to be so peeved that we spend approx £1400 a month on childcare

[couture1]

I know I have to pay for the service but it leaves me with little left over each month and we need to salaries to get by. I dont want to give up work as 1 cant afford to and 2 Im hoping that when 3dc are at school in 3 years time we will be better off each month - but how do we manage until then?

Rant rant rant

Childcare costs are also only generally applicable only for the first 5 years' of a child's life. If the state can support more parents to stay in the workforce during these early years through tax deductible childcare, it can reap the benefit of those later years of taxes for the rest of that parents' working life.

Contrast this with the situation where one parent (usually mother) is forced to give up work due to high childcare costs. 5 or more years' later, she has become de-skilled, probably need re-training and has to start at the bottom. Most women would find that too high a barrier to get back into work, especially since pt work is almost invariably very poorly paid for those without experience or current skills.

Such a waste of talent and productivity. A loss to the nation not just of their taxes but skills.

I personally can't see why a govt shouldn't subsidize nurseries. Surely our taxes are spent for a lot of services we don't use all the time.

good post blueshoes

Surely that's only true if you believe that time spent looking after children is wasteful and unproductive?

I respect the right of other parents to make the choices they feel is best for themselves and their families but statements like this make me feel angry that my choice to stay at home for the first 5 years is viewed as worthless. It may not be 'productive for the economy' if you subscribe to an economic model which demand greater and greater production and consumption but that's a whole other thread...

As for subsidizing childcare why does it make sense for the government to pay for anybody but a child's parents (note parents which should not necessarily automatically equate to mothers) to look after it. Why not give the money to parents and let them chose how they use it - to stay at home, to arrange childcare within the family or outside it?

SSD You post "and I'm finding as my kids get older it is usually possible to tell apart kids who have had their mums at home for them since they were born as opposed to kids who have spent large amounts of time in daycare then in the after school clubs. I hate to say it but maybe its the SAHM's who spend a lot of time with their kids who notice."

The only two children whom I know personally to have gone to counselling/behaviour management have both had sahm parents. However I recognise that I only know a small sample of children and all of them from affluent backgrounds. I think your anecdotes are similarly worthless ssd. Your samples are too small to be relevant and too hopelessly unscientific to extrapolate from

you've got your views Quattro and I've got mine

but even though we disagree neither view is "worthless", I find that rude

You are being a bit sensitive, wb.

I was talking about funding subsidised childcare for working parents. SAHP-ing, whilst productive, does not economically benefit the nation as a whole. Unless of course you saying that only SAHPs can raise productive children and WOHPs cannot, which I am sure you are not .

If tax relief for childcare is linked to household income, you just need one wage earner in the household to benefit. So SAHPs can also benefit in this, if they choose to use childcare.

I don't believe in giving money to parent(s) to use as they like - child benefit does that already and I don't feel it needs increasing. I will always insist on some linkage to economically productive activity and taxes because money does not grow on trees.

So if childcare was tax deductable, should parents whose partners stay at home also get a tax reduction?

LOL @ Riven's last comment.

where do these childcare costs 'magically' disappear at 5? they certainly didn't for me or most people I know. In fact, after nurseries was when it started getting complicated!

And Anna, how does that situation compare differently to Boarding School (parents being away)? It's the same concept. Parents absent for long periods of time (personally not one I like but one that lots of people subscribe to).

ssd - you are just giving your own anecdotal view. That doesn't mean it carries any weight.

I think you know that too, secretly, because of your absurd claim that it is possible to tell the difference between the children of WOHM and the children of SAHM - BUT THAT ONLY THE SAHMS CAN SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!!!!!

That really did make me PMSL.

Posts like that remind me why I go to work to talk to rational people!

blueshoes - agree that in economic 'good times', it would be fantastic (from my own purely selfish point of view!) to not have to pay childcare out of taxed income. From a pragmatic point of view, and in light of current conditions, I don't think forfeiting some more tax revenue is very realistic. Not unless we want to see spending cuts in some big areas like health, education, etc.

A very experienced primary school teacher friend of my Mum's told her years ago that she could usually spot children in her reception class who'd been in day nursery before they went to school as they generally had shorter attention spans. I've wondered ever since whether that was a fair comment or whether she just wanted to see that ifkwim....

[caveat: I have no axe to grind as I have a foot firmly in both the SAHM and WOHM camps....]

"I don't believe in giving money to parent(s) to use as they like - child benefit does that already and I don't feel it needs increasing. I will always insist on some linkage to economically productive activity and taxes because money does not grow on trees."

I don't understand the thinking behind this assertion. Why do parents of children in families where both parents work deserve tax breaks/childcare subsidies that families where one parent does not work do not deserve? That sounds to me like governments promoting economic activity for its own sake (which Ministers of the Economy/Chancellors of the Exchequor may love to do) but I don't think that society should collude in that.

Well I'm a teacher, and I can't spot the difference.Fot a child who has behavioural issues, the family background is a far more accurate indicator than whether the child has been to nursery or not.

Someone else commented earlier about attachment issues, and I would echo that - the only children I have come across with significant attachment issues were also from a family where the mother kept on having babies - there were about 8 kids altogether, but she lost interest once they reached about 4! And she was a SAHM!

I think people tend to see what they want to see. If you've given up work, maybe scrimping and going without to enable that to happen, and then maybe not being able to get back on the career ladder later when you want to, I can see that it's maybe tempting to think that by sacrificing yourself, you've made your children happier, or more advanced in some way. The fact is, they would most likely have turned out exactly the same if you'd sorted good childcare and stayed in work.

As I said before, nothing wrong with staying home (if you have the choice) - just don't imagine it will make your children turn out in any way differently!

stepaway, I think teachers can be prone to the same selective vision as anyone else.

I have always banged on about tax deductibility for childcare costs, irrespective of the economic climate. Bear in mind though that it is a policy that can lose tax dollars in the short run but actually increase it in the long run.

fox, childcare for children over 5 eg afterschool club or holiday clubs tend to be a lot cheaper than childcare for under 5s, particularly under 2s, due to the high staff to child ratio for pre-schoolers.

diddl, there are various ways of structuring who can claim tax relief for childcare costs.

The simplest is probably to link it to the household that the child lives in. So long as one parent is earning (the other parent SAHP-ing), that household should be allowed to claim tax relief.

I have no problems with that. Anna, I hope that addresses your point.

I don't understand this comment "That sounds to me like governments promoting economic activity for its own sake (which Ministers of the Economy/Chancellors of the Exchequor may love to do) but I don't think that society should collude in that." Is society somehow now divorced from the economy?

There is no hope - absolutely no hope - of childcare becoming tax deductible anytime soon. Or in fact anytime in the next 20-25 years, which is how long many forecasters are telling is it will take to get borrowing under control again.

Society does not exist in order to work for the Minister for the Economy to raise taxes to spend in such a way as to boost his/her own ego versus other countries' Ministers for the Economy. That is the point .

Anna, not sure I understand that either.

I only have another 1 more year of serious childcare to pay. I guess even less chance of tax deductible school fees!

tbh 1400 sounds quite reasonable. ive been paying 900 a month for 1 fulltime and 1 before and after school - have to admit holidays are a killer financially and i feel liek takign the whole of august off every year!

from exp childminders can work out a bit cheaper than nurseries

stepaway - yes, of course, I have chosen to spend my money on childcare. As opposed to what, exactly? I hear SS take a dim view of mums who leave their kids alone at home to fend for themselves.

I'm perplexed by people who have this idea that paying for childcare is an optional expense when you work.