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?

But why should others pay for that?

Why should others subsidise your childcare?

It’s irrefutably the case that all societies everywhere rely on a certain level of free labour, from men or women, by zero-hours-contract workers or gig workers or slave labour or child labour or cultural pressures on women or subsistence lifestyles etc etc. It’s simply impossible for everyone to be paid money for all their work. And, personally, I don’t think some work should carry a price tag.

The reason why in the West we make it financially easier for women to go straight (relatively speaking) back to work after childbirth is so that they can sacrifice that unpaid labour for paid labour on which they pay taxes. It’s all about the money from the perspective of the person paying the subsidy. It’s not a feminist ideal AT ALL. If it were, women who make an equally valid choice NOT to be economically productive but instead stay with their children would also be recognised financially.

Women in some Western countries, under the guise of “having it all” style feminism, have sacrificed their health and well-being in favour of a myth that they have freedom to choose. For some lucky women who don’t need to work for money, it really is freedom. That’s a vanishingly small minority. In reality, these women have swapped being tied to the home and their babies to being tied to their employers and the taxman.

What would make sense is for the SAHM to be able to take their spouses annual income and apply for minimum wage to be applied to them. This would create a tax benefit which is paid to the vulnerable SAHM, they would earn NI during this time home and you would eliminate the issue of child benefit cap being applied at £60k when one member of household earns more than this threshold.

I work and it’s been a true choice for me. I do believe all women should have the choice until the child starts school. However, I don’t believe a woman should have the right to have multiple children and no one in the household work at all. That has been taken care of with the rules around only two children being supported.

Further to what @oneuptwodown has said, I know very few women in my position. I choose to work and have built a successful career. I look around me and there are very few women at my level because most married well and went part time during the early years of having children. They made choices such as working from home and taking lesser roles to enable them to spend more time with their children.

In reality these women plateaued their careers. It’s a valid choice when it’s their choice but what I see are men not stepping up and system that doesn’t fully support them staying in the workforce on an ‘all-in’ basis.

Surely affordable childcare and more flexibility in employment are what's needed?
Not circular debates about mums at home vs mums at work, but tangible options that enable a two parent family to have genuine options for both parents.

The option for both working full time and use full time childcare, the option for both to work part time and use part time childcare, the option for one to work full time and one to stay home.

In our society we won't get complete equality between families. We may not get complete gender equality (sob). But surely both cheaper childcare and flexibility with jobs would move us much closer towards the latte. Much more so than women battling, effectively with each other, over working vs not-working while men just carry on as they were!

And the benefits to society would hopefully be the move away from gender equality, gender pay gaps, the toxicity and rigidity of roles for men and women that would bring so many benefits (helping reducing violence against women, for example), improved mental well-being in the population (less demand on health services), men getting more involved in unpaid labour in the community kinds that would increase the value society places on that work, perhaps.

Agree with @StudentMumTo3 that more workplace flexibility and more affordable childcare would be beneficial to all. This might enable the man to do more of the sahm roles and enable her to do more volunteering, retrain etc. I suppose you can also say that reduced housing and energy cost might take off the financial pressure and achieve the same effect.

I think some benefits of sahm can be difficult to quantify though - and won’t apply to all sahm. For example - people talk about caring for a child with disabilities being a separate issue (for which they recognise having a sahp can provide something additional/different to a paid carer - sometimes you need both). How about kids with more mild disabilities or mental health issues or SEN? SAHP may be able to provide the continuity of care between different services (health visitor, school, occupational therapy, counselling). They may also be able to have more time and energy to help them with school work (if that is where they have their issues).

The same goes with people who care for relatives (siblings, parents) - at the mild end, often there can be a benefit to having someone in the family doing it (though it can also be worse - with dysfunctional/abusive families!). Recognising this and getting some financial support for this would help.

That's what I was asking. Why should others subsidise my childcare?

Isn’t the basic problem here actually affordable housing?

These days with a house price to salary ratio much less favourable than it was 30 years ago, it’s no wonder that numbers of stay at home parents are dwindling. Childcare subsidies - whoever they go to - can’t really compensate sufficiently for this fundamental problem.

I work to pay the mortgage and I need the childcare subsidies to make all the ends meet. I would like to do some childcare and some volunteering and so forth and have other options. I’m also happy to be working in my current role though and keeping a semblance of a career. I’m aware I was raised by a SAHM as were many of my friends but now among us few of us can make that choice if we wanted it. I respect all the choices people make and different types of contribution to society. Working isn’t necessarily a good contribution to society either - it does depend what work you are doing!

If we want to truly give women and families a fair choice then we need affordable homes.

But it's nonsense to suggest that a woman at work is parenting at the same time. No woman is Schroedinger's mum. Somebody else is doing the active parenting of that child while the woman is actively doing something else.

Just as a,sahp parent is not oarenting when dc go to school??
Not quite
Parenting is more than at home or not
A sahp in extreme poverty or going thru severe mh crisis is not parenting same as a parent in work but good childcare and neither chaotic nor too strict household

Parenting cuts across all days per year
Not just core hours
Most kids go to school in loco parentis teachers
But what happens outside those hours can impact well being and prospects

Subsidise childcare thru raised taXes for more choice
Dual parental paid leave proper rates to get dads involved

It’s beyond housing costs. Daddy was never going to take parent leave. He took one day for the first, half a day for the 2nd and he took a week off for the 3rd because his boss sent him home but he still took work calls the entire week. For us, his choice was valid because of his responsibilities at work and his earnings reflect that. You don’t get to make the big income without putting the work in.

What was very tough for me was holding down a full time job with minimal support. I didn’t earn enough to hire a nanny on my post tax income. Had I been able to fully deduct the cost of childcare against my wages, it would have made my life a lot easier and my children would have been much better off. A full time nanny would have been my first choice, instead I used a mix of daycare and sitter plus remained in the US where the costs are lower rather than relocating back to the UK.

I think it’s a very weak argument to say there is no benefit to a parent focusing on raising their child(ren). My children are in school and they need a lot of guidance, reassurance and help navigating school. They are also off for about 14 weeks of the year.

You can afford but plenty cant.

I wish I'd been able to stay at home longer.

All the subsidies are to get women away from their child and working to make money for this corrupt government.

What's best for my family is a credit giver who is emotionally available and there for them when they need it. Not rushed off their feet running between work and school runs.

It doesnt have to fund just the mums, but there should be subsidies to help parents stay at home and care for their child if they want.

I spent three years when my daughter was little getting virtually nil return financially and I was in a well paid job, my husband did three days a week at work and looked after our daughter part time. Childcare was only three days but my employer would not accept a nursery and I had to arrange a sole care childminder as I could not afford a nanny. It is even more of a challenge now price wise. I do think there could be more help at this time for parents - taking the whole picture into account of who needs the childcare

I had a friend who was involved in early years childcare and she had some interesting insight and said the free childcare wasn’t actually aimed at working parents or the likes of many on mumsnet but was an opportunity for those children who fell through the net on child services. Therefore working or not every child needs the window of being noticed.

My daughter is now a well adjusted teenager who had both her mother and father to bring her up, doesn’t take money for granted, volunteers as a Brownie young leader just like her parents have done before and I firmly believe that seeing us juggle work, community and friendships hasn’t been toxic but a way to find the best path for herself and consider others.

But free childcare wasn’t aimed at my daughter despite at times us needing it. It was (as I understand it) equally intended for those who needed role models at a young age and a method that singled them out one group over another would have been counterproductive. This is why whether you are a SAHM, working mum or in-between the concept of early years care is universal and not discriminatory.

Fair points but really the long game should be reducing overall population in the face of dwindling resources and environmental crises. Creating more humans to care for the existing humans is a vicious circle with life expectancy continually rising.

Sounds good in theory but many children aren't diagnosed until they're at least school age. It doesn't mean it's possible to work.

My daughter couldn't go to preschool due to extreme behaviour issues, diagnosed with autism at the age of 7.

I would love to know which research you are referring to as I have seen numerous studies that support the need for a sahp particularly in the first 3 years.

I hate this rhetoric that SAHMs are all supported by rich husbands, it's just not true at all. I'm sure there are those that are comfortably staying at home but the SAHMs in my friendship circle have all got husbands with modest incomes and are able to stay at home because of sacrifices they have made and financial decisions about housing that they made before having children. How many people out there are saying they NEED two incomes yet are still paying out for Netflix, Spotify, Sky/Virgin, 2 cars, holidays etc. We have come to think as a society that we need or deserve to have these things in our lives. The problem is most people are not content to live within their means. When my husband and I bought our home together we could have bought a much larger house on our two incomes but we planned ahead and took on a mortgage based on just his income as we knew we wanted me to be at home with our children when the time came. There are so many people out there claiming they need two incomes but in reality they could downsize their house, move to a cheaper town, budget their shopping, make other financial sacrifices. I'm sure plenty of people will want to jump on and talk about people who are renting and on low incomes who will never be able to afford to live on one income but I am not talking about them I am talking about the rest. It's not fair to keep churning out this misinformation about SAHMs when in reality there are plenty of us who value the opportunity to raise our children and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to make this happen. Mothers at Home Matter are not asking for free childcare for SAHMs as some have stated as they clearly don't need it, they are saying that the money for 15hrs free childcare should be available to those who choose not to use childcare. Why is it fair to provide free childcare to those who wish to go to work because they want afford a certain level of lifestyle or want to build their career but not provide this same money to those who choose to provide the childcare for their own children?

Absolutely this!

There are plenty of studies showing the wider societal benefit of SAHM/Ps. I understand that people hear the word “mother” in these debates and immediately cry anti-feminism, but isn’t feminism about choice? You’re assuming that those of us who want to stay at home with our children don’t want to or are somehow chained to the home? Yes, Dads (and other carers) absolutely matter and are also of equal/huge value in the home. But the reason Mothers at Home Matter exists is because it is largely mothers who want to fulfil that at home role. Not exclusively, but largely. But feminism aside, MAHM’s campaign wishes are not benefits for mothers/women, but for any parent wishing to stay at home to raise they’re children rather than use paid for childcare. And actually, most of their wishes go beyond SAHM/Ps - they would benefit all families with one higher earner and another part time one (the child benefit scandal for example).
We are not asking to be paid to stay at home to look after our children. We are asking for a fair child benefit system (that is based on household not individual income), a fair tax system and recognition that not all benefits to society are financial.
Too many comments in here assuming we want to drain the public purse, with zero understanding that both parents working outside the home is also a burden on the taxpayer - in many cases, that 30 hours free childcare you’re claiming wipes out your tax/NI contributions ;)

Excellent post PurplGir. And I want to live in a society that supports its members, not a free for all. Social stability benefits women and children.

I don't think SAHPs are a drain at all but I disagree that in many cases the tax/NI is wiped out by 30 hours free childcare.
We got 30 hours free childcare for exactly 1 year. This equated to less than a quarter of the combined tax that DH and I pay each year and we don’t have huge salaries. Now that that 12 months of free childcare is up, we shall continue paying a decent chunk of tax/NI for the next 30 years. I’m pretty sure we’re not being too much of a burden on the taxpayer. If both parents are working full time, even at minimum wage they are paying only a little less tax/NI than what they’d be getting back in 30 hours free, and again they are only entitled to that help for a year or so until the child starts school.
The 15 hours free childcare is only available to those on low incomes. These people are very unlikely to be working so they can afford a nice foreign holiday and 2 cars! They'll be working, in their low paid jobs, so they can afford to live.

How many people do you think are working full time and claiming 30 hours? I know 1 couple where one parent is working full time and claiming. The rest are all part time. The 30 hours wipes out their tax contribution. And don’t get me started on the underfunding of the 30 hours, impact there has on nurseries, staff and ultimately children (esp if the ratios are ditched to try to bridge the gap).

I don't know. Personally I don't know a single person who is claiming, or has claimed, 30 free hours that is working part time. Of course there will be people in that situation and those will most probably not be covering the cost with their tax/NI (depending on their salary and also on their partners earnings). But again this is only for a year.
The underfunding is an issue an a lot of areas, but I can't see how paying out yet more money is going to help solve that problem.

@updownleftrightstart you are incorrect about the 15 hours. ALL children are entitled to 15 hours a week (term time) from the academic term after their 3rd birthday. It's nothing to do with low incomes and it's education not childcare.

@updownleftrightstart although your can use those 15 hours in a childcare setting such as a child minder or childcare nursery. However the provider should be following the first year of the Early Years Foundation Stage because it's meant to be education.

Apologies, I thought it was the 15 hours from age 2 not 3 that was being referred to