Why doesn’t the country support having children?

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

Just seen an article on The Guardian about the 15 free hours for childcare for under 2’s and how the whole system is a mess.

I’m just starting to lose hope that this country doesn’t support working families anymore?

AIBU and need to think more positively, or have we screwed up massively by not supporting families?

The Guardian article which I read.

£1000 / month per baby full time.
We had two babies plus a three year old ( can’t remember his costs but about £700 I think )
Standard charge in all nurseries where we lived.

The average childcare costs you noted will not account for full time as very few ( then) went 5 days a week for full days. We were one of the few families in our nursery that did this.

So childcare costs based on just my salary at the time ( 30+ yr old architect )
was
childcare £2700
take home pay 2500 ( paying nothing into personal pension )

I did this for a while as in order to maintain my professional qualification I had to maintain cpd training. In the end with travel expenses etc I gave up and waited till they all went to school. We still had to pay for before and after school care but I wasn’t paying to work.

The large chains moved in due to economies of scale. I had a couple of clients who were small/private nurseries and they had to close down many years ago because they were loss making due to the regulations and they had too few children to cover all the overheads. (Both were around 20 children so not entirely tiny, but not big enough for economies of scale either). Basically it was the increased overheads and increased regulation/bureaucracy which made it impossible to operate at a profit.

because they just want to get rich and get cushy jobs after leaving office

I love the scandi state support system for parents - amazing.

Yeh I don’t think it’s that profitable despite high fees

I do think it’d be interesting to explore the reasons why people aren’t having children. It may well be that the majority of the statistics are those who desperately want but can’t afford them, but if it turns out that in fact a majority is just not interested in becoming a parent and won’t be incentivised into it - then what?

If the whole point of fiscal reform is to make childcare affordable so as to increase the birthrate, would it not be sensible to check that this is truly the predominant reason for the falling birthrate?

I’m grateful for the childcare support on offer and btw 2 parents on minimum wage would be entitled to childcare through UC.
Aside from arguments about subsidies I always find it strange though how people seem to think childcare by it’s nature should be so ‘cheap’ would I look after someone’s child let alone do any job for £60 a day, no way?? Looking after other peoples tiny kids must be one of the most stressful jobs there is? We paid my entire salary (after tax) for a full time nursery and part time childminder place and I’m not on minimum wage but at the end of the day, what would I have been having to do if they weren’t there. I was able to get on with maintaining my career while they did an amazing job entertaining, educating and keeping my baby safe while, in addition cooking lovely nutritious meals, why should they receive any less than they did for that? Obviously fees higher elsewhere but then so are the living costs for the staff

With my salary, what we (DH and I) qualify for in childcare help (tax free and from April 15 hours) is also what I'd qualify for as a sole parent. But I'd have to work full time to also pay my mortgage and other bills and I'd be trying to choose between eating and heating a lot. Which, on what is considered a decent salary, is not right. I'd be better off quitting my job and living in a council flat with DD on benefits. Which is also not right. The system is broken and while they are giving more support now, it isn't enough for working parents.

As a couple with decent salaries and me working PT, once all of the help we now qualify for kicks in, it will help and I will feel more supported. But it will still be a massive chunk of our income on childcare. And I will still not be able to justify FT work financially. Although as long as we can afford it, I'd rather have my days with DD. But if the government wants to get us back into the workforce and help repair the economy, they need to do more.

Have you been smoking the green again because your chatting rubbish? All this about claim of daily abuse of casual racism? From who you because if your hearing it daily then it must be people your surrounded with

Lol at the tories hating migrants when they during their 10 years they have the highest immigration stats in record

I think our government is generous to parents in the UK. They give child benefit, subsided nursery hours for 3 year olds soon to be extended to 2 year olds, and millions of families get UC top ups.

For me it's not about support - I don't want handouts to help with children (well, everyone likes money, but I recognise that there are more important things to spend government money on and constant trade offs to make). What I want is government to make sure we have systems that work - properly funded and regulated childcare provision that gives children the best start in life whilst being affordable for families. Somehow we seem to have a system where quality of provision is low, providers are unhappy and underfunded, yet fees are so high many parents can't afford them at all and even wealthy parents struggle. I'd like government to reform the early years system so it works, in essence. Of course related to it is the wider cost of living challenges which need to be tackled to support families with small children - the disparity between house prices/rent and wages increases, record energy bills etc.

Also I would like the name of the tax free childcare scheme to be changed as it is not tax free childcare, it's just a chunk of money that reduces your bills and depending upon your childcare fees bears little resemblance to the tax you've paid 😁😡

We might have low birth rates but immigration is very high.

@Mia45 fees for most aren’t £60… it’s averagely between £70+ per day. That’s a big difference per month etc.

Haven’t RTFT. It’s really crap.

We are TTC, in our 20s, and probably will stick at one for a few reasons but finances the biggest. We don’t earn badly but certainly couldn’t afford a four figure nursery bill every month. Crazy. Having children shouldn’t be for the rich. The squeezed middle will have less and less children and we’ll all pay the price in years to come.

Agree with your points except, affordable quality childcare doesn’t happen without tax payer funded subsidies, it’s just not possible to provide this care cheaply

When you say the childcare is generous @caringcarer you have to look at the context. 15 free hours in theory is 8 hours in practice. Our nursery costs £67 per day. Minimum wage is £10.42. So 8 hours shift will take you to £83.36 gross. Even if you don't pay any income tax you are left with 16 quid a day to survive on.

@Youcannotbeseriousreally a lot of the country has nursery fees of upward £100 per day..... that's £2k a month.

So yeah, things are much worse than they were for you.

It does, to a certain extent, but the main cost of raising children is obviously going to fall on the people who chose to have them.

Most of us do manage to have 2-3 children but just space kids out so don’t have 2 in nursery at the same time and use bunk beds

No good comes from "reading an article in the Guardian"🤔😀

When I lived in London over 20 years ago a full time nursery place was £500 a month and a 2 year waiting list, the minimum wage was £3.70 an hour, there was no tax free childcare or childcare support through UC etc. I have small children now and childcare has got much more accessible and affordable. Housing is the issue now

We are staying abroad for some time and I was looking at putting my DD in a nearby nursery. If we were entitled for the government support here 4 fulls days would have only cost £200/month.

Why not have another once the first is at school?

My salary in the same profession now is the same as yours was then, but I’m paying the current nursery fees. And I have friends who earn even less. Tells you everything about the current state of things.

This. It’s so odd seeing so many people saying they both work full time and can’t afford another kid. It’s already been explained that on minimum wage you would get UC, at 2 15 hours, at 3 you get 30 hours and at 4 they go to school.

It is NOT good enough (in my opinion!) but it is possible to have 2 children…

I'm not saying my colleague did do anything wrong, she took what she was allowed - its a systemic issue that disadvantages the childless, while the childless get no support when they need it.