AIBU to think that once you have paid your childcare, its not really worth working.? Is it that you just don`t want to look after your own kid. prefering to stick them in daycare as soon as the shine wears off, it really bugs me!

[discusturd]

Some go from 7-6 and never see there parents, I know I will get slated but in the nursery I work some kids hardly know who their parents are.

Oh and thank you TSD for explaining earlier in the thread why I/we are a bit defensive. Of course if people attack my decision I am going to be defensive. Do you think if someone offered to support me and DD I would still stick her in FT nursery?

The only person who will do that is the taxpayer, I'd be slated for that too no doubt!

Exactly VinegarTits. And my bet is that your child will grow up better adjusted because you have thought through the issues, you clearly love your ds and care for him, and are living your life in a way that will provide for him and set him an excellent example. Yes, you could give up your job, live on benefits, scrimp to get by and probably end up depressed and frustrated. Which would really benefit your son wouldnt it, I don't think!!

"Or, more realistically, all of us are sometimes great parents, and sometimes we are fed up, tired, pissed off and don't get it right."

Couldn't agree more.

free childcare?

"One option is providing free nursery places from birth to school age for poor families, but requiring the better-off to pay for some services."

I wonder what they would consider a 'poor family'

I have a very good well paid job, my childcare costs are a small fraction of what i earn.

"If you can give me reasonable solutions for these questions i will gladly give up my job and stay at home all day, Gladly!"

Are you only allowed to raise concerns about group day care if you have solutions to all the problems of working parents?

"I would go further than that and say that singling out early care isn't necessarily helpful"

Why is it not helpful - given that more and more children are now having this sort of care as babies, and given that the research which underpins much of the current debate on this issue has only been done in the past 10 years or so?

I think it's not just 'helpful' but actually very important that as mothers we have an informed debate about this subject. I don't think it's right that we try to shame people into silence on the strength that parents have to, or want to work when their children are very small, and that therefore discussion of this subject is likely to be guilt-inducing or upsetting.

Re: the qualifications of those entering childcare jobs - yes there are more highly qualified people working in this sector. There are graduates and people with MA's. However, CACHE courses also attract students who DON'T have signficantly more than the absolute bare minimum qualfications to scrape onto the course. And no suprises that it's not going to attract large numbers of the brightest and the best when the vast majority of childcare workers are paid less than cleaners.

When my workmate gave birth (More than 19 years ago) she didn't have the maternity benefits we have now. Her daughter ent into a creche only a few months old! She is well rounded, lovely, confident. Did the lack of benefits and entitlements 20 years ago result in a rush of F**d up adults? I don't think so!

I have read the book. I read it years ago as part of my studies in the area. I have read much since, not just this one book.

She talks of cortisol setting a stress response and that infants left to 'cry it out' Truby King style may have problems self soothing - this still being a problem observed in late life.

What she does not talk about are the other hormones other than cortisol. Cortisol has has much press as it is one of the easiest to measure. It works in concurrance with many other hormones, not so easily measured. Her disscussion is part of the debate, not an end to it. The science is always being added to here. Her book is not to be taken as definiotve on anything. Mearly ading to the debate, and a contunioation of it.

She herself does not condemn other mothers who make different choices - in fact she says that she wished she had dione things differently with her own kids.

She also infuses several psychoanalytical theories into the psychology, which weaken her agruments as they fall out of the scientific field and into the unfalsifiable.

I would in interetsed where she stands now on the issue. She certainly wasn't so cynical as James. She is mearly positing questions not political 'solitions'.

I cannot fathom the reasonableness of your argumement as it has been bogged down with defenseviness whioch just alienates.

Isabellasmam, i have never critized anybody's parenting skills, I am far from perfect as are most parents - I will say it one more time and then I'm off. I WOULD'NT PUT MY BABY INTO F/T NURSERY UNLESS I HAD TO TO PAY BASIC BILLS, MORTGAGE, FOOD ETC - DEFINTLEY NOT FOR A FLIPPING HOLIDAY. FFs - can you people not try and read what I have said without drawing the wrong conclusion. To put it simply, if I had to work f/time to pay my mortage, to buy food and clothes (essentials) then I WOULD PUT MY BABY IN F/T NURSERY. OMG.

And I think as she sympathises and empathises with the difficulties of the work/life balance she would bve horrified to fidn someone using and (still) misrepresenting her work (certainly the spirit in which it was written) to berate other mothers without ann ounce of emapthy..well sghe would be if anyone of consequense did it anyhoo

I don't think you necessarily need someone with 9A* to be a good carer.

I know someone at the church I go to who is 14 years old and is severely dyslexic. She is planning to do a child care course after doing GCSEs. She is good with children and I am sure she will be excellent.

It is true that childcare workers are horribly under paid, but then child care needs to be affordable to parents.

Provided the person has the right attitude towards children, I can't see the problem with someone with few educational qualifications working with children provided they are supervised by someone with more experience/ qualifications.

Maybe I should say i am critizing their choices if they leave a baby f/t in childcare so they can have the same standard of living as pre- children. Why bother having them???? And to be so defensive proves the point massivley.

It rather depends on your income doesn't it?!
And the cost of childcare

I know mine was a fraction of what I earned.

Usually people don't do it unless it is worth it. Sadly most households need a second income, which means that work is a necessity. Also in order to hold on to the job you left when you were pregnant you need to return. Flexible working means that you can supposedly have a better balance pahh ha.

Personally, I wouldn't have gone back full time. But there are some careers that demand full time or not at all. It's a personal decision. My priorities are different.

Ii think childcare providers should be paid higher wages. If people boycotted the poorly-run nurseries, with badly paid staff then they'd cease to exist as they'd go out of business. The trouble is that often parents are forced to take lower paid jobs so they can be flexible and nurseries take advantage of that.

What needs to change is the UK attitude to parents, children and parenting. At the moment the whole thing is a money-spinner, so it's difficult to know where to begin. Better maternity and paternity rights and proper parental leave would be a start, if you want to help to achieve this, write to your MP and ask them what their stance is with regards to the Single Equalities Bill.

TTBB, mothers are stressed enough. They are constantly under attack either for not working and sponging off the state to working to much. MN is a support site. They have a right to be pissed off when someone comes on apparently judging them - all strangers to one anothers circumstaces - and criticising their choices.

What most mothers love their children and to the best that they can with the resourses they have and in the circumstances they find themselves in. It has been this way since the beginning of homo sapiens.

'Happiness' is something that only very recently came to be seen as a 'right'. Levels of depression have not risen. Diagnoses have. Life is a struggle, for some more than others. Most people in the history of our species will have lead wretched god forsaken lives where happiness was confined to certain events - falling in love, the love of a child - but these would have been few and far between the usual drudgery and struggle that it took to mearly survive.

I'm suprised people don't boycott poorly run nurseries, I do..

I'd prefer a tax break to be honest to alleviate the amount of time I have to work or even the necessity to work.

It is true that childcare workers are horribly under paid, but then child care needs to be affordable to parents.

Absolutely ReallyTired, but then where does that leave mothers working in the early years profession who, like others need to work to bring money into the household, sometimes paying for childcare themselves, yet earning barely enough to cover all of these things?

It leaves us in the position my family are in now. DH works 17/18 hour days, 7 days a week to make ends meet, and that is just the basics such as rent, council tax and utilities, food and clothing for the kids and me at home driving myself crazy because actually I would quite like to reutrn to the world of work and working somewhere other than in nursery would ensure a better combined income.

Unfortunately however, I am qualified to do little else and don't see why I should go into another sector having worked solidly for the past 4 years to gain my qualifications/degree etc.

As TSD said, it is government problem and it really needs sorting.

Hey girls, I just had a look on Dadsnet and would you believe they are having the exact same discission - it's a real scrum as dads trip over themselves to accuse each other of being shite parents who are ruining their children's lives for the sake of a few perks and luxuries...NOT.

Funny, that.

ttb i am suggesting that you implemented establised whistleblowing protocol and sought advice

you allude to VickyPollard, thick tough students whom you wouldnt let watch your child...but hey ok for someone else's children

you took the paycheque

maybe have seen your union if necessary but ffs above all exercise some moral and professional standards

your post has really troubled me professionally,personally,morally

my bottom line is i wouldnt let it go undiscussed even if i had thoughts about attitudinal beliefs and suitability

Dannat,
I can sympathise with the issue of low pay. I work in a school and I probably earn about the same as an experienced nursery nurse. I am also highly qualified, its sometimes the way of the world.

I think that someone with Dannat's level of qualifications should be paid at a similar rate to a teacher. I would expect her to be supervising less qualified people and plan activites. I believe the governant wants every nursery to have at least one early years practioner who is qualified to degree level.

The very nice girl with severe dyslexia would certainly be capable of changing nappies, supervising children eating, playing with babies. However I think her organisational skills will never be good enough to be responsible for planning or being in charge of a room.

Its a difficult balance between affordablity and quality.

By theSuburbanDryad on Mon 18-Aug-08 13:35:16
"I think childcare providers should be paid higher wages. If people boycotted the poorly-run nurseries, with badly paid staff then they'd cease to exist as they'd go out of business."

I wonder how many parents posting here actually know how much (or should I say little) some childcare workers are actually paid... and if they did would they still leave their child in the nursery.

Good post scottishmummy