To be shocked that the resident parent has to foot the nursery bill?

[Inkap]

What is the rationale behind this other than further and continued abuse of women?

It quite literally puts some single mothers into poverty or at the least very difficult circumstances when they cannot afford to stay in a job.

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

I’d say it is an issue for all of society. Why should the taxpayer have to subsidise childcare for a mother to work when an absentee father has the income to pay for that childcare? No doubt he would pay towards it if the parents were still together.

Why should the state (or rather the taxpayer) pay? These kids have fathers. If they are earning enough to contribute to childcare they should be made to pay. The kids are their responsibility.

What do you classify as enough? What would be the cut off wage where the dad has to pay instead of receiving the childcare element of UC?

As a single parent there is a very high threshold to not qualify for any UC.
If the dad is also a high earner then the CM will reflect that. If the dad isn't also a high earner then why would you expect him to pay the childcare whilst a much lower earner than the RP but still having to pay for accommodation for the children, life costs etc on a lower income.

The resident parent books childcare for days they have DC. Anything non resident parent wants they book separately and they pay for.

Then society judges single mothers who literallt can't afford to work . Where I live you can make a special application to have child care costs shared by the nrp. I don't know though how often this is granted.

In the case of my absentee ex he pushed off and certainly never provided any accommodation for his kids ever again. Not all NRPs see their kids - their choice. So a completely absent NRP has no childcare costs of his own. He does however have children!

Who else would pay for it? Well, the non-resident parent could pay half! Just because they're not living with their children, it doesn't mean they don't have to contribute towards their children's care. If the mother didn't go out to work then the children would be even worse off.

OP, I completely agree with you. My XH's child support was equal to half the nursery fees. That meant he paid his half of that and I paid for absolutely everything else the children needed - a home, food, bills, clothes etc.

Exactly. Why should the rest of us pay and pay and pay to compensate for others’ poor choices and judgement??

It’s so fucking tiresome.

And presumably he had to pay maintenance?

I’m in Canada now - there’s both maintenance and then something called Section 7 expenses. Childcare is an S7 expense and those are shared pro rata between parents regardless of custody so long as one of the parents needs it to work. So if dad makes £40k and mum makes £20k and the childcare bill is £900 a month, dad is paying £600 and mum £300. This is even before child maintenance is factored in.

We also have child maintenance due on 50/50 care if there’s a difference between incomes. That one I don’t agree with, but the childcare makes sense to me.

Well no. Because they could organise childcare for their time that isn’t nursery. Or choose no nursery at all.

nursery isn’t legal requirement for children it is a learning childcare setting.

We are abroad and ex has to pay for 50% of the nursery costs. Child maintenance is also higher (he's currently trying to contest it) and gets rigorously enforced.
After all, if I didn't work, he'd have to pay me spousal maintenance...

I think the argument is resident parent can claim UC and help with nursery costs. My dc nursery days are long gone but it used to be capped at domething like up to 85% of £700 for one child or £1100 ish for two or more. Even back then that was a good bit under what full time nursery would cost. It forces women towards poorer paid part time work imo.

While 90% of the time the RP is a woman (don't quote me on the stat, I don't know it exactly), the rest of the time it's a man.

This isn't one of those things where women are being penalised. This is the resident parent being penalised.

It's not right but it's not a gender equality issue. The RP could be either parent, for any circumstances, and it's them that has to pay for childcare.

Well if a woman decides to get in a relationship with a man who has children, she should expect him to pay child support for children he already got.
If a man is not paying his fair share she will be first in line to experience the same.

I'd be ok with a bloke forking out 50% of nursery fees on top of other contributions as I would expect him to pay half for our child as well.

Correct. Nearly right as well I think its about 85% RPs are women and 15% men

The patriarchy lives on.

For my 50:50 court order (that ex never used) it stated that mother had to do all sick/snow/inset etc days so that father didn't have additional costs.

Of course it is an equalities issue. The reason most resident parents are women is because when in partnerships or marriage, women are the ones who do the most childcare, so this set up continues after separation. One reason for the gender pay gap because of care disparities.

I have been a single parent for years now and paid the vast majority of costs and done the vast majority of care. I am so tired now I don’t have the energy to argue about it anymore. But to say this is not a gender equality issue just because some men experience it too is a nonsense. At a population level, men earn more, are more likely to stay in full-time work than women, and are more likely to be able to afford childcare. (I don’t know about now, but historically men were also more likely to get married again sooner than women so there would be someone else to look after the children).

None of this disputes the fact that there are men who do the majority of the childcare but at a population level, it is women. (and it’s not just childcare, wait until they get to university and the loans and contributions are based on the resident parent’s income alone)

It begins to seem like a gender equality issue because of all the reasons you've laid out. Yes, women are the most badly impacted. But not because these rule penalise women.

The gender equality issue is that men aren't held to account in scenarios where the woman ends up as the sole parent.

The issue being discussed here is that the resident parent pays for childcare. What about 50/50 scenarios? Both mum and dad sort childcare out when required at the time the child is with them. Mum doesn't pay for dad's childcare, dad doesn't pay for mum's.

This is a resident parent issue, not a gender issue. All parents in those circumstances are treated the same in that they have to sort the childcare they need and pay for it. Regardless of whether they are male or female. It only becomes a gender issue because of other circumstances making it more regularly one gender over the other.

You don't seem to understand what a sex based issue is (nothing to do with gender). When the vast majority of people impacted are one particular sex, then it's a sex based issue.

Here, nursery fees are determined by income. The resident's parents' income determines the nursery fee. Nursery fees are taken into account when determining maintenance. Children can only have one official address, so this is even when parents have the children 50/50.

Yes, this. Thank you. I don’t have the energy to argue out why the fact that more women do childcare and more single parents are women and more single parents have to pay for childcare or end up not working (and therefore more likely to be in poverty) is to do with societal expectations based on biological function so thank you for putting it succinctly. If it was a resident parent issue that mainly affected men, you could bet your bottom dollar that it would be sorted by now.

My ex contributed in the maintenance and some of it went on the nursery bill.

I agree it's not fair OP, but then on the flip side maintenance payments are not taken into account for universal credit payments.

And how could it be enforced if payments were not related to a parent's earnings. They couldn't have to give over 70% of their earnings for example, to pay for childcare so other parent can work, then be left with not enough to live on.

I'm not sure what the fairest way is