Parents of university age children never got ANY free childcare

[Cliff1975]

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?

Don’t be jealous. Life is all swings & roundabouts.

This thread is so depressing. Just bickering about ‘you got this but l didnt’

It should all be free.

And for the poster who wanted to get paid for sitting on her arse in the 1980’s. Remember a UB40? You got unemployment benefit for free. No being forced to look for jobs or having reviews. You just got a dime cheque through your door once a fortnight. Even students got it in the holidays.

This ^
I support subsidised childcare for everyone. Paid for by "my taxes". And I doubt I will ever be a grandmother.

The labour force issues will probably kibosh any universal scheme though.

Swings and roundabouts

my DCs are in their late 30s had 6 weeks of maternity leave and no childcare help. But university was free and, more importantly, I was able to get a mortgage at the age of 22 which I am just about to pay off.
i could not afford my house if I was 22 again.

swings and roundabouts

I think affordable childcare and parents having the choice whether to be a SAHP or not should be the aim. I don't think government saying "free childcare' is the answer, or good for society.

Gov funding is too low for the childcare costs. Government money merry go rounds are usually inefficient and waste money. This is all being funded by tax, or actually borrowing due to our national deficit. Corporation tax is looking at going from 19 to 25 %. Nurseries have a huge cost increase there.
SAHP don't get the benefit, but the family will feel the pain of the tax burden.

I do recognise that it will help those parents that want/ need to work when their children are young. I'd rather see cost of living reductions that help them rather than more tax and spend.

Tories are supposed to be the small state party. This is bonkers.

DOLE cheque not dime cheque!

I have university age children, I got free hours after the age of 3 and child tax credit covered a big part of the nursery fees too.

Also both DC got the child trust fund set up for them by then government. which when my eldest cash it was about £1500.(we didn't pay in to it)

why would you begrudge help offered to other parents?

Actually… I think I did get something for childcare when they were a bit older.
it’s a long time ago

Didn't those adults with uni aged kids get free uni themselves?

It’s hard to really take someone in a two parent family where one has been earning over £100k for the last two decades seriously when they are unhappy about those on lower incomes in a much worse economy getting some help with childcare.

This. All of the above applies to ne but my current are now having children and the free care will benefit them so that's brilliant. Things move on and we have to hope they are for the greater good.

My youngest will go to school this September, as a family we are about to step out of the early years system, but I am delighted the complete lack of support for parents at the end of parental leave periods is being addressed even if our family isn’t going to benefit from it. The system as it is is a barrier to so much talent returning to the workplace. I will be interested to see what is actually going to be offered today. It’s a big step forward that’s long overdue.

I know what you mean OP. I think about the families who have struggled paying extortionate childcare plus all other modern costs, plus went through lockdowns and in September their youngest will start school! That must really burn!

This is exactly me and personally I’m delighted that families now will get more help. Being just 4-5 years ‘ahead’ of those people in terms of house buying and having kids benefited me immeasurably in terms of being able to get on the property ladder in a nice area which we couldn’t have afforded a few years later. I also didn’t have to give birth during lockdowns which many parents of two year olds now did. I can’t imagine that horror.

Its swings and roundabouts and you have to be pretty self absorbed and nasty to begrudge anyone else not having the same struggles you did, while ignoring the fact they probably have many that you didn’t!

Yes, well we had much less generous maternity leave/pay as well. Doesn't mean there should be a race to the bottom.
I am happy that households with children are getting financial help, although part of me wishes that there was more help for parents to be at home with small children rather than pushing them out to work.
I really struggled with paying someone else to look after my children when I wanted to be with them myself, but finances dictated that I had to . I did find going to work and leaving my babies ( at 16 weeks with number 3) heart-wrenching.
I might add that childcare is more expensive comparatively speaking than it used to be - and much more regulated. That costs money, but of course childcare workers should have the same employment rights and benefits as everyone else. For a long time childcare facilities were provided in a very hit and miss way, cash-in-hand, unregulated, unchecked. If we want childcare providers to be professional, we have to pay for it. And recently reading that average costs are now 15k pa per child makes me realise that without government help, it is entirely unsustainable for most people. I thought paying £500 per month was a lot ( part time, 2 DC) but I don't see how anyone can manage to work now. So yes, I think the new initiative is a good thing.

You would have had cheaper housing and and low student fees yourself. My generation have had high student loans, high housing costs, high energy costs, high childcare fees and wage stagnation. Yes it would have been good to have had free childcare years ago too but it is really, really needed now.

Are you for real? Do you have any conception of the sort of benefits your generation has acrued? Benefits that are not available i the same way to the generations coming after you? For one thing, property prices. Honestly… sometimes…

Exactly this. My parents had a lower combined income than me and my husband, afforded a holiday a year and never went 'without' with 4 children but live in a house 2.5 times more expensive than mine in a lovely area, holidays every few years may be an option for us yet when our boiler went we had to get a loan to pay for it as no spare cash and my parents had the audacity to ask why haven't we saved enough to cover this. Each generation feels the next ISNT doing enough and that they had it worse

My AC are now mid to late 20s. I was a SAHM and heavily involved in our local rural pre-school from about 1998. I can't remember specifics but 15 free hours (term after their 3rd birthday) was brought in for specific post-codes where the government deemed that area to be a suitably deprived. Over the next couple of years, the postcodes were expanded. My youngest went to school in 2004 and I think that the provision was countrywide by then. The funding meant that our pre-school could expand from 2 mornings a week to 3 - seems bonkers now. It was only a 3 hour session so would never had worked for me going back to work. It was just long enough for me to drive 12 miles to the supermarket, shop and get back for pick up. I was a SAHM because going to work when DS2 arrived wasn't financially viable.

@LiftyLift
May have been cheaper house prices but also wages were much less. My mortgage was three quaters of my husbands wages £400 a month and the interest rate was 15%. There was no maternity pay or leave. I worked nights because there were no nurseries for my kids. I am glad nursery places will be available for babies as i have grandchildren who will benifit from this. Its about time we caught up with other countries.

Childcare was vastly cheaper though - nannies were all paid cash in hand with no hassle over payroll, sick pay, pension etc.

There's always this when a new thing is introduced. Yes it sucks for those who missed out (I'm one who's narrowly missed out) but you can't think like that as we made the choice to have kids with the schemes that were in place at the time.

The government isn't doing this to benefit women. It's doing it because it's worked out that it needs to be doing something to deal with the country's diminishing workforce. That hasn't been an issue in recent decades.

We miss out on this, I don't begrudge it for a second, I got on the housing ladder before it was dragged up and put out of reach. I'd love the government to give me a retrospective cheque but frankly, that isn't happening, let's get it right going forward, your university age kids will benefit presuming they have kids.

@user1498572889 May have been cheaper house prices but also wages were much less. My mortgage was three quaters of my husbands wages £400 a month and the interest rate was 15%.

It doesn’t matter that wages were much less, it was still significantly cheaper several decades ago. The average home compared to the average salary was multiple times less than the average home vs the average salary now.
15% of a £70k house is significantly less than 6% of a 500k property.