Do the proposed tax free childcare plans insult stay at home parents?

[Jac1978]

Working families will receive £1200 a year per child up to a maximum of 20% of their total childcare costs from 2015. Both parents or a single parent must be working and earning less than £150,000 a year to qualify.

Is this a welcome boost to help parents who can't afford childcare or does it insult parents who choose to stay at home and look after their children themselves? Should they be encouraging parents to work or stay at home or should they not help parents at all as it is their decision to have children?

[mindosa]

Why should families with stay at home parents get childcare grants when they dont pay for childcare?

[Mopswerver]

I hear you potato

[morethanpotatoprints]

Mopswerver.

I agree its up to the individual what they want to do, and I too only paint my nails for special occasions.
I perhaps do less housework than a wohm as we have 3 dc who have been brought up to do their bit and dh works alot from home and also contributes quite a lot to the running and cleaning of the home. I do what makes me happy, seeing friends, going for walks, hobbies. I can always find something I enjoy doing, don't really do much of what I don't like doing.

[Mopswerver]

Well I think it's up to the individual to decide what they enjoy and for the record I only paint my nails for weddings and holidays . You do seem to have a very caricatured idea of a SAHM xenia.

If it's wrong and a poor role model to enjoy taking care of children, cooking, et al is it also a poor role model to do those things for a living? Or is it OK so long as you are earning money at it? Is the only good role model to get out there and earn a fortune so that you can spend spend spend and prop up this increasingly consumerist society? It can't really be a good role model to flog your guts out for a minimum wage whilst paying others to look after your kids can it? What about part time workers earning under 10K who won't be "contributing" to the Tax coffers? are they wrong too?

I get £130 per month CB. I don't pay Tax but my husband employs three people in his business so I guess that cancels that out. So by my calculations I will be receiving just over what a "hard working family" will receive towards paying someone else to look after their DCs. Assuming they don't also get CB in which case I am less of a burden to the state

[Owllady]

mind you i started a thread this week or was it last week, asking if it was too much for my husband to clean the bath out after he had used it as it was really pissing me off because even my 11 yr old son does it. But a lot of people suggested my expectations were too high
anyway since the other day he has started cleaning it out, so i don't have that minute worry any more.

I really don't understand women who put up with lazy arsed partners

[FasterStronger]

you aren't wrong, but I was responding to morethans comment

[Owllady]

people are not going to start threads saying 'oh my husband has cleaned the toilet again, what a fucking waste of space he is'
are they
anyway i have to go and clean the kitchen floor whilst painting my nails and sitting around at home wanting hardworking taxpayers to look after my little wife good looks

[anklebitersmum]

potato I like housewife..it's use makes me feel all smug and 1950-ish



For what it's worth I have lots of choice and autonomy does not apply purely to the individual (although that's probably just what my husband tells me )

[FasterStronger]

My dh does as many domestic jobs as I do
I think he is the exception then. I have noticed many threads to the contrary.

power gives you choice and autonomy.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Xenia, likewise, I think a sahp might be offended as being termed a housewife, when such a description doesn't really exist now. Bun fights usually start if a sahp is accused of sitting on bum all day. My dh does as many domestic jobs as I do, so where you get the idea from they don't is probably your own experience, I think.

[Xenia]

I think working women only get out their claws when housewives imply they should be kept by hard working tax payers to sit around at home. It suspect that is how it became a bit of a bun fight. I don't think we need to bother to debate why it is very bad for women if most of them make the choice not to work and the damage it does. It has been done to death.

Power and money and career satisfiaction and contributing your skills to the wider economy are absolutely marvellous and most men and women adore to have that. Very few want to be some kind of power behind the throne. If power behind the throne is so much fun (I'll wear the suspenders tonight if you buy me the golf bracelet or I'll clean your toilets if you pay my housekeeping and the like) men would be at it.

[morethanpotatoprints]

anklebitersmum

I think that is what was being said. Sad isn't it that power is apparentely something to do with money? I don't figure myself. Maybe it stems from some people assuming a sahm is down trodden, chained to a kitchen sink, with a life of drudgery

[Longtime]

You can always count on Xenia to summarise the SAHM as someone who spends all day cleaning and changing nappies, serving man at home! Talk about sweeping generalisation Xenia.

It is sad that yet again a thread of this sort has turned into a SAHM/WOHM, dc at home/dc in nursery argument. I say sad, because it would be so much nicer if we women could support one another rather than turn against each other. A bit of solidarity from both sides would surely be better than the usual bun fight.

[anklebitersmum]

I am clearly missing something. Why do I need more power? Over whom? My husband? Why?

Why is equal not OK-or am I deluded that I am not equal in our relationship because I don't work outside the home?

[Wishihadabs]

I find myself agreeing with Xenia and Bonsoir. One of the reasons I have always worked (except for mat leave) is to afford some childcare when I am not at work. I kept Ds at nursery when on mat leave with dd. When DH SAH my childcare vouchers paid for dd to go to nursery so DH could have some head space. SAPs do need childcare.

[amidaiwish]

Argh I really hate mumsnet when the threads go all bashing like this.
Can't you see what the govt is doing?
We had vouchers, which gave about £80 off a month (because you got them pre tax/Ni)
They could be used to pay for any childcare including holiday clubs etc.... For any age.
instead of making them work properly and available to all they have brought in this £1200 tax break which is only for under 5's, not til 2015
It is a CON and we are being duped into arguing about SAHP when that's not even the point.
Childcare should be tax deductible. End of. Paying someone else out of your net income is never going to be affordable.
Tax and benefits should either be based on household or individual incomes. At the moment we are taxed as individuals but benefits/allowances calculated on household. That's unfair.

[FasterStronger]

You do not need a job to have power outside the home. for example?

[Bonsoir]

You do not need a job to have power outside the home. Most jobs confer very little power anyway.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Xenia.

I do agree with what you are saying in general terms, because I have witnessed this myself. However, it doesn't have to be like this and talking from my own personal view it isn't.
My dh is the sole provider in terms of finances, but I am the main provider of almost everything else. Except for raising our dc which we both have an equal stake in.
My point I suppose, that Power doesn't necessarily equate to money.
I can see how it does in your world as you are a high earner and obviously your world has revolved around this, but mine hasn't and I'm all powerful in our family.

[FasterStronger]

I don't want women to feel empowered, I want women to have actual power. for actual power, you need a life outside the home.

[Bonsoir]

You have a very limited view of power, Xenia and how to achieve it, Xenia.

The idea that the only way to empower women is to have th work outside the home is fundamentally flawed.

[Owllady]

little wife
trading on looks
dull stuff
kept person

all very sexist xenia, do get with the program

[Xenia]

If you have power and money compared to your little wife has very little earning power and only her looks to trade on them in a relationship men indeed get the chance to be lazy. Where women earn 10x what their husband does they have quite a bit more power in relationships and it can work very well. If instead you relay on his beneficence to feed and clothe and house you you end up doing the dull stuff because he is the all powerful earner and you are in effect the kept person. Most women of course don't like to be in that situation and most women always and in the UK in 2013 have worked.

[anklebitersmum]

Owl

[Bonsoir]

I disagree that SAHPs don't need childcare. In France there is state (subsidised) and private childcare for SAHPs to use - it is called halte garderie. For SAHPs with no family fall back it is a godsend to be able to have one or two free mornings/afternoons per week without toddlers. Halte garderie isn't nursery and wouldn't be suitable for FT care - it is very much babysitting rather than something that develops children (other than their sociability and ability to be apart from parents/carers).

The whole childcare issue in the UK has been muddied by the catastrophic decision to promote private for profit chains of nurseries.