 16/03/2023 23:04

Higher education is free in Scotland

Nzyellowbelly · 16/03/2023 23:12

My kids are past uni age, early - mid 20s. I'm pretty sure there was free preschool sessions for them when they were little. I don't think uni education will ever be free again.

fyn · 16/03/2023 23:53

Cliff1975 · 15/03/2023 09:40

Yes i got free university which I am grateful for. I don't begrudge this help with childcare to others at all. Just pondering really. Expectations in life have certainly changed, my parents generation had cheaper housing but they saved for things and didn't expect things straightaway. They were married a few years before they had a washing machine. Now we have a generation where phones, foreign holidays, meals out etc are all seen as necessities.

This is just nonsense though isn’t it. We have phones yes, but phones are a pretty basic requirement of the modern world. We don’t have holidays and rarely eat out because we have two under two and those things just aren’t priorities!

I will slightly benefit from the new childcare funding but was the first year to pay £9,000 a year for my degree on a four year course. I have about £60,000 of student debt hanging over me, I’ll swap you childcare fees!

Babyroobs · 17/03/2023 00:03

My dc are all University age and all got 15 hours free early years funding. We also claimed a small amount of tax credit help towards childcare although for many years we worked around each other so the amount we needed to claim was very small but could have claimed a lot more had our situation been different.

Mammut · 17/03/2023 00:09

I’m really glad that things are moving on although this budget announcement is far from the whole answer. I’m from the generation that got nothing. Single parent in the 90’s working in professional but poorly paid vocational job, no child maintenance. Tax credits would have been amazing, I still maintain that this was the biggest success and most wide reaching social change of the Blair government. I could access high quality childcare (very lucky) but the cost crippled me. I was living on £15 pound a week child benefit to cover food, petrol and clothes, i would have been much been much better off on benefits. The current benefit regime would have really improved the qualify of my life back then when its was fucking miserable.

Phoebo · 17/03/2023 01:22

faffadoodledo · 15/03/2023 08:09

While this is true, I don't think it's an argument not to civilise our society. I'm older than you I think, OP - my children are beyond university. So no childcare help and no paternal leave whatsoever (maybe two days - I can't remember!). But still I don't begrudge them.
After all I had 'free' university education even if my children didn't.
We need to think societally not individually

This. Want what is better, even if it doesn't benefit you

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 17/03/2023 01:29

I think everyone should get a free 25k at age 25.

They can use it for house deposit, ivf, child care, savings or holidays- whatever they please.

One and done, fair play to everyone.

Mamanyt · 17/03/2023 01:31

Mind you, I am 70 years old, as of today. There was no free child care for me, either. However, I am also of a age when parents told us that one of the reasons they worked hard was so that I, and other children coming up, would not have to work so hard. And friends my age remember the same thing. I do not begrudge those coming up behind me one single benefit that they may get, simply because it was not available to me. I take joy in it.

Hmm1234 · 17/03/2023 06:41

You can get a childcare grant from student finance so no idea what you’re talking about! Also the parent learners grant

LucidLamp · 17/03/2023 07:01

I think really it's an attempt at being practical by the government. Brexit has meant there is a labour shortage so new workers need to be found and they have identified women that can't work because of high child care costs as a target sector.

Worried they are doing it wrong though, because there is also a shortage of nursery workers. It would be better if it was something like the old style child vouchers so that nurseries could be funded enough to get more staff. It's not very free market to force providers to provide a service for less that it costs and it probably won't work either.

NEmama · 17/03/2023 07:06

It's not actually true as those children could go to school nursery which would be the 15 hours that most three year olds use now.

opinionssoughtplease · 17/03/2023 07:19

faffadoodledo · 15/03/2023 08:09

While this is true, I don't think it's an argument not to civilise our society. I'm older than you I think, OP - my children are beyond university. So no childcare help and no paternal leave whatsoever (maybe two days - I can't remember!). But still I don't begrudge them.
After all I had 'free' university education even if my children didn't.
We need to think societally not individually

i completely agree

opinionssoughtplease · 17/03/2023 07:23

Mamanyt · 17/03/2023 01:31

Mind you, I am 70 years old, as of today. There was no free child care for me, either. However, I am also of a age when parents told us that one of the reasons they worked hard was so that I, and other children coming up, would not have to work so hard. And friends my age remember the same thing. I do not begrudge those coming up behind me one single benefit that they may get, simply because it was not available to me. I take joy in it.

Yes, my thoughts are exactly 😊

Changechangechanging · 17/03/2023 07:25

None at all? I have a child in uni and I definitely didn’t pay for him to attend preschool.

MiamiMyAmy · 17/03/2023 07:28

I hope future generations have things better and easier. Best not to be bitter.

Enko · 17/03/2023 07:36

I have 2 at university we got subsidised hours for both of them. Born 2001 and 2003. Their 2 older siblings we didn't get any towards. It wasn't a lot from memory 15 hours but we did get some.

Bebs13 · 17/03/2023 09:05

Yes but in those days you could afford to have one parent at home full or part time and still afford to buy a house. I am in this group - my eldest child is university age and we have paid off our mortgage, live comfortably and I went back to work gradually. The same definitely cannot be said of the generations below us who both have to slog day and night to make ends meet - only for many of them to never become home owners. I feel sorry for the shit show they have inherited. They need all the help they can get!

ancientgran · 17/03/2023 09:36

Kteeb1 · 16/03/2023 22:24

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit. That's what's progress is. Should our ancestors have kept children in cotton Mills? Is a good thing.

Well I'm an old woman but this meant something to me. Due to development/road works a whole row of beautiful old tress have been destroyed close to my house. I have been battering my head against the council/the developer/highways and who knows who else to get suitable replanting. One of the things I have said is that I know I will never see those trees truly replacing what we have lost but I want to know that one day they will.

Imagine my joy opening my emails this morning to find out I am getting my trees and although I will never sit in their shade I know that one day somebody will. I am not ashamed to say I cried.