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?

[morethanpotatoprints]

Xenia.

I'm glad I'm not part of one of those cultures myself, and my dc tell me they are glad i'm not neither, which by me is fine.
I think its how you look at wanting to raise your children. Childcare is far different than raising a child.

[1310]

As a grandmother I would like to add that I chose to stay at home with my children in the 80s I do not feel the need to be caring for my grandchildren as I have done my own child rearing. Mums who choose to stay at home realise that the first two years of a child's life are important bonding years. The first seven years of a child's life maketh the grown up. Surely of you are able you would want to Impart your own values to your child. This is by no means too much to ask for the long term well being of your child
I do not however understand any study that suggests children in child care do better than one on one with their parents or grandparents. This must surely prove that the state is becoming too invasive in our lives.
I wonder if for once society could turn this whole debate on its head and actually acknowledge the importance of raising your own children. Should one parent wish to stay at home until their child is of school age then their tax breaks should be worthwhile. But most of all government should acknowledge that whether women work or stay at home it is their choice and they must take responsibility for those choices.
No career is totally lost for the sake of a few years with your child. I find that a very selfish reason to stay at work. A child is for life but a career often is not.

[Kazooblue]

That is a cracking article by Allison Pearson(applauds).

[impecuniousmarmoset]

Men aren't clamouring to do it because it's still seen as women's work, not because it's inherently unsatisfying. Clearly it isn't inherently unsatisfying, because a lot of highly educated career men and women choose to do it. In an equal society, who chooses to stay at home with kids would be a gender-neutral question.

[Mopswerver]

1310 I salute you

[Mopswerver]

O know Kazooblue. It all makes sense now eh? They want us to get off our backsides and start contributing....to the 'Growth' and 'Employment' figures

[anklebitersmum]

Yes Mopswerver it's all about statistics and horn-blowing..never mind the childrens welfare..and a big for 1310

[victoriasmith]

I feel like i am missing something with all this. Why are stay at home parents complaining that they cant receive childcare benefit, if they have chosen, or have to if they cant find work, to stay at home then why arent they caring for their children themselves? The only reason we receive childcare elemnt is because both i and my husband work and have to pay someone three days a week to care for our son, if i was at home full time then i would never expect the government to give me money so someone else could care for my child whilst i did what exactly???

[Kazooblue]

Do people not just read threads anymore?

[morethanpotatoprints]

Victoria.

Maybe you wouldn't need childcare as a sahp but the gov thinks a small percentage do and they will keep their allowance.
Also, if you were looking for a job as a sahp who would be minding your children whilst you were actively seeking work?
I you were made redundant you would have to fund all your childcare whilst job hunting.

[morethanpotatoprints]

1301

What a lovely heart felt post. I totally agree and I know some are quite at my 20+ years of raising my own children.

[HappyMummyOfOne]

SAHP's dont need childcare. If they are trying to get back into the workplace, its perfectly possible to job search whilst being a parent. People with children who work switch jobs all the time and manage.

Quite amusing to see those with only one adult working dont want their bit of tax to pay towards childcare for others but are more than happy to take tax credits and wtc that bumps up their income allowing them to stay home

[Kazooblue]

Errrrr happy we don't get any of that zilch.Don't even get CB as they've taken that(although other families earning more keep it), dp gets taxed 40% and we only have 1 tax allowance so yeh I do begrudge Samcam and friends getting cash they don't need and we do.

[Xenia]

I was talking to one yesterday who was moaning about everything and then I learned they had a live in au pair and the mother doesn't work. So the suggestion above that housewives don't have childcare is not always true.

However I stick with my point that in most cultures people with a bit of money or richer husband tend to want to get someone else to do the very many hours of baby and toddler care and cleaning whilst doing some themselves, just like full time working fathers as the nature of the role (or it was when we had three children under 4) if fairly constant dullness of clearing up mess and changing nappies whilst trying to clean the kitchen floor day in day out so not surprising that kind of dull low grade stuff is always delegated as soon as people can afford it; whereas breastfeeding the baby (one of my loveliest experiences and I fed 5 including twins) or cuddling them and laughing with them for a few hours a day is pretty nice. I say find work you adore and makes a packet and have someone else to help with getting that grime out of the loo and changing the umpteenth nappy of the day as your children at university stage never say - gosh mummy you changed 25 nappies over x days and I am so glad you are unable to support my university education as you have no money and I love the example you set of woman serving man at home - it has so increased my feminist perspective in life and fired me to become the UK's leading female surgeon.

[Mopswerver]

Xenia I am a feminist. Always have been. I worked over 20yrs in a highly stressed, highly paid job that I found soul destroying. It took me a long time to get pregnant and when I finally did I made the choice (that Feminism has afforded me) not to be one of the harrassed working mums I had witnessed constantly having to juggle everything whilst struggling to stay on top at work, and to stay at home instead.

I have loved (almost) every minute and was glad to get away from the stress and the awful people in the profession I was in. My life now has a wonderful pace. I think I am a good role model. my daughters know that I had a good career for 20 yrs and both have plans for their own. I am Governor of a school and on our Community Hall committee and now that they are older I am planning a small business. I don't have benefits aside from CB but now I suppose I should don a hair shirt and give that back too.

I really applaud those, like yourself who have it within them to work full time whilst raising five children. You are obviously made differently to me. I know I couldn't do it. I know my limitations and the long hours and stress of my job was making me ill.

I suspect you have a job that you love and that fulfils you but don't forget that most women don't and have to return to a job they hate simply because they have to.

[FasterStronger]

mops - but why do so many women hate their jobs?

do men hate their jobs, because they do them for decades without a break?

[Xenia]

I can certainly find common cause with Mop in the point about picking work you love. I remember my father's advice when we were teenagers that above all pick work you love. Mine is intellectually challenging, varied, fun, very well paid and has been even better since I began to work for myself and acquire a second business.

So many women hate their jobs because they had housewife mothers so make poor career choices of low paid dull work in which they will never progress as they expect to repeat the cycle of staying home so their work will never amount to much so they do not put much into it and instead concentrate on painting their nails right so they can attract a man who will keep them until he ditches them at 40 for a girl in her 20s to repeat the cycle I suppose.

The solution is to encourage girls to pick really interesting careers and not to marry higher earner men which simply results in their career being regarded as pin money within the couple.

I am very very encouraged. Women are making huge progress and present and more and more simply refusing to accept sexism at home from men. More and more men do more and more at home (my father even did the night feeds and hoovering in the 60s so this a long term improvement; nearly 30 years ago my children's father was choosing the nanny etc etc) and women are reclaiming the feminism word and outearning men. It's huge fun and we're mostly doing really well.

[Owllady]

men they are just so lazy

[Mopswerver]

Can't answer that Faster. Can only speak for myself. Maybe culturally men don't feel they can make that choice?

[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.

[anklebitersmum]

Owl

[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.

[Owllady]

little wife
trading on looks
dull stuff
kept person

all very sexist xenia, do get with the program

[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.

[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.