Domestic zombies, motherhood penalty & childcare

[JessSi]

Hi. New to mumsnet & have been looking for a discussion on pre-school childcare provision – I'm starting this thread in S&G because frankly motherhood, triggers the full weight of sex-based oppression, so seems relevant.

As most people know but in Holly Mead's words from The Times, this week:

“The system is rigged against women, who are at a financial disadvantage from the moment they decide to have a family. While they are on maternity leave they typically receive no pension contributions from their employer. They are then likely to remain out of full-time work for three years, until some free childcare is available. Then they often take low-paid and part-time work to fit around family life. In many cases they will not earn enough to qualify for auto-enrolment, meaning the pension gender gap widens to a chasm.”

To avoid motherhood penalty, the solution is often presented as providing women with the opportunity to outsource the care of their children from birth or shortly after enabling re-entry into the paid labour market as soon as possible. See PregnantthenScrewed’s recent protest about lack of affordable childcare. Although, in many developed countries, looks like women are sensibly taking an anti-natalist approach to motherhood given the economic detriment and vulnerability that it triggers.

But irrationally many women (like me) still do choose to have children and apparently, of women who do have children in the UK, the majority, 8 out 10, (see Frank Young in The Times, 3/11/22) want to spend more time parenting their children, not less.
They don’t want to outsource the care of their children, they want to do it themselves.
Mostly likely because they believe this is in their children’s best interests?

We are told that because of a lack of access to affordable childcare, women are concentrated in unpaid and low paid part-time work but perhaps both things are true, women do not have access to good quality affordable childcare and along with a genuine desire to ensure their children’s needs are properly met, women work unpaid or part-time and absorb a massive economic disadvantage, triggered by motherhood, that continues for the rest of our lives. This situation plays out at the sharp end for single parent women and women in economically abusive co-parenting relationships – whether married/cohabiting or separated.

I don’t think this is ethical or fair.

So. What’s the solution? I often lean in to a wage for housework position but this is problematic in lots of ways.

What's the view of mumsnetter's on all this? And what's the solution?

Everyone makes decisions based on what is best for their family, but I really don't see personal family decisions as something tax payers should have to pay for.
I disagree with the idea that having children is merely a personal family decision. It is not. For many people it is an intrinsic part of human life. Even if you choose not to have children, you rely on other people having them for society to function. It should not be up to mothers to bear the whole burden of child rearing.

It is genuinely very hard to talk about this issue and it is in many ways easier not to, but very destructive in the longer-term.
I agree and I think this thread illustrates why, even on this board, there's a reluctance to go there. Parts of it have made my hackles rise and I realise that parts of my posts will have done the same thing. But unless we find a way to get past that then I don't think there's much hope.

Thanks for the tag @JessSi . Will be back later.

You are right, my comments do sound like classism. I don't have much of a defence for it, 'class' or at least poverty and deprivation have a serious and real impact.

I work for a local authority in children's services. When you see these kids coming through the system and understand the family lives they have, it is heartbreaking. If we could get them into a childcare provision much earlier, their outcomes are much brighter.

It's hard, because we have mums who want to be sahms, who clearly aren't bringing up kids in a harmful environment. And we have other kids who unfortunately are not given the same life chances - whether because these mums live with domestic abuse, addiction, poverty, or just a family unit that is very toxic. Is it classist to know this is true? I don't think so - I make no judgement on their lives. I do make judgement on what it means for the kids in their care, and the cycle it begins.

So I would hope that universal childcare would give those kids a better start in life. Especially mixing with kids from untroubled families. It should do a world of good. I'd love to see it in my lifetime.

What it means for that instinctual desire in some women to care for their own kids I don't know - I don't have it with my kid so I am definitely blinkered in that area which makes my solution easy for me personally. Is it something we shrug at and say - well don't send them then - but we aren't paying you? To me the consequences of giving money to some of these families for having kids at home could be dire - men will take it and gamble it, maybe even force their wives to have more kids for the money? Consequences to every policy that need to be throught through.

So er yeah in summary I probably have a biased view being at the coalface, we tend to talk straight about this kind of thing.

Yes, without families/mothers making new citizens there will be massive knock-on effects throughout society.

I think the idea of 'personal choice' is used to browbeat mothers/women into caring for free, thinking that they shouldn't dare to even ask for recompense for what is grinding hard work. Imagine if women took that on face value and decided not to bother caring at all!

I think of the Spanish grandparents strike - the country ground to a halt, which forced people to acknowledge the massive unpaid contribution of grandparents/elderly people to the economy.

So er yeah in summary I probably have a biased view being at the coalface, we tend to talk straight about this kind of thing.

We're all 'at the coalface', frankly. Any woman living as a mother faces these decisions.

Hmm, could a solution be, maternity leave up to the point you are ready to put them in state funded childcare - currently 30 hours free from 3 - maybe reduce that to from 2. So 2 years of mat leave? Then it is a woman's choice to do what she feels is right and you don't have that middle period which I have found to be most damaging to my career and finances - working full time but with a toddler so lots of emergency unpaid time off for illness and still having to pay for nursery when she can't go!

Businesses would get used to it if it was law - they would just need cover for longer. Which helps with stability anyway.

Women returning would perhaps need more support to return to certain job types.

I mean the coalface of children's social care, making me sound a bit blasé about poverty, abuse, addiction etc since it is just part of everyday life

Spanish grandparents - am curious, what happened? Just acknowledgement or did they get something out of it policy wise?

May I ask, do you think the government should subsidise childcare costs - often around £9/£10 per hour.

Assuming two parents are working full time, do you feel this is astronomical?

Single parents get help with their childcare costs, what would you like the government to do about married couples that work full time?

Precisely this. Reproductive labour is not separate from the economy, the economy requires reproductive labour and care to function. Without reproduction and childcare, there are no future workers and there are no consumers. And yet, reproductive labour is seen as separate and something done for love and often selflessness. There is no solution until reproductive labour and (child)care are valued as much as other forms or work, not just seen as something for women to manage somehow along with everything else.

Single parents do not get help with their childcare costs if they earn over the threshold, just to be clear. I don’t receive a penny.

In fact, (separate issue, granted) the child benefit cut off allows a couple to earn up to £49 999 each and still receive it, whereas I earn more than that and have to pay it back (or not claim).

Just before we get into sweeping generalisations about single parents!

Good question! I only saw it reported prior to the strike, can't find much on the subject subsequently:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8025992/Spains-babysitter-grandparents-to-join-the-strike.html

You’re completely right but it was directed at single income households that can’t afford the going rate of childcare, which I think outnumbers the high single earners.

As long as this is a conversation between mothers, nothing will change.

Destigmatising part time work and men taking more responsibility for domestic life would level the playing field. To do that, we'd need a society that doesn't elevate earning money above all else.

I believe childcare should be seen as infrastructure like roads. We don’t all have to build our own roads, the government realises having good roads is good for everyone.
So there should be childcare available for all children from the age of six months which includes childcare for people doing shift work and childcare for children with special needs. Something like 90% of mum to SN kids don’t work. Childcare should cover after school and holidays up to age 11/12 (18 for SN).
It could be ‘commissioned’ by each LA and there would be a fee which is capped based on household income and number of children so single parents and parents of multiples aren’t disadvantaged.
Parental leave should have a use it or lose it element of eg 3 months to encourage men to take a substantial amount of time to have sole care.

@Taswama 100% agree.

Men should get 16 weeks parental leave on full pay. A couple I know had this (his employer). It was an absolute no brainer for him to take it. The result was she had a smoother & less 'guilty' return to work. Her career is flying as a result and several years later their marriage has what looks like one of the most equal distributions of domestic labour. (From the outside at least).

That sounds fantastic and yes men taking longer leave is proven to lead to more equality.
DP was just telling me that his company now offer 4 weeks paternity on full pay. When DS1 was born 15 years ago, they were unusual in offering one week full paid (with a second on statutory if wanted). DP took one week paid and then used annual leave. Lots of dads don't even take the 2 weeks or don't qualify as they are self employed.

Some really interesting viewpoints here.

On the issue of Sahm or working mum, I went back to work for 4 months with an 11 month old, knowing I was already pregnant with no 2. It broke my heart to leave my baby with "strangers" at the nursery but my husband kept repeating the mantra of "13 months pay for 4 months work" and so I did it. After no 2, I repaid some maternity pay and didn't go back. They were hard years but it was really important to me to be physically there for my children.

Now I'm working part-time and my career has stalled, I do wonder if I made the right choices. My children are not very independent - is that my fault? Would nursery have actually been better for them? I assumed that working people would see the value and skills I'd developed whilst a parent - yeah, not so much!

It's really emotional to discuss. My friend in Australia did once mention a service where you could get an overnight home carer for your baby - I've often thought a literal nanny state would be great

This is almost exactly what DH and I did too (though he wasn't on full pay!), and I'm also delighted with the results and feel that we have the most equal division of childcare between any couple we know - and the only one where it feels like that genuinely includes the mental load/background stuff like buying clothes or packing their bags. But - and this is what some pp have said upthread - the truth is that many, many women don't want this. I kept being told by men when I said that we were doing SPL that they'd like to but their partners 'wouldn't let them' and I thought that was self-justifying nonsense but actually women did tell me, over and over again, that they wouldn't want to, would resent giving up any of 'their leave' and would hate to be at work with their husbands at home. We now both work four days a week and again I get a lot of women commiserating that it's not me on three and DH full-time. I'm obviously not saying that it's female preferences that have created the current system but I do think that any change would be a lot less popular than is sometimes suggested.

I assumed that working people would see the value and skills I'd developed whilst a parent - yeah, not so much!

I do think there are work relevant skills but they come later, having teenagers makes managing people at work very easy in comparison! I think women's ambition is just redirected for a few years while they are in the baby stage. I can think of several women at work we've recruited who have done very part time work well below their abilities for the baby years then they've returned to work FT in their 40s and have just flown while the men are beginning to slow down.

I think the governmental drive over the past 20 years has been to facilitate women returning to paid work sooner rather than later, longer maternity leave, tax off childcare, free childcare hours, unpaid parental leave all help parents to work. Even the cap on child benefit benefits two parent families where both work, e.g. DH and I manipulate our income between PT work and pension contributions so that despite earning 120K between us we still get child benefit and don't pay higher rate tax, much easier for us on two similar salaries to do that than for those families where there is a single earner. Mothers like me who have benefited from these policies would resent any changes that would force any gender segregation of roles into a more traditional pattern. So how does government policy keep women like me happy in our paid jobs paying lots of tax but also recognise the vast amount of unpaid work women do? It's not just a problem for feminists, it's a problem for all of society.

Is it something that government policy could really help with? I don't know if it is. How do you formulate a policy that acknowledges female biology but does not force women into roles because of it?

Two parents both working less and spending more time with kids can work in some careers. but not all. Anything involving a lot of being away. Work that requires really high levels of training, doctors and such, can be tricky. Many women doctors do work reduced hours but that has a real impact on how many patients they can see, and training more doctors to make up the difference isn't always straightforward. It takes a lot of time and money and there is also a limited pool of suitable candidates. There are many jobs that are not all that effectively shared between two people.

I also think remote work is not going to be all it's cracked up to be. Some people will keep doing it but I suspect we will actually see employers and even employees backing away a bit compared to right now.

before Children I worked FT and earned more than DH. Had 2 babies and employer pushed me to leave. Been SAHM for some time had more children. Worked P/T and now retrained at 40 to start another career as a teacher. I’ve met families of all varieties and I bear no judgements, I see how hard it is for everyone.

Ive seen 3 sides of this problem what conclusion I came to is this:

Fathers need to be more active in raising children and take on more responsibility. Not perhaps as much in the preschool years if the mother /child bond is best for everyone but when the children are at school. If both parents are working both parents on call for sick days and school holidays. Employers would then stop discrimination against mothers.

Would be parents should by society be encouraged to get married, that way if things go wrong the father has to share his assets like pensions etc with the mother. Fathers who abandon the family need to feel ostracised by society. This is a societal change.

In my circumstance I know my career earning has taken a dive. I chose to have another child when I was forced into being a SAHM. I will never earn as much as I did before. I do not judge my life to be a failure or a drain on the economy. I have added one extra taxpayer to the future economy. When we all die we take none of our money with us. I can lie on my death bed with my children around me and be satisfied. As long as I will always have enough to be warm and fed I do not care.

i believe an awful lot of mothers think the same way, so long as they are warm and fed until the end, it is their children and grandchildren that brings them the most happiness. You can judge a woman on how much she has earned for the economy on her life time or you can judge her on how much her offspring will earn in the next 100 years.

the cost of housing is the biggest issue facing most families. I suspect if it fell more families will see a parent go P/T or give up work all together.

I think the only answer in some kind of compulsion/monitoring/subsidy to part time work. (and in tightening up constructive dismissal laws so that women coming back from maternity don't suddenly find their job gone or changed)