‘Free’ child care

[TartanPaint]

Douglas Quaid said:

TartanPaint said:

My wife's entire salary is wiped out by nursery fees. She basically works full time for nothing other than keeping her skills current so she still has a career when the kids are school age. Although we'll still need to pay for pre-school and afterschool clubs then, so won't be any better off.

Government funded hours count for SFA in the grand scheme of things. It infuriates me the way they keep banging on about free childcare, which to anyone without kids sounds like parents are getting a free ride, while anyone with kids knows it's next to useless.

We're not even that badly off compared to some friends, who have opted to have one parent at home because the sums don't add up. There's simply no option for them, except to ditch one career. It's a national scandal, or should be!

Why doesn’t she quit and look after the kids? She missing out on raising the kids and you’re missing out having them with their mother for no reason. ‘Keeping her skills current’? Come on man.

Yes, keeping skills current is a real thing.

Also, we believe they're better off at nursery. I (we) do not accept that being at home with the kids is better for either the parent or the kids. A good nursery is the best learning and growing environment any child will ever know, and I wish they could stay there till they were 6 or 7 (as some countries do). When they start school they're stuck in a classroom environment for the next 13 years at least. The longer they can spend learning through playing before then, the better. Nursery is brilliant for our kids, and we want them to be there. I also acknowledge there are some advantages to them being at home too. I guess the happy medium would be 3 or 4 days at nursery, but our jobs don't allow that flexibility. But it's not like we never do family stuff. We're all together at weekends and holidays, and I don't think the family bonds could possibly be strengthened further by quitting work.

The idea that we're not raising our kids or that we're missing out on much, or that somebody else is doing it for us is simply not true.

[Dindoit]

Moonhawk said:

roachcoach said:

I was going to say devils advocate, but it might simply be true.

The government needs the money.

But if people arent paying enough tax to cover the ‘free’ childcare costs - then it may in fact be costing the country money.

The assumption “person in work = higher net tax” may well be false in many cases.

It’s not just “person in work”, it’s people in work, both paying tax.

Option A: parent stays at home to look after kid(s). No tax paid.
Option B: parent goes to work, pays taxes. Childminder/nanny/nursery staff goes to work, pays taxes. In the case of the nursery they’re taxed as a business too.

In option B the GDP also increases.

People (childless people) get cross at subsidising other people's “lifestyle choices”. I certainly hope they turn down pensions, offer to pay for nhs treatment etc. etc.

[Fourmotion]

Moonhawk said:

Does this highlight a critical difference today.

We had a house as children sure - but I dont recall doing a plethora of activities or having holidays with my parents.

Are people simply trying to do more stuff which costs money? They want a house AND want to be able to do activities AND go on holidays AND.........

It's not different to what I or my friends had as kids. At the time mortgages were a fraction of income compared to today, but both my parents worked. I want my kids to have opportunities for those experiences too. I can't say I ever felt I missed out on time with my parents, and we have a healthy relationship now (I'm in my thirties).

I didn't grow up in an affluent area (Chatham!!!!).

It's absolutely ridiculous to say people should either not have kids or have one parent at home to bring up better well adjusted people (appreciate that was another poster). Nursery has many benefits over home care, it's not simply 'better' to look after your child, there are positives and negatives both ways. I'd argue having a more rounded life, not spending the majority of your day in the house, having organised curriculum based activities around social interaction with other children helps to form better adjusted people long term. You can't learn that as effectively at home.

I'm not saying it's better, I'm saying it's different. And this period in question is from age 3 months to 12 months depending on when you start full time hours, up to at most 5 years old when the child goes to school, as there is no funding beyond that point. My son, at school, loves his after school clubs now (at a fiver a pop), which he'd miss out on if one of us didn't work. He plays rugby, dodgeball, football, has a swimming lesson, and attends 'nature' club.

At our peak we were paying just shy of £2.5k a month for nursery, with a pissy tax break as encouragement to work. We're lucky enough that either my wife or I working would cover that, so it did not feel like you were working for nothing. Which, I'd still argue, isn't the case anyway, due to the benefits nursery offered.

[Fourmotion]

Kermit power said:

In total, she was off work for 7 years, much of it drove her nuts, as much as people love their kids, adults still need their own brains stimulating, and there's only so many renditions of "the wheels on the bus" that you can cope with before going off the rails.

When she started looking to go back, that "keeping her skills current" really came back to bite her. There was simply no chance of getting back into her previous career at anything like the level she'd been at, and equally no real chance of getting back in at a lower level, as potential employers seemed to take the view that she'd just use them as a vehicle to get back up to speed then bugger off elsewhere.

That sounds familiar.

My wife went brain dead in the 2 separate years she's had off. She really needed adult conversation, and her job back to challenge her. Plus she'd have lost her professional qualifications taking a significant period of time off.

[skinnyman]

daddy cool said:

So it would be better if they didn't have kids, then they could work and pay tax, and there would be less drain on society, yes?

Yes, let's all not have children, that way in 3 generations humans will be extinct, great call.

[Moonhawk]

Dindoit said:

It’s not just “person in work”, it’s people in work, both paying tax.

Option A: parent stays at home to look after kid(s). No tax paid.
Option B: parent goes to work, pays taxes. Childminder/nanny/nursery staff goes to work, pays taxes. In the case of the nursery they’re taxed as a business too.

In option B the GDP also increases.

People (childless people) get cross at subsidising other people's “lifestyle choices”. I certainly hope they turn down pensions, offer to pay for nhs treatment etc. etc.

Well given I have neither suggested people shouldnt be given childcare or that one parent should stay at home - i’m not really sure I see the point. I was merely commenting that somebody working wouldnt neccesarily increase the tax take.

Also - all of this is completely irrelevent to the point in my OP. I wasnt commenting on ‘free’ childcare being available - my OP was about it being described as ‘free’.

For some reason this point has been missed by many and the debate has turned into one about childcare.

[Dindoit]

Moonhawk said:

Well given I have neither suggested people shouldnt be given childcare or that one parent should stay at home - i’m not really sure I see the point. I was merely commenting that somebody working wouldnt neccesarily increase the tax take.

And I was commenting that the increased tax take isn’t limited to the parent and there will be others employed and contributing.

Moonhawk said:

Also - all of this is completely irrelevent to the point in my OP. I wasnt commenting on ‘free’ childcare being available - my OP was about it being described as ‘free’.

For some reason this point has been missed by many and the debate has turned into one about childcare.

Sorry it hasn’t gone the way you hoped, truly I am.

However “free” is simply a convenient phrase and one everybody understands. NHS is “free at point of use”, we have a “free press” and the band Free make people pay for records and concert tickets, the hypocrites!!!!1!

[kentlad]

vonuber said:

We pay £2100/month in nursery fees for our two kids under 3.

We had a long discussion about whether it was worth the other half going back to work, or if she did me quitting.

Is that full time? How many kids do they have at this nursery (partner is considering starting one - she's a soon to be ex teacher). She's going to start out as a child minder at first, with plans to grow to a nursery. Sorry for the thread derailment.

[lauda]

Dindoit said:

Sorry it hasn’t gone the way you hoped, truly I am.

However “free” is simply a convenient phrase and one everybody understands. NHS is “free at point of use”, we have a “free press” and the band Free make people pay for records and concert tickets, the hypocrites!!!!1!

Quite. The point of the OP is pretty redundant really since literally nothing in this world is free.

So it’s probably more edifying to debate the wider point of whether government-subsidised childcare is a good thing or not.

[abzmike]

lauda said:

Quite. The point of the OP is pretty redundant really since literally nothing in this world is free.

So it’s probably more edifying to debate the wider point of whether government-subsidised childcare is a good thing or not.

Or widening further to whether government subsidies are a good thing or not. We seem now to have an edifice of taxes and benefits that is bewilderingly complex, littered with contradictions, support and break the free market at the same time, are prone to misinterpretation at best and abuse at worst. Some examples - Child benefit, tax credits, housing benefit, tax allowances and relief, free nursery places etc... the list is endless. The whole lot needs to be dismantled and started again.

[Derek Smith]

TartanPaint said:

Nonsense. Nursery is really good for kids. Bringing them up at home has advantages, but it's definitely not better.

Why on earth should you think that?

My kids were all more advanced than nursery kids when they started school. It might be something to do with the larger circle of friends, the one-to-one teaching, the play when shopping. And, above all else, we knew what was happening to our kids all the time.

I'd say that bringing kids up at home is significantly better on most metrics.

[Dindoit]

Anecdotal biased evidence I’m afraid. For everyone else nursery is a life experience for kids preparing and them for the big world of school.

I’m absolutely certain that you’re absolutely certain it didn’t affect them at all. Conversely I know that the kids who never went to nursery struggled to adapt to their first term at my daughter’s school. Parents all honestly regretted it.