Can someone please explain to me free childcare?

[QueenOfAllBiscuitsandMuffins]

At FEM 11 on Sunday and right now on twitter (if you are following #feministlaw or @thefworkuk) free childcare has been mentioned. Now I really struggle with the concept of why free childcare being provided.
I am not against the gov't helping with childcare costs those who need help but I just don't understand why it should be free. I personally think childcare is cheap at £5ph it's because it comes out of our wages we class it as expensive.
What is the feminist thinking behind free childcare please?

Elderberry - but why is it obvious that they are they knocked off the career ladder by lack of free childcare provided for by the state? Their partners are not knocked off the career ladder despite also being parents-who-work and not having free childcare provided by the state. It seems to me that the thing that is knocking them off the career ladder is the decision to put their partners career first.

LRD - I don't think childcare is society's responsibility. It is society's responsibility to ensure that parents and families are able to look after their children, not put obstacles in their way and help those who need it.

Why jump straight from 'childcare is a woman's responsibility' to 'childcare is society's responsibility' without even stopping to consider what the world would look like if we believed that 'childcare is the equal responsibility of both parents'. Why is that not even worth considering?

I agree that women shouldn't have to say 'my job is really important/better paid than my DHs' in order to continue to work. We have to make the case that it is worthwhile working for long-term career prospects, financial independence and professional satisfaction etc.. and this is worth doing even if the family might save money, and the dad's work life be simpler if the mother didn't work.

If both parents are low-paid then childcare should be subsidised, but if the dad earns 50K, I don't see why he can't pay for childcare, even if his wife's job is low paid. The childcare is enabling both of them to work, and as a family they are earning more than the average of taxpayers who would be paying for their childcare if it was 'free'.

Just an idle thought - if childcare were free would it be socially harder for SAHMs to justify not working?

(not that you need to justify it, but that sometimes people feel that they should)

Himalaya - of course you are right that childcare should be seen as both parents' responsibility, but this is a cultural issue, isn't it? I can't immediately see what the government could do to bring this cultural change about.

Whereas free or heavily subsidised childcare would immediately change lives for both women and men.

I'm not saying it's not worth considering that childcare is both parents' responsibility, himalaya. I think it is and should be. But personally I think society does also have responsibility for the next generation, and if that means subsidising childcare, that makes sense to me.

I'm not sure how it would work, so I am just thinking it through.

I do see your point about dad on 50k paying for childcare - because the household income would be high. But then, couldn't dad on 50k contribute a chunk of his tax to cover childcare instead?

I think that the problem with debating this is that the current situation needs sorting out from two perspectives - we need to sort out the domestic attitude that childcare is women's work, and we need to sort out the employment attitude that it's ok that women tend to get pushed out of careers (especially some careers), even though this isn't only about childcare. It's hard to think how to sort one problem without coming across as if you're dismissing the other one, but I don't mean to dismiss anything.

I think the current system is pretty inefficient, and that's a good reason to dislike it. It's maybe a bit like the attitude to education - people resist higher taxes, and we don't put enough money into early education. But it is then hugely expensive to provide remedial education to adults later on ... and yet that's what we end up doing in many cases. I wonder if childcare isn't similar, in that if it were sorted out at root - with funding easily accessible - then perhaps we wouldn't be bearing the costs that come with losing skilled workers.

I know this is dead biased btw, and I'm not suggesting childcare isn't skilled work (!) - just it seems a lot of people leave careers and don't get back to them, who really would like to.

trills - well, schooling is free, it'd probably be like home educating, wouldn't it? People do have to justify it a lot (which is crap), but it is still seen as hard work and a valid option by most, isn't it?

Himalaya- have you heard of single parents?

Lelainpierce - Yes, but the question was about whether universal 'free' childcare is a good idea. I agree with what Queenofbiscuits said earlier re: CSA etc...

Still though fixing on 'free childcare' as the answer to the problem of why mothers drop out/fall back in work seem to treat all mothers as if they were in effect single parents with dads not expected to contribute either financially or practically to the 9-5 care of their children ...which seems like exactly the opposite if what we should want.

LRD - I just reread your post "In my area, there are very few women at the top level, and the career as a whole is a pyramid shape for women - masses of women start out; very few get to the top. So I've no idea what motivated all of them to get out, but I have a fair sense of some of the general pressures. The reason I commented about men who're not always as well qualified is that when you compare what men at the higher levels have achieved, you can see that some of them were in the second or third 'rank' of the career back when they were starting out, but have made it through. Of course, maybe that would have happened even if their competition hadn't dropped out, but I suspect not."

Equally you could look at it like this ...when you compare what men at the higher levels have achieved, you can see that some of them were in the second or third 'rank' of the career back when they were starting out, but have made it through because when they had children they didn't change their work patterns at all. Of course, maybe that would have happened even if their wives hadn't hadn't dropped out but I suspect not.

Well, yes, exactly.

I do look at it like that.

I just think the solution ideally isn't just both mums and dads doing some of the childcare, it's recognizing that we all have a shared responsibility for children in our society.

LRD - feel free to come and babysit my narky teenagers anytime

I'm not sure what shared responsibility for children in society means in practice (although it sounds nice).

Childcare costs what it costs because of the person-hours involved. You can't make it free, just move the costs around. I think people are more willing to pay more for quality childcare for their own children and to allow their own self or their partner to go to work, than to pay into a big pot for everyone to have free childcare - the pressure would always be to ration it and keep the costs rock bottom (like the NHS analogy) which in the end would not be the best outcome for parents or children.

Increasing child benefit seems a simpler expression of society's contribution to the cost of raising a family rather than free childcare.

You would not thank me if I did, I promise.

I know you can only move costs around. But I don't see what'd be wrong with a NHS-style, free at point of access, funded by taxpayers model. The system we have now is really not financially very efficient IMO.

I agree with you though that many people would probably prefer to pay more for quality care rather than pay taxes for everyone - but that's true of any kind of welfare, isn't it?

Increased child benefit might work fine, though.

I agree that providing childcare should be seen as the responsibility of the whole of society, not just people who are parents. I also agree that people with higher incomes should contribute more to the cost of childcare, but the fair way to do that is to tax all high income earners, not just those with young children.

I don't think we will get adults acting responsibly towards society as a whole if we keep pushing all responsibility for children on to their parents. We should feel responsible for all children, not just our own.

The definition of what a job is needs to change and become more like what a single mother of two under 7 yr olds can do. Currently we still have the idea of the f/t husband job, supported by SAH wife. Women still have to fit the 'husband' job pattern, but with no support.