Paying for child care

is a topic fraught with danger. I really should not even dip a toenail in the water of this topic...but I will.

There was a claim in today's paper that childcare costs "have risen by 41% in the past eight years". I am not sure what that statistic actually means but of course it is the sort of "statistic" the media likes.

I have long been concerned about the entire "child care" business. When I was born of course such an idea did not exist. Children were cared for mostly by their mothers, sometimes by their grandparents or other relative until they went to school. A few children would have been cared for by neighbours or people who were paid to do the job. At around age three, sometimes four, some went off to "kindergarten". This was paid for but it was a nominal sum and, at most two mornings or afternoons in a week. 

The rest of the time children were at home, out and about with their mothers, playing with the children next door or elsewhere. Children largely entertained themselves. There was no television and by no means everyone listened to "Listen with mother".

All that changed with the notion of "women's liberation" and the idea that women had the "right" to go back to work, to have a career, to have "their own lives" and much more. The problem with all that was "what do we do with the children?" People looked at the kibbutzes in Israel, the "nurseries" in the communist USSR and elsewhere. Suddenly it seemed like a good idea to pass the children over to someone else and be free to go back to work. There was also the belief that this would allow people to earn more and obtain all the "labour saving" devices they now needed. They could get a second car and send their children to sport, dance and music classes.

I also genuinely sympathise with women who feel they need to choose between a career and parenthood. Yes, it can be tough for men too - but the reality is that it is still mostly women who need to choose. 

But I am not sympathetic to the idea that the one answer to all this is to place children in "affordable" child care which is subsidised by the tax payer. Yes, of course children are our future. It is why school education is taxpayer funded. But do we really need a society where children are simply handed over to what is becoming a very "woke" system? How many children spend more of their waking time in "childcare" than they do under the care of their parents? Is the "I have to go back to work because we need the money" claim really that valid?

I remember someone telling me that she had taken her situation to a tax accountant. He had done the necessary work for her but then suggested she consult a financial advisor about the situation with her partner. It was not a popular suggestion but they were struggling financially and eventually agreed to go. The financial advisor went through everything with them. Later this woman told me, "I was speechless when he told me I was getting around eighty cents an hour. It just wasn't worth all the hassles. Now I just do enough hours to keep my registration up." Yes, she can do that and not everyone can but it took someone else to show her how little she was really earning.  

There is going to be an "inquiry" into the cost of childcare. I just hope it looks at the cost of going to work as well.