Cost of child-care makes working pointless for all but the most well paid mothers

ruggedtoast

Some think tank has discovered something every single working parent has known for years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/27/soaring-cost-childcare-parents-work#post-area

The rising cost of childcare means that going out to work full-time is now hardly worthwhile for a growing number of "second earners" in middle- and low-income families, a major study will reveal this week.

Alongside the insane cost of childcare they can also throw in the utterly ludicrous cost of public transport as another factor in the "not worth working" hypothesis most women have to calculate after having a baby.

michaels

May be this is telling us something - if the value of what you produce is no more than the cost of paying someone to look after your kids (equally relevant if it is the mum or dad) then may be it doesn't make sense economically for either you or the country to work. Sorry.

Loughton_Monkey

Perhaps we should look not at the "system", but at the charlatons in childcare and why they charge so much and/or all the legislation, red tape and bureacracy to which they have to adhere.

It doesn't cost much to deal with children. Take for example when I was on the ferry to France last Tuesday. Parents sit, on their own, drinking away in the bar. The children run freely around the boat at no cost whatsoever.

When on camping holidays in Europe, parents want peace & quiet around their own caravan/tent and so buy cheap plastic 3-wheeled bikes that make huge noises over gravel, and send the kids 100 yards away to play in front of other peoples' tents.

And what is the church doing about this? They have endless numbers of premises (churches, church halls, graveyards) into which parents could shove their kids to run around all day - with no-one much to annoy. A couple of armed 'community police' patrolling the perimeter could prevent escapes.

Simple!

PaulF81

perhaps we could get recently retired oaps a crb check and get them into free childcare?

Generali

michaels wrote: »

May be this is telling us something - if the value of what you produce is no more than the cost of paying someone to look after your kids (equally relevant if it is the mum or dad) then may be it doesn't make sense economically for either you or the country to work. Sorry.

The problem is that you pay for childcare out of taxed income: given the state of the UK's tax system you can earn substantially more than the cost of childcare but end up just breaking even.

gollygosh

Yup! don't you just love the way money is wasted telling us what we already knew!

my DH and i knew i wanted to be a sahm so we bought a house we could afford to run on one wage packet! didn't spend more than we had and pulled our belts in when things got tough.

we don't live a luxury lifestyle but we do OK and my kids got a mum at home. it's not for everyone but 15 years on it's still the right thing for us.

the maths isn't hard, but what people seem to struggle with is the "want it all now" mentality, we saved really hard before buying. 73% ltv and didn't have carpet, central heating or even ceilings for a while!

Putting the hard work in saving first was much easier than struggling to keep up with bills you just can't afford could ever be.

i can't imagine having to go to work to earn just enough to pay a child minder, the stress must be terrible.

Loughton_Monkey

PaulF81 wrote: »

perhaps we could get recently retired oaps a crb check and get them into free childcare?

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't look after anyone's kid for £100,000 a year.

If anyone forced me to, I would give half of them polythene bags and encourage them to play spacemen, and give the other half metal scissors and tell them to dig out the hidden sweets in the electricity sockets.

All young children are simply 'tubes' with a loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other. They should neither be seen nor heard, and confined to their own premises.

ruggedtoast

michaels wrote: »

May be this is telling us something - if the value of what you produce is no more than the cost of paying someone to look after your kids (equally relevant if it is the mum or dad) then may be it doesn't make sense economically for either you or the country to work. Sorry.

You're making a somewhat liberal assumption that the value of what a person produces correlates in any way with what they are paid. A paradigm which doesn't have much validity in our culture any more.

Personally I would prefer that nurses can find child minders and start their shifts over yummy mummies hiring nannies so that they can go back to their PR jobs.

PaulF81

jimkerr wrote: »

Paul most of them are already providing free childcare for their kids

they wont mind looking after a couple more at the local community centre then will they!

ruggedtoast

One of the reasons childcare costs so much is the 1:3 ratio of carers to kids. Its too low and makes it all unaffordable.

The kids are in an enclosed child safe room with no hazards whatsoever and a clear line of sight everywhere, and 25% of the space is taken up by adults without much to do.

None of the girls ever get to earn much more than minimum wage and the nurseries are barely breaking even. Yet they're all supposed to be taking degrees in early years education. Madness.

Generali

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't look after anyone's kid for £100,000 a year.

If anyone forced me to, I would give half of them polythene bags and encourage them to play spacemen, and give the other half metal scissors and tell them to dig out the hidden sweets in the electricity sockets.

All young children are simply 'tubes' with a loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other. They should neither be seen nor heard, and confined to their own premises.

I love posts like this because they remind me why I left the UK. It's a terrible country to raise kids because there are so many child haters there.