Ed Miliband's childcare proposals - is wraparound care really the solution?

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Ed Miliband has announced that a Labour government would improve access to affordable childcare by introducing a "legal guarantee" of 8am - 6pm provision for primary-aged children, through breakfast and after-school clubs. On the face of it this sounds great. Access to affordable childcare is a major issue for so many mothers, distorting whatever semblance of choice we have in how we raise our families and pay our bills. Surely by increasing access we're moving one step closer to supporting our families in the way we would all wish?

I'm a little unsure. I like what this proposal would do in practice but the broader message makes me uneasy. According to Miliband:
Parents who want to work should be able to do so. We need to use the talents of everyone if we are to succeed as an economy and keep social security bills down. Seven out of 10 stay at home mums tell surveys that the cost of childcare has deterred them from looking for a job.

There's something about the wording of this - the pro-business rhetoric - that unsettles me. Labour will help you ensure that your family isn't a drain on the state. Is this really what passes for pro-family politics? Are we moving towards a social model which is more supportive of family life or merely more controlling?

I'll be honest: I already benefit from sending my children to a school that has wraparound childcare. I choose my words carefully; I'm not sure how much they benefit, other than by the obvious fact that as our family's main earner I need to pay the mortgage and my children need a home. My kids prefer it when I'm able to pick them up straight from school, expressing excitement if any day is a "home" day. I can torture myself with guilt over this but what is the point? I don't have any extended family nearby and Daddy has a one-hour commute. That's life, eh? But does it really have to be this way?

It often feels to me that between my mother's generation and my own, there's been a cultural shift that hasn't been wholly to our benefit. We've gone from prioritising family values in a way that limited women's ability to earn towards prioritising the needs of employers in a way that diminishes family life. Instead of taking a step back and overhauling our whole understanding of pay, value and reward - something which the Wages For Housework campaign wished to achieve - we've allowed politicians and employers who are not primary carers to make the odd modification to their prized, protected system. "See? You have the right to ask - to ask! - for flexible working! And to pick your children up after ten hours in school! Why aren't you happy yet? What is your problem?"

My problem is this: family life and caring work aren't to be slotted in around the needs of perennially grudging employers. They're central to who we all are and how we shape our future. By this, I don't mean that ideally, all women should be angels of the hearth instead of ball-breaking career women. Such stereotypes have only made us blame ourselves for not having made "better" choices about our lives when really, we can only make do with what's available. Other options - career sabbaticals, job shares, increased wages to allow for more part-time work, decreased wage inequality, the outrageous idea that actually, even those who "don't work" (ha!) deserve a political voice - haven't been on the table. There's been no creativity. We've accepted the lie that this is the only way things can ever be and at times we've even allowed it to make us turn on each other.

I think we are afraid of engaging with this debate fully in case it damages our status as women, casting us either as bad mothers who need to spend more time in the home or unreliable workers who let down their employers and colleagues by doing just that. It's not fair that these feel like our only choices. I'm not against Miliband's proposal; if it gives other families the basic support required to earn a wage, something from which I've benefited myself, how could I be? But I think we need to ask for something even more radical, something that really turns things upside down. The problem isn't that we're failing our families or employers, but that the weak, commercialised concept of work-life balance is still failing us and our kids.

What I meant was, imagine if before/after school clubs were abolished over night, the impact on work would be big enough that workplaces would have to find a way around it.

It is a mad thought, but I think it would highlight the issue.

It usually takes something like snow school closures to highlight the difficulty of parents who work.

I want a world where parenting is shared between parents. A world where you can work if you want to, where you don't need to have extended family alive/nearby to be able to go to work. I want a world where DH's work understand that he wants to and should go to parents' evening, be home in the evenings to help with homework and so on.

I am not sure what the next generation coming through think, but would be interested. My Mum was always there when we were not at school, in holidays and when we were ill. I know what that's like and the benefit it gave us. But, if you're not used to it, then do you miss it?

We already have a system like this and my dd plays the wii and runs around with her mates with a home cooked meal every night. They dont need schools to do it as its much more fun and relaxed when private providers do it.

Agree meringue where are the fathers in this, it was all about mothers and stay at home mums I'm sick of it. My partner was a stay at home dad for 2 years (we were so broke so he had to get a job) he felt so left out of everything.

I think sahms have to realise no one is forcing them to go to work. If I had not had free childcare I would be doing nothing at home on benefits in rented with no point at all. Whereas due to tax credits for childcare I have a degree, mortgage, car, get to realise all my dreams and aspirations, and be my own person. I will be eternally grateful I had children in the age of highly subsidised childcare.

I wish someone would start supporting SAHM's. It just feels like what we're doing/the sacrifices we're making is going unnoticed by everyone.

Personally, I'd love wraparound care. DS's school offers a breakfast club but not an after school club. They used to but demand was not enough so it had to close...

He goes to a childminder twice a week after school but she's just given notice and I'm desperately trying to find something else. Paying for the childcare actually isn't that much of a problem, as I don't need much of it but it's finding someone that can actually take him! So, after school care at his school would be perfect for me.

Just as a background, I'm a lone parent. I work 27 hours a week which means I can do the school run three days a week, hence the need for before/after school care twice a week. I'd love to drop my hours but I just can't afford it. Of course, my Tax Credits would increase but then I'd be accused of being a benefit-scrounging single parent.

Likewise, giving up work completely is just not an option for me as there'd be no money coming in at all other than maintenance and benefits. So I do actually find it quite hard to feel sorry for SAHMs who choose, and can afford to stay at home.

The crux of the issue here is housing costs. In our parents and grandparents generations you could buy a decent sized family home for around 3x an average salary. You'd be lucky to get a studio flat for the equivalent these days. So people have to work longer hours just to achieve the basic living standards that our ancestors enjoyed.

If we had the relative equality that we do today - the career opportunities for women, moving towards equal pay, less defined gender roles within the household etc., but retained the affordability of housing, there would be much more freedom and I suspect a lot of the childcare issues would be far less of a problem.

I feel stuck atm, totally stuck. I am a SAHM with a 6yo and a 2yo. DD has to be at school at 8.45 and finishes at 3.15pm. With after school clubs every day, she could finish at 4.15 instead. Because she is at school in a small village, all the local childminders are totally full up, particularly long waiting lists if they offer school drop off and pick up. There is no wraparound care here at all.

I have been offered the chance to do a professional postgrad qualification starting in September 2014. It would be 9 months training and I could go back to work. But I can't work out any realistic way of managing it.

I am one of those SAHMs who has two choices and might benefit from wraparound provision being made available. I stay at home and we struggle financially in a cold, too small, falling down house which we can't afford to heat or I ignore my degree and MA and any need I have for fulfilment and go and stack shelves in a supermarket on nights.

We both work part time in order to absorb the needs of our young children. We have never paid for childcare (apart from evening babysitters) and we don't have family nearby who help out. Both working part time can be a very tax-efficient solution and doesn't leave women at a disadvantage in the event of a relationship breakdown, which is let's face it quite common.

It should be simple for everyone, including men, to work part-time if it suits them so that parents could opt for part-time hours as a matter of course.

Women need to stop assuming responsibility for everything. It's boring now.

ShowofBloodyStumps - Are you a single parent? Only you don't mention your children's father AT ALL.

There's no point mentioning him I suppose. He's a copper. He has to be at work 35 miles away at 7am. He doesn't get home until 7pm at the very earliest. Every weekday. Plus one weekend in three. No flexible working allowed. No part time. Other opportunities for him are rare as hens' teeth. I have to do the school run, morning and evening every day and dh is not allowed time off in the holidays either so I have all holiday childcare to do too.

ShowofBS - DH is in similar situation. Therefore, I have to do. We are trying to work towards LibraryBook's model and are determined to find a way.

Trouble is, it depends what you do and where as to how easy it is to escape the model of one parent working/out the house 12 hrs a day and one taking primary resp for the childcare. If I want to work to earn any reasonable financial benefit (no tax credit option I believe) then we would have to swap completely so I'd be out the house 12 hrs and he'd be in charge of childcare. I hate that it's one or other of us.

Still, we are in constant discussion to change it, including looking to move abroad to countries that are more forward-thinking.

I think some posters are over-reacting to this proposal. No-one is going to make you use wraparound childcare, if you don't need to, or want to, or don't approve, or whatever.

But I am lucky enough to already have it at dc's school, and I'm very grateful. So why not offer it to everyone? Fathers can make use of it too.

It's such a difficult situation. We will manage, we will find a way but there's no creative thinking which will allow dh to continue in a job he has trained to do and worked hard at for many years and allow me to find a fulfilling and financially viable job alongside it. We'd have to swap roles entirely. We just need local, accessible childcare. Or a lottery win.

Scarlet - I think it is indicative of the idea that all able adults should be in the workforce as long as possible instead of prioritising children walking home from school with a parent and going home to their own house where they can chill out and talk to a parent about any concerns.

Children seem to be increasingly seen as something you put into nursery at 6mths so you can work, then school at 2yrs then in education til 18 then to university.

I think that's slightly defensive, Basket. Again, just because the childcare is there it really doesn't mean we are expected to use it every day - or at all. It's a choice. If people are happy with the choices they have made, that's great. Wraparound care just gives some people an extra choice.

I think the problem is that historically jobs with 12 hour days have been possible because people who do them have wives.

The issue isn't just that women are disproportionately stay at home parents, but also that often the careers of working women are severely curtailed because they can't compete with somebody who has a wife at home.

It's not even just picking up children from school - it's also checking they have done homework and remembering when they need sports kit. Nobody in a high flying position is supposed to do any of this.

(And obviously you can swap 'high flying' for any job with very irregular or extreme working hours).

Merrymouse - unfortunately it's not just high flying positions. It's just a full working week with an hour commute. Many jobs these days are full on and not paid that much. Can't afford a cleaner, childcare etc or the time for all the parenting stuff on top. Plus, keeping finances in order, DIY, food shopping, laundry, housework, etc. that keeps a household running.

Women's careers are curtailed because they end up taking the little pt jobs that work around school. So many qualified women out that unable to work in jobs they had before.

So even with 'wrap around childcare', if you are scraping into the office at 9 and zooming out at 5, and scrabbling for cover when your child is sick or on holiday, in many companies/jobs you can wave goodbye to any career progress.

Given that there is no natural law that the working week has to be 35/40/50 hours long and that so much work can be done remotely, I think the working culture can change, but without any external impetus I'm not sure why it would.

It's a good thing to have but it isn't the answer to every family's childcare situation. I will be using wrap-a-round care once a week from next September, possibly twice a week if I need to.

I wouldn't want to use it every day because my children do out of school activities that would have to be curtailed if they were in after school clubs every day. Given the choice my children would not choose to be in wrap-a-round care every day.

Ideally I would like a Mrs Doubtfire at home to supervise homework and ferry them to activities. Unfortunately Mrs Doubtfire costs £££.

I wonder if there's more change happening than people realise, sometimes?

Most of my friends with children work flexibly in one way or another - and by that I mean both parents. We're commuter-belt, so that may make a difference. One parent will start early and finish early, and vice versa so nursery/wraparound care hours are manageable. The jobs are varied - banking, big-4 accountancy firms, management consulting, senior public sector, and professional/managerial jobs in other sectors.

As an employer, I can increasingly see the benefits of a flexible-working team. We get early and late cover, we get more loyalty from our staff and we increasingly have access to talented people who will only work flexibly. We are lucky to have a management culture that supports this - but increasingly I think companies are starting to see flexie working as a talent management tool.

It's a blimmin' huge mountain to climb. I think it takes a partnership between families and more options than some families have. If we can't access wraparound care for DS when he's older, we'll be screwed, at least a few days a week. What's wrong with guaranteeing wraparound care for families who need it, as long as there is no compulsion?

Showofbloodystumps - Don't rozzers fall under the EC Working Time Regulations, unless he's a Commander or more senior? Or unless he's opted out himsef.

Why do you live in such a cold unffordable house over an hour away from your DH's work ? Especially if the services on offer in the locality don't meet your needs? Please find a way of going to do that professional postgrad qualification because your current lifestyle sounds unfulfilling and unsustainable.. Does your husband not see your children at all Monday to Friday if he leaves at 6am and doesn't get home until 7pm?

If the childcare is available then yes it's a choice. Except that when prices go up and wages don't you will have to work even longer hours and then it isn't a choice really is it.

And if they know the childcare is there then they needn't worry that wages are getting further behind. No downside there.

Flexible working doesn't suit everyone though - I used to work nights and weekends to limit our childcare use (dd1 went to breakfast club once a week, and I was always there at 3:20, whilst dd2 went to dh's workplace nursery one morning a week, that was all we needed) but I was exhausted. I never had a full weekend with them so our family time was limited and I was a walking zombie for 2 days a week. I could be working 7-19:30 Saturday and Sunday so I wouldn't see my children from bedtime on Friday until Monday morning. It got to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore. Now we may use more childcare (2 1/2 days for dd2, breakfast club 3 mornings a week and after school club one or two afternoons depending on what time myself or dh finish) but we spend all weekend every weekend together and I actually feel healthy. I think we all do what works but we all need options - and if this increases peoples options that is hardly a bad thing. I just hope it's workable.