Hi,
Very interesting thread, and I'm so pleased (and relieved) that maybe the govt "reforms" won't come in now. I'm a mother of two (both at school now ) and was a childminder for four years until recently - having had a good career before that, so I've really been on both sides of the fence and experienced all kinds of childcare. I absolutely agree that having the highest childcare costs in the world is unfair on parents, but I'd also like to mention there is an increasing scientific body of research proving (via brain scans, chemical tongue swabs measuring cortisol levels etc) that the under threes really need very low ratios, perferably more like one-to-one or two-to-one to get the emotional and intellectual inputs they need - this literally causes chemical pathways in the brain to grow. For that reason I'm slightly against under-threes spending many hours a week in nurseries, even good ones (again research shows these children are more likely to have behavioural problems or be more aggresive in the future). Statistically it's also true that it's the middle classes who are more likely to push their very young children out to nurseries - probably believing them to be more educational, but perhaps also part of the whole middle/upper class social values of trying to create more independant, self reliant kids - however, I'm going to stick my neck out here and say from what I've seen I think that's more often a rationalisation as middle class parents seem less good at providing unconditional emotional empathy to their kids.
But it's all about a balance, and what's right for individual families - sorry to keep going on about scientific studies, but it's also been proven that children do better in external childcare if their parents suffer from depression, basically kids need to have their needs fulfilled and it's about who is best placed to do that - mums (or dads) who really don't want to be stuck at home are probably best employing good quaility external childcare rather than forcing themselves to stay at home, their kids will pick up on their resentment.
In terms of costs, I feel the only solution is to have some state funding - as mumsnetters have said, you simply can't have well-qualified staff (which is important - there's a lot more to child development than meets the eye) and lower costs and ratios. I think the current drive to make the rich pay the taxes they owe is great - even without raising taxes, surely if a lot of effort was put in to combat tax avoidance, this might raise revenue which could hardly be better used then subsidising early years care. Govt subsidises state education and elderly care, so why not early years care? I really hope as time goes on, people will increasingly join the dots and realise that so many of our social ills arise from the results of bad childhoods - for example over 80% of prisoners come from very broken families. Lets ditch the blame and focus on breaking the cycle of early bad experiences children have that so often cause so much pain for them as adults and indeed negative social consequences, whether they become immoral bankers or petty criminals in the future. Big statements I know - sorry to go on, I'll get off my soapbox now! I like most of what Oliver James says on these issues, please don't think he's about saying mums should stay at home because he really isn't. Also, read "Why Love Matters", best parenting book I ever read as it's all about the neuroscience, which is fascinating, and revolutionary I think.
Sorry, hope I haven't bored everyone silly! I just feel really strongly about these issues.