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?

Impecuinous As I said, I;m a socialist so I believe in all those things and more. You were trying to be clever (and failing rather spectacularly) with your 'call yourself a feminist' comment. Since I hadn't prefaced any of my comments with 'As a feminist......' I pointed this out.

As for your other point - you may have missed the bit where I said some of the most important people in society earned very little? I have got no problem with people doing community work for little or no pay if they or their partners can afford (for them) to do that. Such people are often complete ....saints? Bastions of brilliantness? What they aren't is SAHP. Because, for a start, they are not AH. They are OH. Doing their thing. They are people who work in a different way. They are demonstrating to their kids that there are ways to contribute which aren't always as valued as they should be. But this only holds where they are doing stuff that SHOULD be being paid for but isn't because society is completely screwy right now. Some people do amazing stuff for charities and in the community. They are heroes. Other people do makey uppy stuff that nobody would miss if they didn't do it. Often both types of activity are given the same heading.

treats You weren't saying anything controversial at all. Some people can't handle the truth. And nor will their kids be able to and so it will perpetuate. :(

there are ways to contribute which aren't always as valued as they should be

You mean like being a parent and looking after your own children?

It is fine for people to say they want to be a good role model to their kids by having women visible in the workplace..... as is it fine for me to want to be a good role model for my children by caring for them and their grandmother (in our home) - out of love, not money.

(I REALLY do not get why it would be better for me to be earning minimum wage - probably taking home too little to actually pay tax - taking care of other people's kids and having to pay for childcare - {or now my kids are older leaving them home alone} - and also paying for my MIL to be in a home, rather than doing something I love, for people I love.)

Different values.

Personally I hope I manage to raise my sons and daughter to believe that they can do anything they want and not be limited by what some ignorant people believe to be "worthwhile" or a "good role model"

Which makes me a far better role model than some.

Fairy cake Bytheway1?

It may surprise you to know that WOHP look after their own children too.

The attitude that they don't - which is presumably already entrenched in your own kids - is exactly the sort of narrowminded outmoded bollocks that will perpetuate the problems women in the workplace experience for yet another generation. :(

Well then we have a different definition of SAHP. I know very few SAHP with school-age children who just sit and MN all day (that's reserved for those of us supposed to be working...). Almost all contribute to their communities in various ways. As in fact do most of the SAHP of toddler-age children I know. Helped by subsidised childcare! They aren't saints or bastions of brilliance, they are ordinary people.

As for the feminism/socialism point - well, all good socialists should certainly be feminists. Unfortunately I could point you to quite a few icons of socialist thought who were anything but - hence the need for feminism. Saying 'I support everything that feminists stood and fought for but I'm not a feminist' is pretty poor actually. Remember those women who died for your vote? They fought and died as feminists. Some of them were certainly socialists too, but the ideologies sure as hell aren't one and the same thing.

And can we stop with the jibes about cleverness or lack of it? It doesn't do much for your argument.

It may surprise you to know that WOHP look after their own children too.

so what is all this paid childcare for? Interesting how it is OK for you to spout insulting bollocks about SAHP but can't possibly have anything vaguely negative said about a WOHP.

The attitude that they don't - which is presumably already entrenched in your own kids - is exactly the sort of narrowminded outmoded bollocks that will perpetuate the problems women in the workplace experience for yet another generation. sad

Utter claptrap. Your children are equally entrenched with negative outmoded bollocks about parents who chose to stay at home.

Personally, I could give a damn about whether a parent works out of the home or stays at home and do not judge either choice. Unlike you.

Russian

I think anybody who suggests that either sahp or wohp are good role models because of their choice is narrow minded at least.
Also just because a woman decides not to wohm doesn't mean she believes that women shouldn't work or their place is in the home. There are many reasons why people choose the route they do.
I don't think wohp don't look after their kids and tbh I don't hear this very often at all.
However, I do hear lots of negative comments directed at sahps. The role model especially.

I thought about it a bit more as a result of my mauling, and the "truth" as I see it, is that there are mothers who want to go back to work after having children and there are mothers who want to stay at home with them. By and large these preferences are shaped in our subconscious a long time before we actually give birth and the actual choice is not dependent on how much we earn, or how much we enjoy our job, but an instinctive preference.

Because the preference is instinctive it leads to a certain degree of incomprehension about why anyone would make the opposite choice. I see this in RL as well as on here. Mostly, we can just shrug and accept that people have different priorities and it's all fine, and we just manage the differences with a bit of good humour.

So I keep quiet now, because I realise that SAHMs don't like being called poor role models any more than I like the implication that I'm not a 'proper' mother because I don't care for mine 24/7. There's no point getting into a row about what's 'better' because none of us will ever know what the difference would have been for our families if we'd made the opposite decision. Or if we'd had different children.

I realise that SAHMs don't like being called poor role models any more than I like the implication that I'm not a 'proper' mother because I don't care for mine 24/7

You need to realise that the reason neither side likes those assumptions is because they aren't true

I love cake anklebitersmum

Sorry - I was unaware that grannies and nannies and childminders and nurseries no longer "looked after children" for people who need them to when working .....

yes you do look after your kids - of course WOHPs do - your contribution to your kids upbringing combined with your childcare provider's is as valuable as my contribution combined with that of my MIL is to mine....

Treats.

I totally agree

I think we do what we feel is best for us and our families. Some people want to work, others don't, some would like to and can't for some reason.
I knew as soon as I gave birth ds1 that I couldn't go back to working, it was how I felt. It would have broken my heart to put him in childcare.
Everybody is different and I don't think I'm right or wrong in my decision where others are concerned. But for my family and me/dh it was the best decision ever.

Being a good role model for your children by going out to work, or staying at home (whatever your favourite flavour) is all a bit pointless is you aren't a good role model in any other area of your life. So many women on here complain about how they run themselves ragged working and doing all the childrearing, cleaning, cooking and life admin while their other does fuck all, or complain that they have to do everything while they SAHM because their other half thinks that since they go out to earn the money, they shouldn't have to act like an adult at home. Seems like you can't win either way, and if you don't tackle that issue, it doesn't matter if your daughter sees you working or not.

I think the only good policies are ones that meant that women have an actual, viable, choice in what they want to do. Policies that mean that they aren't forced to stay at home because work doesn't pay enough to make it worthwhile even in the long term. And on the other hand there should be policies that mean if a family want to make the choice to have one parent stay at home, that it is doable as well.

I don't think child care subsidies are insulting to SAHM parents. I think they are trying to get women out of a situation where they don't have a choice, and they are trying to help make work 'pay' more, or just be more sustainable so that women can keep in the long term employment game.

Saying that, it's probably not going to go very well, given the problems already mentioned about redundancies and long term sickness and disability. And because it's come from the bastion of all that is shite; Osbourne.

what does making uppy stuff mean?

That choice though, however we define it, is based on household income. Without a certain level of income that choice would not be available, regardless of whether or not it's ingrained into our subconscious.

SoupDreggon - that's a bit aggressive. I was trying to say that it's pointless to make those sweeping statements about other people's choices because we'll never fully understand what led them to make those choices.

We can privately think what we like, but it's useless to get into an argument about it.

potato - I'm glad . I think the worst situation is where your instinctive choice is to do one thing but circumstances force you to do another. Having to work when you want to stay home, for example.

Well said Treats. SoupDreggon, I believe the fact that they aren't true is inherent in Treats post.

The last few arguments have strayed away from the original question of whether the policy insults SAHMs. I don't think it does and can't really see why this has dissolved into a SAHM v Return to work mum. I believe that the government is right to encourage mums to return to work and make it easier for those who want to, to do so. Particularly given the current economic environment. That does not diminish the value of a mum who chooses not to work in a paid environment.

Agree Twist. If we can support parents who want to work whenever and wherever possible, then I'm all for that. It must be awful to want to work but find you can't afford childcare.

Agree with everything EasilyBored just said.

And SirChenjin - obviously circumstances may force you to go against your instinctive preference, which is miserable for you. But I don't think it's about a level of household income. You can claim benefits until your child is a certain age. Or you stay home because the income you could earn won't cover the cost of childcare in your area.

You can claim benefits, but not everyone wishes to do so, and rightly so. If you actively (I should have added that in my previous post) choose to stay at home then that reflects an ability to do so based on household income.

Not everyone is able to simply give up work and claim benefits either - again, it depends on your household income.

Treats

It has taken a lot of good management of funds, a bit of luck, lots of planning and of course years ago scraping the barrel, but we got there in the end.
Yes, it must be horrible to be forced into a situation either way.

Although I made the decision irrespective of benefit/ Tax credits etc, childcare provision etc. I would still have moved heaven and earth to be able to manage the choice I made.
It was simpler 20+ years ago though, because other mothers didn't judge as they do today. This is just an observation on the change in society btw.