Childcare "subsidies" will not

work. They will never work. All they will do is raise the cost of childcare. 

It is much the same for any subsidy scheme. If you "give" people money or, more accurately, return part of the tax they have paid then someone else will want to take it.

The arguments for doing this are no doubt many and varied but they all amount to the same thing. Blanket subsidies are not going to work. Prices will go up. Here they will increase the cost of the service.

In this case there is even an argument that childcare subsidies should not be paid at all. It may be better to "income split" and reduce the rate of taxation. It may even provide some parents with the incentive to stay at home and mind their own children. Would that be such a bad thing? It would relieve a great deal of stress in some families and may even open up the job market for other people.

I am not sure why sending a child into full time daycare is seen as such a good thing by some. I went past two day care/child care places yesterday. In both cases there were children standing outside just holding on to the fence and staring. They did not look happy or unhappy but a wave from me did not elicit a response. Perhaps they knew not to "talk" to strangers even from behind a fence. I observed the "free play" of other children at the same time. It was working for some but not for others. All the claims about "interaction" and "socialisation" came to mind as I stopped and watched for a moment. Is this really the case? Of course there will be interaction in such places but what if it is always guided by an adult? What are children learning from that.

I wonder whether children are simply learning to be "good little socialist citizens" when they are pulled together and told gender neutral stories about social issues rather than folk and fairy tales. Is the failure to celebrate Christmas but the willingness to at least acknowledge Eid what we should be doing? Are parents really too busy to teach their children basic social and other concepts? Is it really necessary to know the first elements of coding before you attend your first day at school but not know nursery rhymes? Is all this what is really behind the push for children to be in childcare? Why else would you be "subsiding" childcare?

Diagonally opposite the old house there is a family with two young children. The youngest began school last year and her mother told me only yesterday,

"Now they are back at school I realise how much I am missing out on. I wish I had spent more time with them before they started school." I wonder how many other parents feel the same way? Do we need to rethink the childcare subsidies or are they really a form of social engineering?