Followers

Monday 5 August 2013

Should I Fund Your Childcare?

Let me rephrase that question. Do the tax payers want to fund childcare for households where both parents work
As a pensioner, I pay tax on every penny that I earn, my answer is Not Likely Mate.

Many of my colleagues are married with children and both work, they work opposite shifts and different days, they have mutual arrangements with family members to child mind. Some pay their parents, siblings, aunts etc when there can be no reciprocal arrangements. They do this because they can not afford and do not want to have strangers looking after their children. Some of these are foreign nationals some are Brits, they are all in the same place. They have to work to provide a roof and food, clothing and heating for their families, they will not be drawn into the benefit trap, and consider themselves fortunate to have jobs.

My family has done the same over the years and we made it work because it had to.
I am not in the slightest bit political, I despair of  them all equally, but The Government must be STARK STARING MAD to consider this, never mind announce it..
The truth is that I feel that while couples on low incomes, or out of work through the recession have to rely on hand outs to feed their children, no family with both parents working should have their child care paid for.

A few years ago friends of mine, both in work, were lucky to have a set of parents near by. This meant that school holidays were covered and in the same way non serious childhood ailments did not mean a parent having to go on bended knees for time off.
The Parents retired to a bungalow on the coast and D had to give up work, she earned the least and was part time. D sold her car, she only used it for work, she stopped having her hair done, she was working in reception and had to look decent. She stopped buying new clothes, and sold quite a lot of her wardrobe. The result was that they were no worse off, She had been working to earn enough money to go to work!
Crazy world we live in.
Sure she stopped buying "treats" to make up for not being there all the time, cooked every thing from scratch, days out became beach or park led instead of money fuelled and the four of them were much happier as a result.
So NO Mr Prime Minister, I do not want to fund childcare for couples who both work. BUT I will gladly help a single parent who wants to earn  to enable them to pay their way. 
I WILL keep donating to the food banks for those who can not pay their way.
Right, I am off my soap box now, if I have offended anyone then so be it, these are my views and only my views.
This all came from the answer that I sent in reply to a comment on my last post. After talking with the people from the food bank who were collecting outside Asda I heard the news about proposed funding of child care and I was incensed. I sat on this for a while but instead of subsiding it grew.
Couples  with one parent working are, on the face of it, being penalised.
Parents who both work on opposite shifts, and as a consequence hardly see each other, to enable them to care for their own children are being made fools of.
And the tax payer is being TOLD that they will foot the bill. How many of the top tax payers will shout about it? Oh  but maybe some of those will be claiming the child care payments.

In a short while I will be at the food bank in Wisbech meeting the people that really need a hand up.  I hope to pick up some insight as to how best I can help, and if that means taking my soap box into the public eye then so be it. I am not shy and retiring, and I have a good set of lungs.

Reasons to be grateful.

1. I do not need to use a food bank.

2. Ben snoozing at my side.

3. Sunshine after rain last night.

4. A mug of tea, made by Michael, at my elbow.

5. Francesca negotiating her job offer today.

BTW the weight is slowly going, the juicer is being used every other day and the Hug Quilt progresses.
Ben is almost back to normal, he has stopped searching for Bertie.

So that brings me to                         TTFN   Pam

6 comments:

  1. As someone who scrimped so that I could be a stay at home mum, it has always annoyed me that I was penalised in the long run.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with you, and I also agree with you on the whole, though I still have some reservations, about food banks after working as a volunteer in one today. No child should go to bed hungry. We are however coming up to a Genera Election, and cynically I suspect that the governments announcement about child care has a lot to do with that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Our daughter-in-law recently quit her job to stay home with our newest grandson. Our son has a good job and with some frugal adjustments to their lifestyle, they have almost the same income as they did when she worked. She was spending most of her salary on child care and gasoline going to and from work and the babysitter.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have to agree whole heartedly with you. While I was a young single mum I worked part time and to be honest I needed the extra help that came my way, I just couldn't afford to be a stay at home mum to my daughter. The grief I got for that from family, friends & ex was ridiculous and at one point I did say "Ok you pay my bills and of cause I would love to stay home and mother my daughter" needless to say that shut them up pretty quickly! Now thankfully my situation has been very different for a good number of years my man and myself both work and I wouldn't dream of using the benefits that I once heavily relied on simply because I do not need to and neither should any family that earn up to 150K a year each! Sorry for the rant I too will clamber down of my soapbox now!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi, you make mind blowing ideas and a spectacular article here. Last time, when I saw your site this was a little better but today I visit the web site again and find that you guys making a very smart work on the site. Today Web surfing is running very fast and a huge competition over the web is spread. So it is quite interesting. Thanks…
    childcare

    ReplyDelete

I love to read comments so take the plunge and join the conversation.