To think that what's best for the children gets left out of the free childcare conversation

[Ilikepinacoladass]

I'm all for parents being able to get back to work if they want to, woman's career's not being put on hold, the economy doing well etc..

But I find it quite worrying that what's best for the children seems to not be mentioned at all in the reporting around the govt introducing more and more free childcare hours, or considered in the policy making to begin with..?

I thought the reason it was 15 free hrs originally, and term time only (as is still the case) was because the original aim was to ensure children have access to early education? So they are not turning up at school aged 5 having had no preschool etc as their parents couldn't afford it?

Not to enable parents to get back to work as soon as possible leaving their children in childcare?

Well yes the dads could be with them. But that's not what we're talking about.

Whst matters more to most mums - some tit-for-tat competition with their husband about who works what hours, or the actual needs of their child?

Also, SAH is a lot more than just 'watching' children. Blimey.

”I also think it's a load of crp when people say their careers are damaged by having kids.”*

Pretty sure that claiming mother’s careers aren’t damaged by having children is denying the reality of the gender pay gap.

@ort1gia

We're (you're) talking about keeping kids out of childcare, aren't you? So that is what we're talking about.

If you want kids out of childcare without impacting equality then the obvious answer is for dad's to provide the childcare

Can't argue the child's alleged need not to be in childcare / be with 1 secure care giver isn't being met.

And there you go again, trying to imply that being a sahp is some how different to or more difficult than being a working parent

It's not.

Of course womens careers are damaged by taking time out and having kids - the gender pay gap stats literally prove it. The more time you spend at work and devote to it, the higher your career will climb. The people that get promoted more and achieve the most are those that are able to give more time and energy to it. I’ve never met a part-time senior manager (head of a department/function) level in any job I’ve worked in. Also, the vast majority of the super senior managers I’ve come across have happened to be men or childfree women. So you are woefully naive and misinformed to think that loads of time out has no effect. And I don’t agree with a long hours culture and don’t participate in it myself, but you will likely not achieve the same level of career growth doing 3 days a week and taking several years out as someone who works full-time with no time out.

Botw1 - I'm not sure what you mean by that last post. I was referring to your choice of wording on the previous post.

You can call it 'watching' children if you like, but that sounds very passive. If you are going to be at home all day with kids, you would have to see the point and purpose of it. You would need to be proactive, not just passively 'watching' them and passing time. There is a massive opportunity here to be creative and to show / teach them things. As a mum, you are uniquely tuned into the way they are communicating and their body language in a way nobody else is. You see them exploring the world and making sense if it, day by day, hour by hour even. You get out and about and stimulate and socialise them. The days are whatever you make of them. The rate of development is astonishing in the early years and it's a privilege to be around as much as possible - its not a pointless inconvenience that any interchangeable person could do just as well for minimum wage. I'm not saying childcare is detrimental per se. I'm talking about the impact of babies being in from 8-6 or similar hours all week because this is too long and they will spend more time with 'staff' than the parents.

Here are my truths, some comfortable and some not, garnered over going from working 80+ hours per week before I had children, to 40+ hours per week while pregnant, to being a SAHM, to working part-time, to using childcare (nursery and nannies) and now having old enough DC that all this is behind me. I know grandparents and young parents. I confess I mostly know people from the same or similar socio-economic background as me: able to make choices but repercussions ranging from drastic to immaterial. Still, able to make choices. Taking everything into account, this is what I know:

1. generally speaking, newborns-9mo/1yo babies need their mothers more than they need their fathers. Fathers can be excellent to this age child, but the babies need their mothers more
2. generally speaking, fathers can't give newborns-3mo babies everything they need, whereas mothers can
3. generally speaking, from around 9m/1yo, father or mother makes no difference
4. generally speaking, babies don't need daily hours of socialisation with other babies until around 1yo/18mo. They mostly can't manage it anyway, but it's not necessary. They need to be reinforcing relationships at home
5. generally speaking, nurseries are fine to very nice indeed, and generally speaking children do well at them, even the ones who initially take time to adjust
6. no baby can advocate for itself, and most toddlers can't - against an adult - until the age of about 3.5/4yo. This worry and anxiety informs many parents' choices
7. it's unquestionable that women bear a hugely disproportionate price in the workplace for childbearing and child rearing. This disparity can set a woman's course for the rest of her career, although by no means always when all is said and done. Raising children is a very long game
8. generally speaking, men with means and an appropriate culture are accepting that if the mother is contributing to household income he should be contributing to child- and home-based work
9. men and women are not equal. They're just not. Women have joys and privileges, and miseries and disadvantages that many men can't fathom, even when they've watched their partner live through all the above. Men and women deserve equal pay for equal work
10. generally speaking, the kids will be fine. If "fine" is what you're aiming for, it doesn't matter what you do with your babies and toddlers as long as it's not damaging, they'll be alright
11. generally speaking, this debate is almost always centered around the relevant adults' wants and needs, however valid or invalid they may be
12. finally, having children is not a goddam lifestyle choice. Humans procreate, that's what we do. Bears shit in woods, plants propagate, mammals procreate. Nobody is doing anybody any favours by having or not having children.

@ort1gia

It's just a turn of phrase

Working mums do all that too and dad's

Sahds too

So I don't really get your point either

Nurseries aren't open at night. And morning and noon are perfectly normal times for children to be at nursery. My son is usually asleep for two hours at noon.

@Partyandbullshit

Good job working doesn't interfere with babies needs then

If you're at work, how are you attending to your baby's needs?

What's your point? Someone else can attend to your baby's needs, eg a nursery worker. Sure.

Turn of phrase. Doesn’t literally mean night. Morning noon and night is just a phrase for lots of hours or a long day.

I can see this has turned into quite a harsh debate. I have just skimmed through the posts since I last posted last night.

Unfortunately, whatever we do as parents, we are judged. There is no ‘right’ way, and an argument that sending a 6 month old baby to nursery 5 days a week is totally fine vs those who are saying ideally a child under 3 would never go to any kind of childcare is never going to have a winner. Because there is no right answer.

What we need is more support, for BOTH parents to step up and discuss childcare and staying at home, BETTER quality childcare, better pay for nursery nurses, more flex on working, less dads leaving it all to the mums and the gender pay gap widening. Equally, we need to stop telling mothers who are at home with their babies and toddlers through CHOICE that they are ‘doing nothing’, ‘economically inactive’, and that ‘it doesn’t take much to be a SAHM.’ All horrible and unnecessary, and not true.

Yes, I understand what it means and the way in which it is being deployed here. (To tug on the emotional heart strings and imply that mothers who work full time so they can afford things like food, housing, clothing, educational opportunities and holidays for their children are cruel and neglecting their children's needs.)

@Partyandbullshit

Exactly

Or their other parent.

Or a grandparent

Working doesn't stop mums providing their babies needs

Babies aren't removed from working mothers at birth and placed in orphanages.

They are mostly with their mums and hopefully dads up to a year. And then still spend a significant amount of time in their mothers care.

No detriment. No damage

@early30smum

Interesting you ignore all the insults levied at working mums

Which are also horrible unnecessary and not true

So Jeremy Hunt is saying they will need thousands more nursery and childminder places, so they are expecting thousands more children to be starting childcare, from 9 months.

To suggest that's it's not worth discussing the social impact of the policy as it's an 'economic policy' is ridiculous.

Is it a good thing for so many more children to be in childcare? That's what I'd like to hear discussed more, with research etc.

Is it just about getting people back to work as soon as poss, that's what it comes down to from the govts point of view..

What about the people claiming UC who will be forced to use these hours / back to work from 9 months? What about their choice. It's not about giving people choice. It's about getting people back to work asap, and giving a bit of extra cash to those who would have gone back to work anyway.

Why not extend mat leave pay for a year so people can choose to look after their own children or use childcare.

@Botw1 I would have thought it was clear from what I said about needing more discussion, not leaving it all up to women etc that I also think telling women who choose (or have to) to leave their babies or young toddlers in childcare are terrible parents is absolutely not ok either.

Like I keep saying, CHOICE and what is going to work best for you, your family, your kids and your work. Whatever that may look like.

Like I also said, I am choosing to be a SAHM this time round. My baby is currently 6 months old and I could go back to work now. Do I think putting him in nursery and me working is the right choice for him/me/our family/my husband? No. Do I think it’s the right choice in some families? Yes. Do I think early years childcare should be better? Also yes.

@Ilikepinacoladass

Maybe you could read some of the responses on the 900 response thread you started?

Im beginning to think you're a bot now

And yeah I'll agree with funding sahp as long as the sahp is the dad. But as you've repeatedly avoided that point I'm thinking you wont.

@early30smum

No.

It wasn't

Your bias is clear.

My bias is obvious because I’ve chosen not to send my baby to nursery… however that’s a choice we have made as a family, and I don’t think it’s the correct choice for everyone. As I have repeatedly said.

But it is not universally best for a child to be home with the mum. Who says it is. For some children it might, but not for everyone. I am scandinavian so childcare is normal for me. Trust me. Scandinavian children are not any less off than British ones who has been with their mum at home. Far far far from
it. It is ridiculous to suggest a blanket 'its best for the children to be at home'. Of all the SAHM mums I know I have only 2 (out of 20 odd) who I feel really benefited. Their mums were loving, engaged. The resr of them I feel missed out on stimulation. Alot of cbeebes and peppa pig and prosecco going on.

Not sure its always 'best for the child' at all

But we are discussing the social impact of the policy on this thread.

I think the social impact of this policy - if it is actually implemented - will be a good thing. It will provide some much needed assistance to the cost of living for working families, greater affluence and financial stability for children, reduce the gender pay gap and allow more women to demonstrate the benefits of work and financial independence to their daughters.

This policy in no way removes the choice for women to stay at home with their small children if they believe that they can provide better and more stimulating care for their children than a childcare setting. The only thing this policy won't do is pay them to do that.

I don’t think the government is in the business of taking care of the well-being of children or anyone for that matter. They want votes and tax money. Any government that doesn’t aim for this won’t be in power. Providing childcare funding will please a lot of people and get them votes. Encouraging women back into work after having children will get them more taxable income.

It’s a tricky subject because the potential disadvantages of childcare at early ages are subtle and possibly not obvious for many years. It’s also fairly new to have institutional care for babies, so it’s not well studied. Women might have been working in the past, but their children were often nearby or with relatives/friends.

Is it just about getting people back to work as soon as poss, that's what it comes down to from the govts point of view..

Well yes. The government is not trying to make choices on behalf of parents - that is not its role. They need more economically active people for various reasons, the discussion of which being for another thread. Therefore they have made it easier for parents to go back to work by reducing the cost of childcare. If the economy needed fewer people chasing jobs because of high unemployment they would withdraw the help, so that more parents stayed at home and were removed from the unemployment statistics. It's what governments do, in the same way that they tinker with interest rates to encourage people to spend or save, and introduce policies that impact on the housing market.

Whatever you may believe it should be, the role of the government is to balance the economy, not to tell families how to organise their lifestyles. There are many ways of doing that, and this is one that has a knock-on effect of improving life-chances for families who may otherwise have been unable to afford to work, or who would have seen little benefit from doing so, as they were shelling out a high proportion of their pay on childcare. As has been reiterated to the point of tedium - they are not stopping anyone from staying at home if they choose and can afford to do so.

Another question for you to ignore - suppose there were definitive research findings that showed that under-threes benefited from being with their mothers. Do you then think that any policies that make it easier for parents to work should be withdrawn?