Teachers speaking out about parents' long working hours

[vestandknickers]

Here.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27027677

Interesting. I think it is good that this is being raised as an issue.

I am not anti working parents at all, but surely a society that thinks it is ok for children to be at school from 8am to 6pm needs to look at itself.

Hopefully it is still a small minority of children who spend five days a week at school for these hours, but it is good that teachers are speaking out before it becomes seen as an acceptable norm.

But guniea you're advcating absolute dependence on the state!

Without your own home or a pension, what will you do when you retire? You will be at the absolute mercy of the state.

Surely, given the shower currently in power that is just utter stupidity?

Flexibility helps empolyers and parents. Longer hours dont help the child who has to spend even longer in childcare though. Nothing wrong in offering more flexibilty but actually spending longer in childcare isnt the same thing as chilcare institutions or childminders offering more flexible hours (i.e. tailoring care to suit the parent's working hours, 7-5 or 8-6).This will mean more staff/shifts being available at the childcare institution though, otherwise this will mean the staff's own kids just have to spend longer in childcare..

Wordfactory our relationship with the state is interdependent, we all pay tax - you put in, you get out when we need to. When you have children the state can support you if that's what you need, when you get old the state will do that too - with the money that YOU have earned in your lifetime, that YOU have earned in tax.

Wordfactory I don't hate women and I don't deserve to be insulted. That's just low.

Actually horse, if you have kids you are very unlikely to pay enough tax to pay for the services you take out. Which is fine.

Guinea why are you holding up having one parent at home as the holy grail? What if both parents want to work for reasons wider than financial? I would be horrified if my husband asked me to stop work and imagine his reaction would be similar.

We have managed, with the help of family (which I know we are lucky to have), to sort out an arrangement where we can both hold involved jobs and have a dd. I don't appreciate the inference that one of us would be better off at home, we work hard for our lifestyle and our dd has opportunities that she wouldn't otherwise if we were a single income family.

grennie- fab posts below. You have virtually described my own mother's life in the 60s and 70s. With no refuge to go to she had to stay. Now retired and dependent on sheltered housing and state pension despite actually having worked all her life so didn't even get to do any sahm bit but due to the way society viewed women got no benefits herself from working- not even the money as she wasn't allowed a bank card.
No pension paid into as this was for the man. She didn't leave until late 1990s.
That is why I have and always will work. Financial independence is incredibly important to me and I will teach dd the same. Rose tinted spectacles for lots of people here indeed.

''OK so they had the pill, but in the end it meant that although they had a kind of liberty...'

Can I also point out that the pill was not always the tool of independence and sexual freedom that it is sometimes seen as?
Hugely liberating in most circumstances, it also increased the pressure on young women to have sex because the likelihood of pregnancy had been reduced. So many young men saw that as carte blanche to as much sex as possible, with accusations of frigidity and the rest becoming increasingly used as manipulation.
I don't think the OP is about blaming women and mothers for the current situation; it should be about making society, and businesses move into the 21st century and adapting to families and the future generations.
We are still using early 20th century attitudes and values to shape policy, and it's out of date.

horse tax is not like a savings scheme. And most people will not pay in enought to cover what they take out. But that's not the point. The point is that in the future the state will provide only the most meagre of support, so to voluntarily put yourself in that poition is utterly stupid!

Horsetowater- you're not serous surely about your post re parents and retired people depending on the state??

Why anyone would want to put themselves at the mercy of the state is beyond me.

So what is our National Insurance and tax system for - to keep the duck pond moat cleared? It is to support people in need. Missing the your children growing up and developing because you are concerned about your pension is an interesting choice to make. Being dependent on a state pension or benefits at some time in your life doesn't mean you are stupid, Word.

'Put yourself at the mercy of the State' is the kind of over-dramatising statement that makes modern Britain sound like France c. 1700. What's the state going to do - starve you out of your home? Put you into the workhouse? Really?

How much work should I be doing so I don't "miss the children growing up"? What about DH? What's the tipping point? If I do 20 hours a week can I see my children growing up, if I do 21 have I missed it?

Evenings, weekends, holidays, mornings - have I got my eyes shut at those times to miss them growing up?

The money is for those unable to work e.g people with disabilities, parents with children with disabilities etc.

The state pension is currently less than £6,000 a year.
It's not much to live on, if you are still paying quarter bills, council tax, transport and food.

itsbetterthanabox

Business and societies attitude needs to change and realise that men would like to take part in the care of their children.

Horsetowater- I don't think I've come across someone as naive as you for a long time.

There is very little money already and not enough by far to support those who need it. What if everyone felt your way?

Naive? Or feckless?

There's always so much sly criticism of mothers who chose to work f/t. Why is that? All these decades of feminism and supposed equal rights, yet it is still at heart a woman's fault if she doesn't give up work to look after the children.

And let's all conveniently ignore the fact that at the moment so many employment markets are royally buggered and you're lucky if you have a job, let alone be able to negotiate it part-time or to flexible hours.

No, mums should throw about the thousands of pounds in education and maybe a decade of work to stay at home for a few years.

Plus of course there seems to be an assumption that anyone who would rather not spend every month counting every penny to get through on one income when having two incomes will provide them with more comfort is incredibly selfish and only bothered by material things.

Sometimes MN is like the 1950s. And not in an Enid Blyton way.

The issues around house prices have exacerbated families' lack of choice and that is why I have included it in this discussion.

There is a choice to go on benefits for a while and in Sweden there is a lot of financial support to enable all families to make an active choice.

There is no 'right way' to do bring up children but there is damage caused to children by inappropriate care and that should be our priority. Tax, benefit, work patterns MUST fit in to ensure that all children get an fair start in life.

But most of us will have to live on the state pension, or with only a small priavte pension. The average local authority pensions for example is osmething like £3,600 a year

Hercules I am principled and idealistic but not naive. Please don't patronise me. If the pension is too low now we need to fight to make it higher, not scramble about and fight each other to get the best deal for ourselves.

"now we need to fight to make it higher,"

Funded by what?