Incentives for SAHMs - anyone read Fiona Phillips today?

[bohemianbint]

Link here

I think if you can get past the slightly guilt-inducing title, what she is basically saying is quite interesting. It's the first thing I've read in a while that doesn't write SAHMs off as useless bovine idiots.

Obviously don't want to start the old fight of working vs sahm, but what do we think about some kind of incentive for mums to stay at home?

FWIW I have recently become a SAHM by accident after stupid sexist boss forced me out of my job - I am taking him to a tribunal. I am looking for work but am pregnant so not sure how that'll go down with potential employers! I'd like to work PT ideally but I feel really under pressure from everyone around me to get a job and stop being a "boring" SAHM.

Anna, no, I haven't got a problem with child benefit. It's not very much. Ca't get terribly worked up over some £100 per month.

Well, then who do you think would pay SAHM?

That is my only problem here. I'm quite happy for people to stay home with their kids if they want to. I just don't think they should be paid for it.

I don't see any reasom my husband should have to work to pay for your childcare. Its not a benefit we recieve. I think thats unfair

the idea that working parents should pay SAHP to stay home is selfish because it means the working paarents have to work more and see less of their children.
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I'm not sure I follow the point, actually. My husband works and pays tax. There are things we'd like to not be paying for through those taxes, but my husband doesn't have to work longer hours specifically for those things.

Given that he pays taxes, one might just as well say he's paying for me to stay at home which he is, obviously, and which he's happy to do.

actually madamez is not correct anyway -

"Child Benefit is a tax-free monthly payment to anyone bringing up a child or young person. It is not affected by income or savings so most people who are bringing up a child or young person qualify for it."

Child benefit is available to almost everyone including working parents. What is a nanny then? She stays at home to look after children for pay. Do the children have to be someone elses for the job to qualify as work. If so then I have already have 2 jobs: 1) wife and mother 2)nanny, employed by my husband to look after the children (and wow am I underpaid when i look at the going rate for a full time livein nanny these days!>

Paula, I don't think he should either. I think it should be a relief on the taxes I pay out of the money I earn. That's the difference I want a break on my money. And paying a SAHP would be giving then money someone else earned.

sophable: "surely then all those that fulfill this role should be hugely rewarded and motivated to perform that function to the best possible standard whether nannies, childminders or, most desirably stay at home parents."

But where is the evidence that one method of childcare is superior to another - whether you grow your own or outsource part of it in the early years. And is the evidence so overwhelming that the govt needs to pour money into giving mothers a salary to stay at home?

All I can see is that there are good and bad SAHPs, there are good and bad WOHMs, there are good and bad nurseries, CMs, nannies. Funding from the government might improve the quality of external childcare services. But short of education, it is relatively hard to improve the quality of parenting. And certainly paying SAHMs to stay at home is not the answer.

Absolutely, Sue.

I used to pay massive amounts of tax (taxation in France is really horrible before you have children) and I used to get really cross at the millions of things I was paying for and not benefiting from. My partner, who pays massive amounts of tax by virtue of earning a lot, also gets very cross about the things he pays for and thinks are a complete waste of time.

Supporting early years development through general taxation is, however, something he believes in, as do I.

errrr...the whole point is to incentivise and motivate those that care for children so that the children benefit in the long term as does society as a whole.

given that consistent loving caregiving is a basic requirement and that often (not always) one of the parents is best placed to do this job (der her) it makes sense for all taxpayers to pay to make this a possibility for those that choose to do it. it benefits every one of us that children care cared for in the best possible way by the best possible person.

staggered at the 'why should we who work pay for people to stay at home and look after the children' argument.

isn't the whole big point thing to give YOU the viable choice to do that if you should want to and if you don't to up the status and rewards of that role to enable the best possible standard of care????? don't YOU benefit from that?

Sue, if SAHP are paid to stay home, taxes will go up, I'll have to pay more of them. I reallly can't afford to pay any more, so I'd have to work longer. So I'd be working longer to supply you with a riviledge I can't afford myself. Seems unfair.

there is massive evidence that consistent loving caregiving from day one is hugely important. daycare does not do this. doesn't mean it's all evil, but it does mean that this needs to be one consistent person. parents ARE best placed to do it, but by no means the only people capable of it, other relatives, or childminders may be able to fulfill the role fantastically well.

but if you were paid to stay at home you COULD AFFORD THE PRIVILEDGE!!!

am i missing something here???

No, Sophable, I don't benefit from paying more taxes. I currently work 55 hours a week and really need a new car that I can't afford. Supporting other people to look after their own kids will not help me.

Your argument is based on the premise that children raised by a SAHM are better cared for than those who ar in some kind of childcare. And that has not been established.

Why do you "need" a car Eleusis? What's wrong with public transport?

Yes, but that's already happening from our perspective with the taxes subsidizing childcare for families with parents who both work. We couldn't afford for me to go out to work, so we don't get any benefit from subsidized childcare.

'fairness' doesn't come into it. It's all about policy.

Anyway, I said earlier in the thread that my personal preference is for tax-allowance transfer. I'd rather have tax back from the government to decide how we'd spend it than them decide it for us.

actually is HAS been established that until the age of about 3, ideally a child will have one main consistent caregiver. therefore daycare is not the preferred option for early care. that is all I've said.

you're changing your argument now apparently it is about not wanting to pay more tax as you need a car and before you were decrying your inability to be priviledged enough to be a SAHP and your resentment of paying others to do so. which is it to be?

I would happily get on public transport if it was reliable, accessible, and affordable. The train is actually more expensive, and I'd have to four of them to get to work, which would take about an hour and a half when driving takes about 40 minutes.

I have considered getting rid of the car, but it would actually cost me money, rather than save it.

agreed suebaroo re parents deciding how to spend it.

Suebaroo you are absolutly right. Parents themselves should get to decide how the money is spent to best serve their familys.

Sophable, I can't get to work without the car.

which sounds awful, and it sounds like you need a new car, but i don't follow that that means that government policy shouldn't increase the choice of parents, empowering them either out to work (as is the thrust of existing policy) or enabling them to stay at home and look after their own children. i am arguing for more balance, and that the current direction of policy is skewed towards forcing parents out to work even where they are willing to stay at home. which is a terrible thing imo.

Can't you live somewhere better placed for work? Sounds terrible.

sophable, what you are saying makes a lot of sense.

The only point I would add is "parents ARE best placed to do it". WOHMs are parents who, even though they are physically apart from their children for a certain number of hours a day, ARE still parenting their children. I don't think there is any confusion in my one year old's eyes (who goes to ft nursery) who his parents are.

WOHMs can and do provide consistent loving care, supplemented by the childcare structures and arrangements they set up for the family. WOHM is not inconsistent with quality care, neither is SAHM synoymous with quality care.

It is incredibly costly to pay SAHMs a salary, just in money terms. Tax would go up massively, making paid employment a less viable option for lower income earners. The cost to society is many more parents would opt out of paid work due to these payments and/or higher taxes and so we would lose their taxes and services. If they wanted to get back into paid work later, their skills would have eroded and make it difficult. The effects of a SAHM salary will snowball the economy.

All so that women can have the choice to SAHM? Even if they are not necessarily the best person or only person to bring up that child in a loving secure environment.

I totally agree with SueBaroo re tax allowance transfer issue.

Don't get what eleusis' point is exactly? Clearly what sophable is talking about is making it an option for even eleusis to stay at home, so that she doesn't have to do the 55 hour work weeks if she doesn't want to while her child is young. What is the problem there? Giving people a true financial choice?

Because the only way to pay for that is for working parent to subsidise those who would rather not work.

But, I want to go back to Paula's point about her husband's taxes and what they subsidise. I do think that the way taxes are done in the states has some merit. MArried people can file their taxes jointly and so you are taxed as a single unit with a certain number of dependants. So, if you decide as a team than one will work and one will look after the kids, then you are actually given some help for that. I think that's a great way to do.

I do think it's a good iidea to treat the family as a single unit.

And I do think that staying home with your children is a pridiledge not a right.