i think it would be wonderful for mums to be paid to stay at home and look after their children,childcare in this country is a joke!my husband travels all the time and that leaves me to look after my three year,no family or grandparents to help out. we do not qualify for any tax credits or whatever it is they give as my husband earns a good salary,however they do not take it into consideration that he still has to support two kids from a previous marriage!the only way we can survive is for my husband to travel most of the year,missing out on such an important age of our child's life.and still we cant afford the childcare around because it is so high!
Comment by samantha on April 21 21:27

I feel that the government should support parents more, and I agree with the premis that the children being born now will be supporting those of you not having children in the future!
I have a 15month old and am pregnant again now. I went back to work full time when Tom was 6 months old, and am likely to have to return to work full time again at about the same time after this one.
My husband and I both work full time, and Tom is in childcare 4 days a week, nana has him one day. We earn just over the threshold for working tax credits (ie help with childcare costs), and the only benefit we get from the goverment other than the standard child benefit £18pw and basic Child Tax Credit of £10pw is childcare vouchers which we have to pay for direct from my wages, but prior to paying tax, so thank you gordon/alistair, we save about £80 per month there.
My childcare costs about £350p/m at the moment. I see my child for about 1 hour per night, and not at all in the morning as I have to rush to work so Daddy gets him up. I then see him at the weekends for "quality time". It's not great, and you always feel like a bad parent for not spending enough time with him, but what can we do?
I think tax credits have been great for those families on really low incomes, like some of those I work with, but there is widespread abuse around people who claim to be single parents, etc. I know of several people who have not told the HMRC that they are with a partner, even those who have said that their marriage has broken down, to ensure that they get tax credits. I suspect that these are some of the people who are affording holidays to Disney every year and new cars! Even Tax Credits don't give you that much! They must be on the fiddle!


Comment by RCreevy on April 21 16:54

I had my 2 babies in 75 and 85 - I waited 6 years to have the first - and there wasn't even child benefit then - not for about a year after I'd had the first!!!! We had the miras on our mortgage then - which helped a bit, but as for wages, my husband was so badly paid (and me for that matter) it was a battle to survive, and he put pressure on me to go and earn some money!!! I couldn't return to my 7 year old job - cos no rights existed to go back (I also missed out in 85 on that - cos you had to be in work for 2 whole years to earn the right to go back and I had been there only a year) - so I went to work for 3 years evenings Mon - Thurs - in a little place, where I used to lock myself in and I certainly wasn't there to chat or interlock with the day workers!!!! But I earned the pennies, and did the same in 85, however, I worked part-time with my second, 16 hrs a week, but most of the wage went on a childminder!!! We had no help from any government of the time, the family allowance was rubbish, we never even earned this £19,000 what is being bandied about now for low earners to do with the 10p tax storm!!!! We lived in Surrey till 1987 - so we are not talking seriously low wages, we moved up north and we had to practically half our wages, that's what they paid!!!! We never caught up, but at least we looked after our babies full time, either by me or by my husband - with no help from anywhere. We were never entitled to any benefits, even when my husband got really sick and was taken to hospital in 1988, we were told we were £2 over the limit to even allow me (I was not working then for 2 years 87-88 when we moved north) to get some bus fares to visit him in hospital! If it weren't for a kind old neighbour who looked after my younger daughter who was only 2, and who told me about a minibus scheme that did the hospital rounds twice a week, I wouldn't have been able to see him. What I'm saying is, no matter how much you get to look after children at home, it is never enough, I had no choice but to go out to work - I spent years in jobs I didn't like because I couldn't go back to the one job I really liked because of govt. dogma, if I had gone back my job prospects would have been so much better, I would not have had to keep looking for new jobs from scratch, I would never have moved north, and my marriage wouldn't have fallen apart - after 32 years, because we had struggled and juggled our life around children and work, and my husband was not prepared to enjoy the fruits of our labour when it got easier!!!! So he left and went off with his best mate's wife, and I think this is all the fault of social pressures, because the family is never at the forefront of any agenda by any government - to give parents a choice !! Children change people, there is so much responsibility, so much pressure, so many money issues, and a little help in pay packets would help, but every subsequent govt. since 1975 to the present day have got it totally wrong!!! Now - with my 2 offspring gone, husband gone, (and both my girls went to university, so we must have done something good along the way, no thanks to govt which don't help with uni fees) - I worry that there will not be enough pension for me after all the contributions I have paid up!!!! So please, when you young mothers think about child tax credits, child benefits, etc, spare a thought for us not-so-oldies, who never got a penny when we had our babies!!!!
Comment by Cate on April 21 15:30

I have 4 children, my husband works 8am - 6pm six days a week. He also goes out regularly to do 'homers' 7pm - 11pm. We have never been abroad together for a holiday, infact a weekend in a caravan is all we manage. We constantly have to work out what bills we can afford. I know a woman who has 2 children, her ex husband is a high up manager in a large company. He drives a new car every year, takes his children to Disney, Australia, wherever they want. The benefits the mum get are unreal, she even gets milk vouchers, she goes on an all inclusive holiday twice a year. She gets her dentist free, the kids get money for school uniforms, music lessons are free. I had to stop my daughters lessons as we just could not afford them. So what I think is the benefit system is all wrong. An ex council house in the street next to mine has been empty for 2 years while the council raise the 100,000 needed to put an extension onto it for a family who have never worked in their lives! They have 5 children, have been in trouble with the police and have benn given asbos. We have been trying to save for a simple 4500 extension on our house. Why I ask myself LOTS does my husband not just pack in work, laze about at home, have 1 or 2 more kids and get everything handed out to us for free!!! What encouragement is ther nowadays to actually going out there and working hard?
Comment by Ariadne on April 21 13:16

What about stay at home DAD's? My son is being told that he must give up work to care for his son full time as his partner is having mental health problems. He won't qualify for benefits, and is an excluded from this 'MOTHER & baby' society.
Comment by Lynn on April 21 12:00

I have two children and have nearly always worked part time. However without my mother doing some of the child minding I would have made a loss after childcare costs. I think that the idea of a universal childcare payment is good especially after the farce that is child tax credits. There is too much pressure on mothers to have it all I worked full time for 6 months last year much to the detriment of my children's wellbeing. Both my children and I am much happier now that I have time for them and am not just there for 10 minutes at bedtime. I don't think there is a perfect balance, children are hard work but are the single most important 'project' you will have.
Fewer things and more time is what makes children happy.
Comment by Kate on April 21 11:40

The 'rest of society' should make contributions to the cost of raising children because those same children in later life will be contributing to society in their turn. I don't understand adults who seem to believe that Logan's Run is in effect and they won't need well-adjusted and well-educated younger people to contribute to their own care in later life.


Comment by Rachel McC. on April 21 11:27

The fact that this is the most commented upon article I've seen on this website speaks volumes. As for the comments of J A... you need to step back and look at the larger picture, within society at large, some things are worth investing in... it's as simple as that. People don't have kids as isolated incidents, it's all part of the continuity of a species. Basic. An allowance for those choosing to take the full responsibility for the early development of their offspring should be seriously considered, I feel that it's a responsibility I wouldn't be willing to hand over to anyone else.
Comment by N Boni on April 21 11:02

I agree with J Andreasen. Parents should pay for their own children and the costs of raising them. So as a 26 year old I can not afford to have children. My partner and I have both worked since we have left school. We both want children, but to lose a wage is not an options at the moment. So we will have to wait.

What i hate is seeing people getting hand outs and popping out kids with no end in sight. I know people that have one every 5 years to stay at home on benefits.

I am paying for those children ! But can not afford to have my own ! Why give them even more ?
Comment by MKL on April 21 10:53

Goodness me! Pay them even more for not working? This country's economy has been crippled by the millions of stay at home parents who chose to live off every decent hardworking citizen. And now they want even more? Have they no pride at all? Why should my husband and me have to pay for their lifestyle choices? We know the cost of bringing up a child and chose not to - not out of selfishness, but for the simple reason that we cannot afford! It's no rocket science.
Comment by Alexandra on April 21 10:48

I have believed that the current system is wrong for a long time. It is wrong that women are encouraged and supported to go back to work but are not offered the same support or respect if they chose to actually care for their own children.

I understand that some women chose to go back to work for themselves and I respect this, but we should not feel pressured by others to do this.

It is only fair that the same childcare allowance should be provided to the person that the parents want to care for their children, whether this be the child's own mother OR a registered childminder etc.

I want to be a full-time mum to my 6 month old son, I do not want to miss him growing up or leave important moral and educational lessons to someone else. I know that I am the best carer he could have.

I feel that society has somehow downgraded the importance of this role of the last 40 years and the outcome of pressure to be the 'superwomen' with 'everything' is reflected in the society that we now live in.
Comment by Lisa Julian on April 21 10:37

Wonderful idea. Never could understand why a woman goes to work to earn enough money to pay another woman to look after her children. Children need their mothers. The number of badly behaved, unruly children has increased in direct proportion to the number of children put into childcare as babies and left for numerous other people to bring them up. There is no stability. Children don't care about designer clothes, fancy cars or exotic holidays. Let mum's stay at home and be mothers again. When we women draw our last breath I am sure we won't wish we had spent more time at work but I hope we don't regret not spending enough time with our children.
Comment by Stephanie Parker on April 21 10:30

parents should pay for their own children and the costs of raising them. If you cannot afford to have children, then you have the choice. Why should the rest of society pay for those have either already paid for their own children and their upbringing, or those who have chosen not to have children, be required to pay for them? With the options currently available, not only for contraception, but also for child care, any individual who decides to have a child should care for that child, raise that child, and foot that child's expenses unless there are exceptional circumstances.

It is the choice of the indivual to get pregnant - usually - and should be up to both the mother and father of a child to see to its care and upkeep.
Comment by J Andreasen on April 21 10:15