Stormy, here's my tuppence worth ? I wonder whether thinking about the childcare issue purely in terms of 'work for no pay whichever way you look at it' possibly doesn't take in all the relevant factors.
SAHM doubtless work really, really hard but they also get the satisfaction and fulfilment of being with their children all day. So there can be, ideally, a different kind of reward / pay-off?
Mums who go out to work at a paid job may only be bringing enough into the family piggy bank enough to cover the family's childcare costs, but aren't they getting other non-monetary things too? In yesterday's discussion things like maintaining career in the long term, sanity (!), stimulation, sense of professional worth were mentioned. I also like to think that kids benefit from different kinds of stimulation they get from different carers. A bit like decades ago when families generally lived closer to each other.
But for those of us who would not be able to get back into our careers at the same level after, say, a break of five years the protection of our future earning potential is, in monetary terms, hugely important to the family, and will pay dividends in the long run. So in these cases it's not at all 'work for no pay' - like I said yesterday, paying for childcare in the short-term can be an investment in the family's future income.
Did anyone see the piece in the news about comparative European childcare costs? I think that is an important thing we haven't touched on. I can't remember what shocking % the UK was at but it was vastly more than other European countries - in Germany, for example, full-time childcare costs about 5-10% of take-home pay. Heavily state-subsidized, no doubt. And that kind of state support is absolutely necessary in order to support women feeling that they have a fuller range of choices. Can't see that happening under the Tories, somehow, or even Labour nowadays. Sigh.