To want to sink to my knees and cry?

[tessofthedurbervilles]

When my baby is born I would be better off not working than returning to my well paid respectable job....that is just the most stupid thing ever. All I want to do is pay my way but the system is making it easier to live on handouts.....

It's really fascinating, all this.

There were two points people made that rang true for me - the role of working class women in modern society, and the dangers of cliques of underemployed middle class women 'helicoptering' all over their children's lives.

Dealing with the first, I think it's probably the case that the fragmentation of society has affected working class women most of all. Whereas in my grandmother's day, many working class women probably felt part of something larger than themselves in terms of community, and seemed to see themselves as strong and capable, today it seems as though people tend to close the door and keep themselves to themselves. TV then becomes their only window on the world.

I was disturbed when watching the Panorama programme on Karen and Shannon Matthews to hear about the extent of their social exclusion in this sense. Basically this was a group of people who never even went into town shopping, or who took part in communal events of any kind. It would be hard to have a proper sense of community and society if this was all you were doing - it would leave you without any reference points for your own behaviour for a start. This is bound to inhibit the development of confidence and a sense of responsibility, and ultimately contribute to a toxic domestic environment.

Dealing with the second, the case of middle class women, when I was at my posh private secondary school (as a scholarship girl, I should add in these politically correct times) the volunteer ethos and mindset was rammed into us at every opportunity. It just became habitual to put your hand up to join in worthy causes. I think it was felt that many of us were likely to marry well and/or have well paid jobs (at least for a while) but we would be left spiritually hollow unless we made an effort to look outwards. That's not to say that we were expected to charge around like mad things with tiny children in tow, but once our kids were safely in school, the unspoken social contract was that we would give a bit back somehow. I think this was the main strength of the school. The absence of this kind of civic mindset I think is accountable for the behaviour of some of the more cliquey mums causing 90% of the problems in the school as described. One outlet for their brainpower and energies, as suggested, is the pseudo-business selling yummy mummy luxuries to other mothers in the same situation, but that avenue is rapidly closing for people in the current financial climate, which leads me to wonder whether these women will suddenly realise about the civic thing, or whether they will just fold in on themselves psychologically.

After all our posts, I am not sure feminism really speaks to 21st century women because it seems little has changed in many respects. I think the point made earlier about trying to come up with a more radical 21st century version of a welfare state instead of a 1950s model is probably a start, but as ever, the devil is in the detail.

Before I go, one other thought I had which surprised me - would bringing back single sex girls' schools be likely to make women stronger/happier/more confident, or are they an anachronism? I thought I knew the answer to that, but now after this debate I am not sure.

"the absolute bottom line here is that people SHOULD HAVE THE CHOICE!"

Women do mostly have a choice to work or not to work.

The question is whether you should have your childcare costs reimbursed by the tax payer, even when you have an average or high household income.

Hard up people already do get their childcare costs reimbursed through childcare tax credits. Given the state of education and public housing in this country I can't see any justification for subsidising the childcare costs for those with middle-incomes via free universal childcare.

I could go back to work full-time tomorrow. If I liked my old job enough I would, even though I'd be spending the bulk of my income on childcare. I'd still have enough left over to provide my family with a reasonable standard of living (combined with DH's income), as do almost all professional people that I know. We wouldn't have enough to do major building work on our house, holiday abroad or pay for private schools for our children, but it's not really a hardship having to go without those things.

BouncingTurtle - good luck to you in your volunteering. I've met some amazing, smart women through the NCT.

I agree titty that there is no need, or justification, for universal free childcare. However, I do think there are steps which should be taken to make life easier for working parents - eg tax relief should be available on childcare costs. It is ludicrous that 10 years ago I paid nursery fees for two children out of taxed income - this was a direct expense incurred by working. Now, running my own business, there are countless things I can claim tax relief on, which are far more 'dubious' imo.

I have never had any problem with paying a good rate for good quality childcare (in fact, even though it grated a bit that almost all my income went on it for several years, at least I knew I was giving my children a superb deal at nursery, while keeping my professional hand in). But it still shouldnt be so damn hard!

The expectation for men and women these days is that both sexes can get themselves educated to a high level, get trained in whatever profession they choose etc - and on the other side of the coin, the expectation is that both sexes should be hands-on, involved parents. Things have moved on vastly since I was little and most mums stayed home while most dads worked, and mums were seen as having almost entire responsibility for parenting and all things domestic. And that's a good change, because it recognises that the two sexes are not poles apart - we are all people with skills and talents who want to be successful parents and successful in the workplace.

As someone else said, we just need the business world to catch up!

Um, titty, I think the point of the thread is that people are being fobbed off with the illusion of choice rather than the real thing, and that people are forced into working for negative or minute amounts of money at the end of the day because of thoughtless and insensitive policy anomalies, indirect discrimination and so on. This was a place to explore that in depth, not to get back to the old hackneyed arguments about relative incomes and taxpayer subsidies.

A test of your argument is to extend it to education. Is it wrong for the taxpayer to subsidise secondary education for the middle classes, for example? Because before 1944 everyone had to pay fees for this. Similarly why do we have free universal healthcare? Again, this is a relatively modern invention. We have these things because they make our country more prosperous and because they give everyone a better standard of living. If we were to remove them, it would not be long before we would see a rise in infant mortality rates, for example (a test of how successful a nation is socially, in my book).

I see free universal childcare as having multiple benefits to society quite apart from the convenience to working parents, and my argument was that we should try a new way of thinking in which we take collective responsibility for it rather than the current situation, in which governments meddle endlessly with the peripheral bits and leave the funding burden effectively to private individuals.

I would also point out that if someone isn't working because childcare costs are too high due to over regulation of the childcare sector and government interference in childcare policy (eg Sure Start warping the market), this ends up with them being unable to pay tax, which is in nobody's interest.

In addition, if you see childcare as being part of the public domain now most of it has to be registered and controlled anyway, at the moment we are effectively taxing working parents twice, by making them pay for the over regulation and also the baseline costs.

Boffinmum, can you explain about surestart warping the market? There is no surestart where I live so I am unfamiliar with this issue.

"A test of your argument is to extend it to education. Is it wrong for the taxpayer to subsidise secondary education for the middle classes, for example? Because before 1944 everyone had to pay fees for this. Similarly why do we have free universal healthcare?"

But education and healthcare are a necessity to a functioning society.

Free universal childcare isn't!

And in any case there is a growing body of evidence that full-time group childcare for babies and children much under three may not be the optimal way to care for very young children when they have an alternative of loving one to one care from a parent or close relation.

If the state is awash with money I would far rather it was spent on reducing class sizes in primary and secondary schools and reducing inequalities in education, not in subsidising the already very comfortable lifestyles of the majority of middle-income people in this country.

As I understand it, basically the economics of it worked like this. The Government subsidised Sure Start nurseries for three years as a kind of business start up. After that point they were supposed to become self-funding, by charging parents for nursery places and so on. Because of this subsidy, which is something the private sector doesn't have access to, Sure Start nurseries were able to offer higher salaries to childcarers. This meant that private sector nurseries in the immediate area to Sure Start nurseries lost their staff and/or had to put up wages. This meant that eventually private nurseries also had to put up their fees, making them uneconomic. Many of them subsequently closed. Then the Sure Start nurseries also started to experience financial difficulties because their economic model didn't work without a Government subsidy, and they have also started to close. This means that some areas are now being left without any formal childcare at all, so worse off than if the Government had never become involved.

Titty, I haven't said that all children should be in group childcare. In fact I think very differently. My basic argument is that childcare should be tax deductible like any other business expense, because that is basically what it is. I also think in some cases that SAHM would also benefit from access to free childcare, for example to reduce pressures on the family or to help socialise children ready for school in the absence of the extended family (which is what Sure Start was set up to do, albeit leaving us with state/private childcare apartheid).

The inequalities inherent in the current childcare and employment system are the very things that doom children to educational failure by the age of five, as the international research tells us so clearly. So your suggested remedies would not work in practice, although they sound worthy in a post.

This is all related to the global female employment situation. There is a Bank of England report that explains why female employment is essential to the economy, arguing it is about a lot more than just the choice of individuals about whether to work or not. As early feminists said, here the personal is political. In this case, female employment and its subtle relationship with economic growth staved off a recession for a very long time, and will probably be the very thing that minimises its duration now.

Therefore it is in everyone's interests for women to be economically active whilst reconciling their domestic situations to their own satisfaction. Training people up and then encouraging them to sit at home passively for protracted periods of time with older children is not the way forward for UK PLC. Or society, for that matter, as we have discussed. Or in many cases, the women.

QED.

This is now getting very heavy and I am starting to sound like I am at work!!

I am badly missing the combat muffins and stone filled breastfeeding pillows of yesterday. What happened to our riot??

I think something that is often missed is it's not just childcare that women are expected to do for no money (because of the lingering idea that women are not actually people, they are subsidiary 'people' who exist for men's benefit). It's women who have to care for the elderly relatives - if a man has a wife or female partner but no sisters, it is still likely to be seen as the wife's job to care for her MIL should the MIL get senile or ill or frail.
The current employement-based (as opposed to self-employed/craftsperson/agricultural based) economy was set up to be dependent on unwaged 'women's work' (women do all the caring and domestic stuff in return for their keep, women who can't persuade a man to 'keep' them by being sufficiently attractive/domestically skilled/subservient are surplus to requirements). Until that's recognised and rejected as a working model, ie the work seen as 'women's work' is recognised as work of value deserving an income (whether it's done by men or women) then this whole mess is going to continue.

'But education and healthcare are a necessity to a functioning society.

Free universal childcare isn't!'

-But the whole point, Titty, is that these things are not set in unchanging tablets of stone! Less than 100 years ago, secondary education wasn't free. Education and health systems have gone through massive changes. Even ten or so years ago, tuition was free at the point of delivery for higher education students - now they have to pay 3k per year!

It may be your opinion that free universal childcare isn't necessary, but other people would disagree. As I said, I'm in a sort of halfway camp - I think it is fair enough that people who can afford to pay should be expected to contribute, but I don't agree that parents should pay the full whack out of taxed income.

I see your point solidgold, but I have real reservations when people start talking about parents (whether mums or dads) being paid to be at home caring for their children, doing the domestic stuff etc.
Who would pay them?

I have been thinking of late there is a case for subsidising childcare more generously for second and subsequent children in a family, as a compromise position. This would help stepfamilies in particular.

I worry that free universal childcare would undermine SAHM's. They often stay at home because they want to be with their children, and so would use the free childcare a lot less than working mums would.

That would mean: 2 income families where both parents work had a lot more money than 1 income families with a SAHM. Tax would be higher for everyone because they would have to tax people more to meet the massive cost of all of this childcare. Families with SAHMs would be taxed more and so have less money than they have now.

Free universal childcare is only fair if:

1. We live in a Cuban style economy where all families receive the same income.

1. SAHM's are classed as childcare workers and paid accordingly.

Sorry, I meant 1. or 2., but not both together.

I fear you are right MillyR, but this was always meant to be an idealistic bit of the thread.

You could have a tax allowance for SAHM and other dependents, like in France. Would that work, do we think?

Your reasons explain why it wouldnt work Milly!

I would certainly not want to live in an economy where all families receive the same income. Much as I love my job, it is quite stressful and took years of training and I would probably opt for something easier for the same money - as would many others!

I am not saying we should give up on the idealism! I am sure there must be ways that are an improvement on what we currently have. Like the french system, or like a local older person helping out a family, like some other poster suggested.

I was working in the Faroes this summer (now that was a childcare nightmare for me) and they do have that system. When a family with young children moves into a village, they are matched up with an older person so that they can all help each other out.

I am glad to hear of all idealistic schemes. There must be more or refinements that can made to the childcare plan.

Totally agree Milly - because if we don't have the idealistic dreams, then nothing will ever change.

I like the sound of the system in the Faroes. To me, it seems we need to go back to the good bits of yesteryear - tapping into the knowledge and experience of our elders, which would have been far easier in the past, when extended families all remained in the same locality. Of course it's good that there is far greater social mobility, and I would hate any changes that take us backward. Women and men want to work and be effective parents - that's absolutely a change for the better - but we need support systems which enable this, rather than discourage it

"The inequalities inherent in the current childcare and employment system are the very things that doom children to educational failure by the age of five, as the international research tells us so clearly"

No - I don't accept this. I agree that children do best growing up in households where at least one adult is in work. As far as I know though, there is no evidence that children placed in full-time nursery care under the age of 3 do better in general than those who are cared for by a parent up to this age.

My understanding is that children who come from middle-class families whose mothers are educated to degree level tend to do disproportionately well educationally (and by all other measures), whether their mothers work or not.

"Training people up and then encouraging them to sit at home passively for protracted periods of time with older children is not the way forward for UK PLC."

Why on earth does having children require you to 'sit at home passively for protracted periods of time'. Most children are in school by the age of 4. And most parents who are at home have at least some time and energy to make a contribution to their community/study/do part time work. It's just ridiculous to suggest that paid employment is the only reasonable alternative to watching Jeremy Kyle and going shopping.

Re: Surestart centres distorting the market in childcare...... My youngest who is three attends a children's centre full-time (9.30 - 3.30) . There are three qualified teachers working with the 60 or so children who attend the centre. All the other staff are NVQ level three and are paid accordingly.

The quality of provision in many private nurseries is VERY poor, with many of the staff only trained to NVQ level 2. I would not be happy to leave my children to be cared for largely by teenagers on just above minimum wage or to expose them to the sort of staff turnover that many of these nurseries have. I think childcare is a very important job and I would prefer my sons' nursery to be staffed by mature, properly qualifed people.

When you put it like that, interestingly I think a lot of us do end up effectively working for the same as the '£5 a hour with tax credit' crew, despite all the effort we made to train doing something difficult, and the longer hours etc, because of this very tax situation.

I like the Faroes thing. It must be nice if you are older and like the company of children, to have this sort of arrangement.

Government is clearly full of Titties, which explains current policy.

How many parents of secondary school aged children on this thread do not put in many hours a week/year of conversation/homework support/educational outings and holiday etc? In addition to all the other work that having a family life entails. The concept of "passively sitting at home" while your children sail through school unaccompanied is not one I adhere to as a good parental model. A parent's education serves a far greater purpose than merely earning an income to feed, house and clothe a family.

Well if they're not at home to receive all this support because they're physically elsewhere, once you have cleared up the breakfast stuff and put a wash on, done a bit of cleaning, etc, which takes all of an hour or two a day, what else are people doing until 3.30??

Aha!!

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7789494.stm