Should women / carers be paid for caring for their 'own' kids?

[AdelaofBlois]

Had a nice argumentative (if in this climate purely hypothetical) discussion last night about whether carers should be paid for looking after their children. Three arguments ran thus:

1. Familial childcare is, even if not done by mothers, predominantly women's work. It is time consuming, skilled and exhausting, contributes enormously in both the short and long term to the economy, yet the women doing it receive no monetary recognition, and indeed risk their security to do so. Financial recognition of the work was a long-standing, although now underplayed, aim of the women's movement.

1. That, until men are equally represented in caring roles, the payment would represent further legal incentive for women to stay at home, which may not necessarily be about their choice. If set at a level that altered decisions it would act as a state scheme to force women back into the home, if too low simply be a drain on resources which creates the same ideological pressure.

1. (where I got bogged down as the wine took effect ) Payment would have to be set against standards because the justification would be value to society. It would seem unfair to pay fulltime carers and not their employed counterparts unless we were willing for the state to say that in all circumstances SAHPs were 'best'. It would also seem unfair to pay 'poor' parents (at the far end of the scale, say abusive ones) money, but monitoring this would involve the state in childcare in a way hitherto unthought of. The whole thing would be a mechanism for enforcing standards of childcare (HE who pays the piper) which reflected neither women's choices nor a feminist outlook.

Conversation drifts off onto CBeebies crushes, this writer feeling but .

Basically, just wondered what others thought. Posted here because don't want this to be the SAHM vs WOHM women-hating discussion it might become elsewhere.

This is very interesting. I don;t understand this drive to say that looking after children has nothing to do with caring. I would say that I care for my baby - how has this change in the language come about? Or is it more than a change in the language, is it something more fundamental to do with the way people perceive families and especially mothers?

Looking after a newborn is not caring for it? Seriously?

What is it then? What should it be called? When did this change in the language happen? Is this part of the reason that many papers find it so easy to slate parents - what they are doing has been reduced to - what - nothing? If people no longer accept that looking after a newborn is a caring role then I don't know where we are TBH.

I'm not saying otherwise riven. What I am questioning is why looking after a newborn can no longer be classified as "caring" for it. What should it be called?

How on earth are we ever going to improve the status and appreciation of "women's work" if something as basic as saying that a newborn baby needs someone to care for it causes such difficulties, to the point of a denial that that is even what is happening.

It's the daily mail thing - being at home with a baby can't be work - and caring for someone sounds like work - maybe it should be renamed "sitting in a house with a baby in it" or something like that.

Certainly a lot of the perception of motherhood seems to be that you watch jeremy kyle all day and the babies magically take care of themselves.

Ah, but ISNT, we are paid to care for a newborn. It's called maternity leave. And once the highly-dependent stage is over, there's no good reason why people can't go back to work and use a CM or nursery. There are plenty of reasons why parents of disabled or sick children can't do that.

Yes that makes sense!

I think it's a shame that people have taken this thread as a straight question rather than a theoretical exercise IYSWIM.

I would say I 'care' for my dcs but not outside the normal standards so it shouldn't be recognised as something special that I should be compensated for, the same way as if I throw a steak in a pan for dinner I don't expect DH to get £17.99 from the govenment to give to me for my hard work. Its just normal living, not a job.

I have the choice to return to work and I choose not to. If I had a child with complex medical needs then I wouldn't have that choice so it becomes something special that should be recognised.

It's about the possibility of holding down a job at the same time. Of course people care for their children. But in the context we're talking about here, 'caring' is used as a term to describe care above and beyond normal parental care. Perhaps there should be a new work invented, but for the time being, I do think you're being somewhat pedantic.

Sorry, new word invented, not new work. We all have quite enough work to do without more being invented!

I was agreeing with annie not riven.

I don't see how anyone can say that looking after an 18 month old is not caring for them.

Language is important though.

If it becomes accepted that looking after babies is nothing to do with caring, that means that support can be withdrawn from those doing it. It removes the selfless aspect, and backs up the idea in the popular press that having children is basically selfish.

Other way round. Agreeing with riven not annie. I do not accept that looking after children is not caring. They can't look after themselves, can they, someone has to care for them. People who do it for money are said to work in childcare. Yet when a parent does it, suddenly anything that implies any kind of work is removed.

It is that and the structure of our society which means that this important work is undervalued, and that which the OP was trying to think about.

Darn, I knew it was too good to be true that someone was agreeing with me for a change!

ISNT, I don't think anyone is arguing that looking after babies isn't caring for them. But as it's something that pretty much everyone does (most people do have children), I don't see why any special recognition needs to be given for doing so.

But I have seen a few times on here, people saying that looking after children isn't a caring role. But it is, isn't it, just not according to the definition applied by the benefits agencies. I'm worried that if it gets into the common mindset that looking after children is not caring for them, it will push parents even more to one side, and devalue the job of raising the next generation even further.

Do you see what I mean? Language and concepts are very powerful, and if the language surrounding parents caring for children starts to exclude any words which conjure up images of work, then arguments for cuts to support and services for parents are easier to make and more readily accepted.

My knee jerk response is to say no. And I'm trying to work out why. I agree with the second argument made in the OP. But I don't think that's the reason for my knee jerk response TBH. I think there is some kind of moral imperative in ensuring good care for your children, and by that I absolutely do not mean necessarily caring for them yourself 24 hours a day. And I'm not sure you should be paid to fulfil that moral imperative. Offsetting the cost of care against tax paid (which is how I think childcare subsidies should work) is a different matter. But to be paid to do something that is my (and my DH's) responsibility seems to be passing that responsibility over. I chose to have my children. I choose how they are cared for (and I do outsource some of my children's care). I am repsonsible for my own choices, and my own children. For the state to pay me to look after them would seem like a diminution of that.

Not sure it makes sense. Thinking aloud really.

No-one would say that parenting isn't important. It is possible though, to care for your children, to wean them, to love them, to educate them etc etc without you being present 24 hours a day.

I tried to argue this on another thread, and I still think it's a great idea. At the moment SAHPing is looked at as a worthy occupation, with all the sentimentalism and moral trappings that go with that attitude. It's a sentimental glorification of martyrdom, and it encourages a completely outdated view of women and of mothers.

Meanwhile, mothers who choose to work for pay outside the home are still considered less than committed to their children and also less than committed to their jobs, purely because the model of the selfless woman doing all that work for free exists. And SAHPs who end up divorced or abandoned or forced to rely on the pitiful court ordered support of an ex partner are left depending on the handouts of the state because they haven't had an income to put away for a rainy day, and can't afford to retrain for a job, etc.

'I am repsonsible for my own choices, and my own children.' People in the UK choose to have their children but they don't pay the hospital bills if they use the NHS, nor do they pay the HV or the myriad other services that support parenthood.