Are childcare subsidies unfair to SAHM?

[MotherWol]

There's a letter in today's Guardian: Give Parents a Real Choice on Childcare arguing that the current system of childcare subsidies discriminate against SAHMs and don't acknowledge that the work they do is economically valuable, and that there should be equal financial support offered to families with a SAHP.

The campaign group behind the letter, Mothers At Home Matter, are focused on the benefits that a SAHM (their wording) is hugely beneficial to families and society, but stigmatised by a society that values economic activity over everything else.

I don't know whether it's their exclusive focus on women staying at home with children that set my feminist alarm ringing, but my gut reaction is that choosing to stay home with your children isn't equally important at a societal level to working, however important it may be to to families at an individual level, and therefore it's fair enough that there's no SAHM subsidy.

We already have maternity rights to enable women to take spend the first year of their child's life with them, although those benefits could arguably be significantly better. Also arguably better support is needed for families of children with disabilities where returning to work isn't possible due to their child's needs, but in the absence of those factors, is it really fair to expect the state to meet the cost of women choosing not to return to work?

I realise this is a thorny issue, and I honestly don't believe all mothers should be in paid work immediately after having children - they should be free to make the choice that's right for their families. But if the consequence of being a SAHM means losing one income, is it fair to expect equal subsidy from the state to compensate for that?

You don't need a rich man to enable you to be a SAHM.

But women as a class should not be encouraged to opt out of the workforce. It's not good for us, as a class, or our children, in the majority

Why isn't it?
And it doesn't have to be forever. Women can return to the workplace at any time.

What we actually need is a system where salaries and costs of living are aligned to a family being able to live on one full time wage and a much more flexible approach to working. Then a couple can decide to have one FT worker and one SAHP or two parents each working part time and looking after the DC part time. I can't see either the economic or the employment aspects of this happening in my lifetime though.

You only have to look at this thread to see how looked down upon sahm are! Personally it's something I love and wouldn't change for the world, I worked full time when my eldest was between 6 months and 7 years and I found it horrible her being in childcare for 10 hours a day so I have seen it from both sides as it were. I do not judge women for working though whether it's through choice or necessity.
I will say though the helping out of friends and friends of my kids I have done over the last few years I would say is beneficial to society. When there are odd teacher training days and childcare is needed I step in, when peoples after school care falls though I've stood in, when friends don't quite have enough holiday to cover the summer I've had their kids at mine for a few days. I don't mind doing this and I think it has been appreciated. So I think many of step into breaches when needed and from the wider society get no recognition.

But I also think sahp shouldn't get extra childcare though, that's kind of the point of being a sahp!

I will say though the helping out of friends and friends of my kids I have done over the last few years I would say is beneficial to society. When there are odd teacher training days and childcare is needed I step in, when peoples after school care falls though I've stood in, when friends don't quite have enough holiday to cover the summer I've had their kids at mine for a few days. I don't mind doing this and I think it has been appreciated. So I think many of step into breaches when needed and from the wider society get no recognition.

A couple of friends isn’t really ‘wider society.’ And helping out friends with childcare isn’t a requisite of being a SAHM - or is it? If so, I’m sad to have missed out on all this free childcare I’ve missed out on - there was me paying my childminder for an INSET day when actually there were SAHMs ready to do their societal duty… who knew!

Your post really resonated with me as I am in a place now where I can give a lot to my DC but stagnate my career or use more childcare (before school club, nursery and Nanny) and progress more. Part of my motivation to do that is because I don’t think my relationship with DH is that stable and I might need to be independent one day.

Do you think you’d still feel like you’ve done the wrong thing if you found yourself single??

@TriangleBingoBongo I split up from their dad when youngest was around 5/6. I could have stayed on benefits and got a PT cleaning job but no I went to uni and worked FT throughout my degree and after.

I regret the amount of childcare they have been in and I was lucky compared to my peers as my dc have been with various sets of grandparents through school holidays.

I don't regret my job and qualifications as I love my job but at the same time I regret the time I've missed out with them and not being able to be as present as I wish I could have been. Really I should have trained in something that made much more money then I currently get so I could have paid a nanny. But then it would have been another women making my home a home for my dc.

It's rubbish that we can have both. You might think you are winning but when your dc are older (youngest is now in his last year at school) you realise it was at the expense of your dcs childhood.

Most parents I know avoid using childcare as much as possible and only use it out of absolute necessity. I absolutely cannot afford to put my kids in childcare so I can sit at home. People you knew who did this are in the absolute minority.

I use childcare because I can’t work without it. It’s a ridiculous expectation to expect subsidised childcare - the whole point of being a SAHP is that you don’t need childcare.

Thanks for sharing @CatchersAndDreams you’ve given me something to think about. For me, I’d like DH to work 4 days and me do 4 day so we could share the load a bit. But despite earning similar money he is available to work 24/7 with no ability to commit to the children and I have to organise myself around everything.

There are a few different strands to the questions/ideas on this thread. I was going to respond to the ones that referenced my own points, but I think a more general point covers them all.

For many women it seems that feminism = untethering themselves from the house and children, so they can be financially independent from the end of maternity leave and onwards. It's not only about having choices, it's about only ever exercising them in a way that affords them independence.

That inevitably leads to a tension between womanhood and motherhood (women without children don't struggle with this). The original question isn't about subsidizing childcare for SAHMs. As a PP says, if you're a SAHM you don't need childcare. It's about acknowledging financially that the work SAHMs do has a financial value to society that goes entirely unrecognized. That's plain as day: parents who work have to pay someone for childcare and get state help in order to do so. A parent staying at home does the same (and more) but isn't paid.

Working parents in the UK, today, very often need financial help with childcare costs in order to continue working. But NEVER have generations and centuries of women who cook, clean, keep a home, raise children 24/7 - all jobs which, when other people do them, come with a wage - been recognized financially in any meaningful way.

Personally, I'm of the view that living and doing what humans do shouldn't come with a price tag. It's a slippery slope. But if we're in the business of helping parents pay other people to look after their children while they're out earning for themselves and their families, we can't continue to completely ignore people who do it entirely for free. It's the height of hypocrisy. Of course, the practicalities of any state "handout" are always riven with problems and injustices and exceptions, and this would be no different. But that's not a reason to ignore the question entirely.

But NEVER have generations and centuries of women who cook, clean, keep a home, raise children 24/7 - all jobs which, when other people do them, come with a wage - been recognized financially in any meaningful way.

I think that's a valid point around raising children, but not so much when it comes to housework. All households require this - would you give financial recognition to someone who didn't have children, but stayed home to cook, clean and manage the household?

The argument of SAHP’s having to do all the housework really irks me to be honest. All parents do that, working or not.

Society only places importance on work which has a monetary value attached. So paying sahm is arguably feminist in that it bestows a recognisable value on what is seen as low importance 'women's work'.
I don't really want money to look after my own children but being able to transfer my tax allowance would have been helpful.

It would also be good to have on site crèches in workplaces and policies which encourage men to be seen as equally responsible for children too. I'd prefer to see proper child support from absent fathers enforced as I think this would protect women.

Yes, you're both right. Housework shouldn't come into the equation.

Married couples should be allowed to file joint tax returns - as they are in the vast majority of countries.

They are already subsidised, the working parent still only pays one lot of tax and ni but both still have the same access to services. And in terms of benefits they always have been in that they qualify when a single parent is expected to find employment.
I would be in favour of subsidising single parents more. Eg doubling their tax allowance. And when or if they qualify for benefits an increase so they aren’t any worse off than a couple with a sahp. Same for couples where only one can work due to disabled dc.

It's true and it isn't about the one lot of tax - two people earning say £60k between them, pay less tax than one person earning £60k, but both might be supporting the same number of people. And the couple earning £60 between them get to keep child benefit.

The broader benefits of sahm is much larger. I am a sahm and I am on the pta, I am a school governor, I work with a community group that mixes a toddler group with older people who need company. I work on community projects. One project I work with is run by an 80 year old woman who says they will have to shut down because there are no sahm’s to help run it anymore. There is much more value to community cohesion than has been mentioned here.

Sorry I went off on a tangent.

I think one wage should be enough to support a standard size household rather than giving SAHMs money for staying at home.

Arguably childcare is good for dc. Positive social interactions and learning how to socialise is much more important than previously thought. Attachment theory of mum and baby to create a strong Attachment for baby to feel safe was touted as a fact when actually it's a theory that had evidence missed out to fit the hypothesis (the nurses at the hospital told bowlby that the babies stopped crying when they were in the room and they became distressed when no one was there. He missed this information out to publish his theory. It was taken up by Americans when universal day care was going to be put through by right wing politicians as a reason not to spend money). Much more work on the importance of socialisation and positive social connections is currently taken place.

We live in such a nuclear society now that childcare may be the only form of socialisation for small dc where they aren't being hovered over by their parents. Paying money to SAHMs may further isolate young children.

Taking* god my grammar is awful today!

There’s some recognition that childcare is beneficial which is why all children get some funded hours at 3 and some at 2.

Children of sahm do socialise though. The 15 hours free nursery is presumably to encourage this? I took mine to playgroups and when a bit older, they had football/gym/dance lessons. My dc weren't disadvantaged socially by having a sahp.

There is much more value to community cohesion than has been mentioned here.

This. Our local Home Start has mostly sahms as volunteers. Obviously in an ideal world there would be enough paid professionals so they weren't needed but right now, they are. Same with the PTA and numerous charities I'm a Trustee of.

Obviously not all sahms study and volunteer but plenty do (and nor should they have to).

I have mixed feelings about sharing tax allowances. My dh and I agreed that assuming I'd recovered by the time dc2 started school I'd return to work properly. Now that's less than a year away he's already trying to move goalposts and he's far from abusive. I think that would definitely be used to keep some women from the workplace.

I'm in Scotland and dc2 gets 30 hours a week even though I'm technically a sahm (part time student, doing relief hours for the LA and a lot of volunteering).

But that’s comparing different household incomes, and you could go on forever arguing who is the biggest net taker/ contributor etc.
Comparing like for like, whether that’s a couple on minimum wage, a couple earning 30k each or 100k each, they’re always going to be contributing less but taking out just as much if only one of them works.
And I do think it’s a bit of a piss take that in some cases a couple with only one working can contribute even less than a single adult household by way of passing on the tax free allowance.