Ending the childcare arms race

[InThePottingShed]

“Infants may not be a target audience for politicians but, if the voting age was reduced to zero, (maybe one day in Scotland), my bet is that babies would not vote to be taken from their mothers and put in the care of strangers for hours and hours every day.”

I think this is a thoughtful article. Whatever your political views, many parents would prefer to spend more time with their children when they are very young, yet all the political parties seem hellbent on us all being back in the workplace as quickly as possible.

Miriam Cates on ending the childcare arms race

I also really hate this insistence we agree with everything or discard everything as, I don't know, 'hyperbolic'.

I agree with parts of this article, disagree with others and surely we WANT MPs who are willing to challenge the status quo in their party as Cates is clearly doing through this article? Isn't that part of her job in a democracy?

She's not been a Minister, so her ability to change Tory policy is extremely limited. You can see that across several areas. She's also been challenging Ministers over safeguarding in schools.

I wish more MPs would step away from the groupthink and whipped opinions of their party, I think it's healthy in a democracy that they be allowed to do so and to challenge what their party is doing. Otherwise you end up with the inability to discuss ideas and, ultimately, change things.

One other factor here is how flexible employers are for women who wish to also do caring for their children and sometimes elderly relatives too which as Cates points out saves the government vast amounts of money. Obviously there are some jobs with limited flexibility but I do think a lack of flexibility where there could be more does hold many women back and keep them in low paid work which fits around the kids/ elder care when they could be contributing to the economy in a way which is better for them and for employers.

And for all the claims from politicians that they want women to work - as someone who had a SAHM stint, there was virtually zero support for getting back to work in a job using my (government paid for) degree and previous experience. There were women returner schemes in some very limited industries (and not the one I worked in). Every resource I accessed to help people get back to work was for the very young starting out or jobs like caring or call centres or retraining as a programmer and that was basically it.

Maybe fewer women would return to work if they could afford to stay at home, but surely that needs to be considered individualistically by families when they are making their reproduction plans.

This same argument can be used the opposite way. "Maybe more women would like to return to work if they could afford childcare, but surely that needs to be considered individualistically by families when they are making their childcare plans."

If it's going to be an individualistic family decision, then that suggests no special incentives be given by the state to any particular set of choices . As soon as the state starts subsidizing one, every family will be reacting to the various incentives created by that. And sometimes it goes well beyond incentives, in those countries with free childcare women (or men, but this inevitably affects women more) choosing not to work and stay at home becomes the prerogative of the wealthy.

The nature of capitalism is such that it wants to bring more and more of human life into the formal market. Typically states are preoccupied with economics rather than less quantifiable values, even when in the long run the financial trade-offs are unclear. So their tendency is always to support the idea that getting more people into paid work is the goal - it's all about increasing measurable productivity. So it's nice to have someone in a government position who might be inclined to think in another direction. It's the only way that

As for the argument that it's good for women for them all to be incentivized into paid work, that is surely something women can decide for themselves, they don't need anyone else telling them that, be it other women or the state. Or that it's best to have all kids in care because it's better for those who have neglectful or abusive parents - I'm sorry, that does not mean the default for all kids should be paid care settings.

It's the only way that..

Other possibilities get discussed, that should say.

did they compare mums who would like to work less if they could afford to against the general population? Because I’m pretty sure at least 4 out of 10 people would also say that.

id like to work one day a week for my current full time pay please!

Cates points out it's all very well stating that there will be 'free' to parents places from 7 months but if it's not affordable for providers to do this, then those places just won't exist.

Providers haven't been told yet how much they'll be paid for the funding either. How are they expected to make business plans for it?

I'm a provider and I'm fully booked until 2026. Children already doing just 1 or 2 days will not be able to increase their hours to get all their new funding as I just don't have the space; and everywhere locally is full.

I don't know, do you think they would be keen to stay home from work and do in home childcare? There's quite a need for more childcare spaces if that appeals to them.

I would imagine that the housing crisis means a lot of people are living in homes that would not be Ofsted approved for Childminding (nor does parenthood automatically equip one with the skills to become a registered childminder capable of providing professional early years care).

Similar situation for families who would be open to fostering but don’t have the bedrooms required.

The housing situation is causing a lot of knock-on problems elsewhere.

I imagine most would only want to look after their own household needs.

my point was statistically it’s a pointless post. Nearly everyone would like to worse less if they could afford it. It’s not a wish that’s unique to mothers.

Yes exactly. This was the article that prompted her original tweet

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8aff5ff4-9a73-42fa-894f-2ab5c0280581?shareToken=98f5662ac903eabe26c97b4277a36508

Experts say the declines have been unevenly distributed across the country and in some areas parents can find it impossible to get the childcare hours they need to work full-time.
In parts of Sunderland, for example, there are now only 12 childcare places per 100 children under the age of five, a 16 per cent decline since 2018. In Doncaster, where there are 18 places per 100 children, there has been a 25 per cent drop in places since 2018.
In contrast, there has been an increase in provision in more affluent areas, where parents can afford to pay higher rates for childcare. In Twickenham there are 57 places per 100 children, an increase of 15 per cent over the last five years, while in Wokingham the number of places has risen by 23 per cent.

More on this issue, with a twist:

”Worse is the prospect of politicising nursery provision by using time away from parents to introduce children to values that are not those of the home. If this sounds far-fetched, look north. Scotland’s Care Inspectorate expects nurseries to use gender-neutral language, avoiding reference to “boys” or “girls” and instead using inclusive pronouns such as “they” or “them”. Education Scotland, meanwhile, wants schools to adopt anti-racist policies inspired by critical race theory.”

Times story this morning

Nurseries have to comply to the teaching of the named British Values which are covered by OFSTED inspections.

Regardless, I find Miriam Cates a hugely worrying person. She wants to roll back on a lot of women's rights issues, such as abortion, and is very open about this. She espouses a lot of 'tradwife' despite having a high powered job herself. She is at the extreme right of a very right wing party.

She's (and I'm not being hyperbolic) a dangerous individual.

I agree. She's very right wing and very religious. She is anti abortion access and doesn't just think that childcare generally isn't ideal. She doesn't want children home with a parent, she wants them home with their mother specifically because "nothing is better than mummy" and "most women have jobs, not careers". This also means she blames working mothers (not working parents) for things like children being potty trained later.
She's also said that spending so much time on education makes it hard for women to decide when to have children. Again, focusing on women here, maybe we should all just not bother with being educated and having careers, we should just have children instead (not that she's done that, she has a degree from Cambridge, and a PGCE).

So I don't particularly set much store by her views on childcare, because I think she doesn't care about women and equality, she thinks we should all be at home.

(She was also criticised by the government's antisemitism advisor for a speech where she said cultural Marxism is destroying children's souls)

Aside from the headline, which i don’t think accurately reflects anything that Labour have actually announced to date, I think that Times article is really interesting & nuanced about who and what early years provision is for.

Haven't read the article but from your OP this sounds ridiculous my bet is that babies would not vote to be taken from their mothers and put in the care of strangers for hours and hours every day.”

What about the mums that need and want to work? My bet is that if kids were given the vote they'd want to eat sweets for every meal and stay up all night gaming and watching TV.

What a load of nonsense. It's given me the rage! Just more guilt to pile on to mums who want to or need to work!

But women tended to be in the home. We now have a drive to treat women at home with children as if they are unemployed, that the work they do is worthless because it is unpaid. The Wages for Housework campaign addressed this problem but was never taken seriously in the UK. Other European countries provide for a parent staying at home with young children, and the money can be spent as the parent(s) choose, e.g. on grandparent care etc. The UK's solution devalues what women do and their contribution to society, making having children a problem, and one which is self-inflicted, too.

Yes I agree. The fact society runs on unpaid caring provides by women, then demeans women for doing this is a feminist issue.
Cates has not specified what tangible changes she would suggest to address this. Because she's in the conservatives, my suspicion is it will be about shaming and pressuring women to continue to feel its their duty, rather than by supporting women to have an actual choice (or even supporting men to be more involved dad's)

These "New Conservative" MPs generally drive me mad by acting as if they are nothing to do with the status quo and have no ability or influence to change things (see also Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman). If Cates felt that strongly she would be campaigning directly for better tax support for couples and stay at home parents. She isn’t, she's just writing articles to position herself for a leadership contest and pretending the current government is nothing to do with her.....