what if mums don't actually want to go out to work?

[beansmum]

comment here

I think I might have mentioned this before, but I love boris, he's not as stupid as he looks.

to the point as usual fishy

I'm in there with Marina and Nightynight and whereas I agree that there should be support for parents to stay at home , I think the issue goes wider than a transferable early years grant. In any case, that provision for a nursery place for each 3 year old is not driven by facilitating childcare but by a desire to raise educational standards. As any f/t working parent knows, the 2.5 hours nursery place is useless as a childcare solution - and I am not convinced by raking in 3 year-olds and teaching them to trace letters, either. (but I like the sound of sinking the boats).

But hey, the word 'dumping' which is always used about mothers choosing childcare, is usually followed by 'with strangers'...AND IT'S FUCKING INSULITING so it could have been worse!

yep, and there you have it; there goes Cod (if that is you in ball form ?)

I do NOT leave my Ds with 'some 17 year-old' - I leave him with a lovely warm, maternal woman who has 4 kids of her own, 2 of which are in the nursery, and a qualified Montessori teacher in her 30's who DS adores.

Not to mention that some 17 year olds are making a v good job of being Mums just like you.

I think he makes a good point but is he really talking about scrapping state funded childcare? That would worry me, not 'help' me stay at home.

I am going to Uni soon and when my dd is three (not until the end of my second year) having free part time childcare will really help me out.

agree there blu. Surely age isn't necessarily an issue but competence, commitment, etc more important.

sounds like you can only be a laura ashleyite if your rich enough, rest of us poor sops have to work

three questions to Boris: why is this about mothers, as opposed to mothers or fathers staying at home; why is "dumping" children in childcare the perogative of mothers - don't the fathers have something to do with it? and, with regard to long school hours, did you, perchance, go to boarding school? (The latter is a genuine question, as I don't know the answer - just seems like a distinct possibility.)

just answered my third q - Eton

we are poor and i dont work, cant afford to and stupid 21 yr old brought em up

That's it, Custardo.

I hesitate to say this because I'm not going to be able to say it the way I want to - but there is an effect of the cost of a mortgage which traps the mortgage-owning classes just as the childcare cost is a trap for people on low wages.

I am fully aware that it is a privelige that I have a mortgage, and that in the long run our terrace house will either act as pension for DP and I or (if we don't last TOO long) will be a fantastic nest egg for DS. I lived for years in rented accommodation whist being on council and housing association lists - and my name would never have come up. And fair enough - I was able-bodied, working, no children, quite rightly not a priority. So hence eventually, and because it was what I wanted, a mortgage. I am middle-class, but not in a highly paid sector at all, and we simply cannot pay a mortgage in London on one wage. And the type of work we both do is mostly here, London.

I would ideally work part time - but f/t it has to be - and no Laura ashley frock for me.

LOL Hatstand!

wwwwwo! get you bluey!

I think it is the first time I have used the f word in capitals in MN!
I might get banned!

we have a mortgage aswell

FUCK will you Blu