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?

A completely pointless topic @Cliff1975

My DCs are post- uni by many years but although I didn't get free childcare, I did get a 75% grant at uni and left with no debt- in fact I bought a car with my savings.

You can't turn the clock back so your point is a waste of time.

*fiftiesmum · Today 08:25
Nursery provision (and cost) depends on how much the country needs parents (ie mothers) to work. I remember my mum telling me that during the second world war there were loads of free nursery places then they got shut down as the men came back and needed the work so the women had to leave to look after children - along with the propaganda about keeping a sparkly home

We now have a workforce shortage again (Brexit, over 50's not wanting to work, education lasting longer) so time to get the childcare going again*

this!

I recall a lecturer at uni showing the policy trajectory you describe and also overlaying this with info re: number of child psychology papers published claiming to support or show harm to children as a result of being cared for outside the home by someone other than the mother. You can guess what that looked like!

its always going to be a bit galling to miss out. I’ve missed out but I don’t begrudge others and I think it helps women to maintain financial independence (I know it shouldn’t be just the woman who is impacted by high child care costs…) which is a good thing. I guess you could argue that Blairite kids got child trust funds and Sure start centres but there’s no value really to be had in totting up a tally chart to play people off against each other. I suppose it’s good to remember history - I still work with women who had to resign when they were pregnant as there were no part time contracts offered (in a role that readily lends itself to this) and they got no enhanced maternity pay either…

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.

Nope.

Admittedly, I'm still a year and a half off having a uni age kid, but I (well, my parents and a whopping great student loan) paid for uni, and I know plenty of people my age with uni age kids

You could say that people with university aged children probably went to university with grants and no loans(or minimal ones) whereas people with babies/young children now almost certainly had to take out huge student loans and possibly jave paid fees too. Swings and roundabouts.

If we lived by this mentality though, where would we be as a society? My grandparents didn’t have hot water, a bathroom or central heating in their houses growing up. Should I have grown up with the same in the 90s? I wonder if they resent me as their granddaughter for having such luxuries (of course they don’t).

Without even thinking about it I could make many many things that my cohort has missed out on over the years often by less than a year but I won’t because if I think like that, it will drive me insane.

Progress is great but unfortunately it does generally mean that whatever we have progressed from have missed out.

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.

Oh give over. People don't struggle to pay for childcare because they have a phone. They struggle to pay it because it's insanely expensive.

@Cliff1975 I can kind of see the point you are making. The 'free'childcare I got was no use to a working parent - it was only really a couple of hours in which I could do the grocery shopping without DC with me.

But............in my profession, I am benefitting massively from a really good pension scheme that allows me to not have to work until I'm 67. My DC will not have that luxury.

So its swings and roundabouts I suppose. But I do agree with the concept of the 'squeezed middle'. I and my DH have worked so hard to get to the salaries we are on (although I am now semi retired) and took lots of additional training. We are considered 'high earners' at around 60k - yes, its a good salary, but we are for all intents and purposes treated as if we were earning millions. And I don't agree with 'pensioners' being treated as a homogenous group. My neighbour has literally millions in the bank but gets all sorts of financial help because he is 80plus, whereas others who are in dire straits get the same as he does.

This isn't true though!

My children have finished Uni, and they both got 15 hours free childcare a week. This was back in the late 90's / early 00's.

Now we have a generation where phones, foreign holidays, meals out etc are all seen as necessities.

Phones are a necessity now. Try going without yours and look up the digital divide and data poverty.

As for the others, no they aren't seen as necessities at all by most people, certainly not those in poverty. This is just the latest made up nonsense to try to suggest that poor people brought it on themselves. We've had this crap since year dot.

It wasn’t ’whopping great loan’ though was it, it was only a small fraction of what university costs now.

Completely agree but do you also not think you have contributed to that? I know I have. Your parents would probably say exactly the same about you. I worry about the coffee shop/take out/food delivery culture being so ingrained in young adult DC's that it's seen as a necessity rather than a nice to. They will need far more disposable income than we did at a similar age to facilitate a lifestyle which we have generally had a hand in creating. Everyone (generally speaking) wants to do the best for their DC and not see them go with out what 'most' DC of their age have at any given age which creates a certain level of entitlement. I remember my Dad using the we had to wait and save for carpets for 2 years for our house so you should do the same - no actually things have changed and you brought me up to expect more.

Depends if you want to maintain the massive inequality gap or not. By not supporting access to means through work you keep people at the bottom end. The inequality gap now is wide, it wasn't as wide when your DC were little. My eldest DC (19) benefited from a much better social structure in his early years than my youngest (11) did.

As someone who had to give up work for the preschool years because there was no childcare available back in the dark ages, I’m delighted to see this. Anything that supports women in their careers is good news in my book.

Yabu. I mean I get it. I had to pay for childcare and just got my eldest through uni (paying a year of accommodation that he was never in due to covid also). But this change is good and our children will benefit. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

If you think your children would be better off in a low-income household why don't you both quit your jobs?

You don't because you understand that's obviously not true. Efforts to help level the playing field for disadvantaged students doesn't make middle class students the worst-off in society.

The help being offered to young families is to help to get people back into work to increase economic productivity so we can fund public services. Don't begrudge good policy changes- your mindset is very peculiar

In N Ireland there's still no funded childcare so we're still getting to experience the hardship.
University is really tough but my children have all had to work through it and I suppose the difficulty is it's optional education undertaken by adults.

I'm beginning to think this is a wind-up @Cliff1975

You think people need help with childcare to get back into work because they aren't willing to sacrifice foreign holidays? I'd say you are very, very out of touch.

Luckily I'm in Wales, so my child won't be paying anywhere near the fees that some families in the UK will be, but no, I take your point. I'm still paying it back now though, so it sure as hell wasn't free!

But I think that was my point in my other comment, some things get worse for successive generations, some thing get better. We certainly shouldn't be shitting all over this generation getting free childcare, just because we didn't have it. Life should be better for our children than it was for us, otherwise whats the bloody point?

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.

I get really pissed off when I hear this kind of thing. It's always focused on younger generations. What are you OP, 50s? Guess what - you probably expect to have a phone, holidays and meals out where people your age a generation or two ago wouldn't have had them.

You also benefit from advances in medical science which mean life span has been lengthened considerably. My grandfather died in his 50s back in the 1970s, he had cancer and the treatment then was basically to sit you on a ward and give you a bit of morphine at the end. People in their 50s today expect more and would have a much better chance of survival but you don't hear people whinging on about that, do you?

So yes, youth is in many ways better (not financial stability, environment etc) and middle age and old age are also in many ways better. That's fucking progress. Be glad of it.

You need to reframe this from 'Woe is me!' to 'Whoa! This could help women get through the motherhood penalty and get back to work.'

Pregnancy / motherhood is the biggest single event that negatively affects women's careers and earning capacity

Are you really saying things should never improve? What about older mothers who only got 3 months maternity leave as that was all employers are legally required to give? Should we cancel longer maternity leave entitlement because some people had it worse?

This is absolutely true. I'm probs the same age as you, OP. I paid/worked my way through Uni (I was the first year the grants stopped, though no tuition fees), but then benefitted from incredibly low living costs, being able to buy a house in my early 20s, a student loan I was able to pay back in my early 30s, and relatively low childcare costs when my kids were little (plus some free provision).

Today, people are hammered by insane living costs, much, much higher childcare costs, a level of university debt I find staggering, and as for getting on the housing ladder....

I agree that university education should be free, but if there's money swilling about I'd rather it be spent on the young, than on 'repaying' the costs I paid when I was younger.

@Rollercoaster1920 how can government decrease the cost of living for young families that doesn't involve tax payer money exactly?

I seem to remember getting free hours once my children were four. That would have been in the very early 2000s. My children are now 24 and 26.

The cost was much more affordable then and we weren't paying as much for petrol and housing. Life seemed just about doable on one income plus my part-time earnings.