The Student Room Group

Nick Clegg attacked on air over childcare reforms

Nick Clegg has been attacked during a radio call in over the coalition's introduction of tax-free childcare vouchers, worth £1,200 per child, becoming available following the budget, along with increased support for families with children on universal credit.

I'll make my position clear - I am against this measure in principle. I think it is short-sighted and will only serve to increase the costs of childcare rather than reduce them for working families. That aside...

The caller was a stay-at-home mum, or as she preferred a "full time mum." She felt the reforms were discriminatory towards stay-at-home mums who would receive no support.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/9945908/Stay-at-home-mum-attacks-Nick-Clegg-on-radio-phone-in.html


I am speechless. "Full time mum" is not a job title. She is not economically active and is not contributing anything to the pot. She has chosen to stay at home whilst working mothers are forced to go out and work in order to sustain their living. I'm sure some of those mothers would also love to stay at home with their kids all day but they simply can't afford it.

Her sense of entitlement is disgusting. She asked Clegg whether he thought what she did was worthless. I think that it is worthless - she is contributing nothing to the economy. She has decided to pop out two children and expects everyone else to contribute to their upbringing.

The idea that the State should see her role as some kind of virtue is outrageous. She has chosen to have children, she has further chosen to stay at home to look after her children: this is a financial choice she has made, and not one which she should expect others to have to bear the burden. There is one word for this, especially in these times of austerity: selfishness.

If she wants to benefit from these reforms then she can try and seek part-time work!

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Reply 1
Original post by Scots King
Nick Clegg has been attacked during a radio call in over the coalition's introduction of tax-free childcare vouchers, worth £1,200 per child, becoming available following the budget, along with increased support for families with children on universal credit.

I'll make my position clear - I am against this measure in principle. I think it is short-sighted and will only serve to increase the costs of childcare rather than reduce them for working families. That aside...

The caller was a stay-at-home mum, or as she preferred a "full time mum." She felt the reforms were discriminatory towards stay-at-home mums who would receive no support.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/9945908/Stay-at-home-mum-attacks-Nick-Clegg-on-radio-phone-in.html


I am speechless. "Full time mum" is not a job title. She is not economically active and is not contributing anything to the pot. She has chosen to stay at home whilst working mothers are forced to go out and work in order to sustain their living. I'm sure some of those mothers would also love to stay at home with their kids all day but they simply can't afford it.

Her sense of entitlement is disgusting. She asked Clegg whether he thought what she did was worthless. I think that it is worthless - she is contributing nothing to the economy. She has decided to pop out two children and expects everyone else to contribute to their upbringing.

The idea that the State should see her role as some kind of virtue is outrageous. She has chosen to have children, she has further chosen to stay at home to look after her children: this is a financial choice she has made, and not one which she should expect others to have to bear the burden. There is one word for this, especially in these times of austerity: selfishness.

If she wants to benefit from these reforms then she can try and seek part-time work!
Agreed but evidently she probably does not have any valuable skills to contribute to the economy, so she falls back on her genetics and gender roles to supposedly 'take the easy ride'. If you make a choice you have to face the consequences and benefits of a said choice
Reply 2
Original post by Scots King
x


Why would a stay at home mum need childcare vouchers? That's what I don't bloody understand.
If you want to be a stay at home parent be a stay at home parent, that is your choice, but many people don't have that choice because their partner does not earn enough to support them and the child/children. So don't go complaining when you have less money because you don't work, it is easily rectifiable.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 3
Original post by redferry
Why would a stay at home mum need childcare vouchers? That's what I don't bloody understand.
If you want to be a stay at home parent be a stay at home parent, that is your choice, but many people don't have that choice because their partner does not earn enough to support them and the child/children. So don't go complaining when you have less money because you don't work, it is easily rectifiable.


Exactly. Why on earth would you need childcare vouchers when you are a stay-at-home mum - isn't that the whole point of not working: to look after your children?!

It's as though she feels she is deserving of some sort of salary for deciding to bring her children up at home.

If she decides to be a stay at home parent, then that's great, it's her choice, but don't expect everyone else to have to pay for it.
Reply 4
Original post by Robbie242
Agreed but evidently she probably does not have any valuable skills to contribute to the economy, so she falls back on her genetics and gender roles to supposedly 'take the easy ride'. If you make a choice you have to face the consequences and benefits of a said choice


Yes she had made her choice and should not expect everyone else, to pay for her choice.

I don't want to put down the role of being a stay-at-home mother though - I imagine it must be quite hard, looking after children is not an easy task. Its her implicit demand for money for doing this that puzzles me. In fact it even makes me question whether she has really become a mother for the right reasons!
Reply 5
Original post by Scots King
Exactly. Why on earth would you need childcare vouchers when you are a stay-at-home mum - isn't that the whole point of not working: to look after your children?!

It's as though she feels she is deserving of some sort of salary for deciding to bring her children up at home.

If she decides to be a stay at home parent, then that's great, it's her choice, but don't expect everyone else to have to pay for it.


If she wants to get paid for looking after children she should become a child minder. Looking after your own kids is only doe for self benefit and reasons of nepotism and I think it is stupid to suggest they should get childcare vouchers/money.
Reply 6
Original post by redferry
If she wants to get paid for looking after children she should become a child minder. Looking after your own kids is only doe for self benefit and reasons of nepotism and I think it is stupid to suggest they should get childcare vouchers/money.


Agreed :smile:
Reply 7
Original post by Scots King
Yes she had made her choice and should not expect everyone else, to pay for her choice.

I don't want to put down the role of being a stay-at-home mother though - I imagine it must be quite hard, looking after children is not an easy task. Its her implicit demand for money for doing this that puzzles me. In fact it even makes me question whether she has really become a mother for the right reasons!
It's true, I agree that mothering is probably not easy at all, but I think if your going to decide to bring a baby into the world and give it the best chance possible make sure you had a stable income and plan, otherwise you start complaining to the government for making a choice to have a baby at the wrong time. (Points at 14/15/16/17 year old mums on benefits and older)
Reply 8
Original post by Scots King
Agreed :smile:


Also I hate the woman for making my sympathise with Nick Clegg *shudder*
I agree wtih what everyone is saying.. A stay-at-home-mum doesn't seen to send the child to childcare. The whole point of is to encourage both parents to work.

However, I'm in disagreement to the whole thing. I think if you have children, you should pay for them yourself. In full. No child benefits, no childcare vouchers, no tax-free clothes because they are for children, and so on. Apart from education of course. The actual costs of keeping a child alive is the parent's responsibility, not everyone else's.
Reply 10
Original post by redferry
Also I hate the woman for making my sympathise with Nick Clegg *shudder*


haha!
Reply 11
Original post by Robbie242
It's true, I agree that mothering is probably not easy at all, but I think if your going to decide to bring a baby into the world and give it the best chance possible make sure you had a stable income and plan, otherwise you start complaining to the government for making a choice to have a baby at the wrong time. (Points at 14/15/16/17 year old mums on benefits and older)


Agreed :smile:

Obviously things can go wrong such as losing your job etc which can happen to anyone, but that should be distinguished from the present case where she has made a concious choice not to go into work. That's fine, but pay for it yourself
Reply 12
Original post by lightburns
I agree wtih what everyone is saying.. A stay-at-home-mum doesn't seen to send the child to childcare. The whole point of is to encourage both parents to work.

However, I'm in disagreement to the whole thing. I think if you have children, you should pay for them yourself. In full. No child benefits, no childcare vouchers, no tax-free clothes because they are for children, and so on. Apart from education of course. The actual costs of keeping a child alive is the parent's responsibility, not everyone else's.


I lean more towards this viewpoint myself, but there can be unintended consequences. It's a sad fact that people will have children they can't afford in any event. I think that child benefit is necessary so that the children aren't made to suffer for the stupidity of the parents. Of course, another problem is that you can't make sure that the child benefit money is spend on the upkeep of the children. I think there should definitely be limits of child-benefit though.
I think one of the problems with this is that women tend to be made to feel guilty if we return to work and don't look after our children ('What's the point in having children if you don't see them or look after them?') but also made to feel guilty if we don't work because we have children (i.e. what you're doing now).
I don't think what you're doing is wrong in itself, I just think that we need to get rid of the culture of stigmatising both options, because what are women supposed to do then?

I do think that the help with childcare is great! I know several women (through working in a nursery) that started work and put their kids in the nursery and then had to quit work because the childcare was costing them more than the wages they were getting (although I can tell you right now that money wasn't going to us, we get minimum wage).
I don't think this woman has much right to complain. They're not cutting child benefit in total, they're cutting it for those that don't need it. It's not like they're taking the child benefit away from poor non-working parents to give it to poor working parents, they're helping both... If her child benefit has been cut then her husband (I assume) must earn a lot of money, so she doesn't need the child benefit.

I do think a better thing would be to make it so that nurseries can't charge more than a certain amount per place, as I see them putting their prices up now so they can take the vouchers and some more to make extra profit. But also keep in place the number of staff per child rules; I know some nurseries wanted to move the 1:3 for the under 3 year olds up to 1:4 or even 1:5 and that is just dangerous (not to mention extremely tiring. Looking after 3 under 3 year olds on your own is bloody hard enough!). Nurseries make an awful lot of profit, my old boss and her sister and her husband and her sister's husband (who all own the nursery together) go on like 5 foreign holidays a year and have all had plastic surgery and stuff like that while we get minimum wage!
Original post by Scots King
I lean more towards this viewpoint myself, but there can be unintended consequences. It's a sad fact that people will have children they can't afford in any event. I think that child benefit is necessary so that the children aren't made to suffer for the stupidity of the parents. Of course, another problem is that you can't make sure that the child benefit money is spend on the upkeep of the children. I think there should definitely be limits of child-benefit though.


The answers of what to do is a lot more messy, and I think my views on this aren't so PC. So I'm just going to leave it at making everyone else pay for someone else's life choices cannot be the answer, at all. The problem is when people think they have a right to pop out however many children they want.

Anyone been watching 16 Kids and Counting? The first family on that (The Radfords) work (they have a bakery) and are careful with their money. They cook for their kids rather than take-aways and ready meals, so a meal can cost 50p per person without issue. That's how it should be done. If they can manage it with 16 kids (+ 1 grandkid), then lower incomes and less kids can do it. If you can't control your finances, then don't have the children.
Original post by lightburns
The answers of what to do is a lot more messy, and I think my views on this aren't so PC. So I'm just going to leave it at making everyone else pay for someone else's life choices cannot be the answer, at all. The problem is when people think they have a right to pop out however many children they want.

Anyone been watching 16 Kids and Counting? The first family on that (The Radfords) work (they have a bakery) and are careful with their money. They cook for their kids rather than take-aways and ready meals, so a meal can cost 50p per person without issue. That's how it should be done. If they can manage it with 16 kids (+ 1 grandkid), then lower incomes and less kids can do it. If you can't control your finances, then don't have the children.


It's not as simple as that though, circumstances can change.
Original post by redpanda41
It's not as simple as that though, circumstances can change.


When circumstances change, that's different. If you had 10 kids on £30k a year, and funded them yourself, then lost your job and all you could get was £12k a year, there's a good chance that you physically couldn't provide for them any more. In that case I'd say that there should be government help - provided that they aren't popping more out.

Edit: Of course though, this doesn't mean that a family that drops a little that CAN still physically provide for their kids get to keep their previous lifestyle. No. The aforementioned Radford family now use cloth reusable nappies, because they can't afford luxuries like disposable nappies. If you can't feed your kids after making all those cost-cutting measures (having before having a high income when you could provide for your kids), and you're not having any more, then you should get handouts.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 17
Original post by Scots King
Yes she had made her choice and should not expect everyone else, to pay for her choice. I don't want to put down the role of being a stay-at-home mother though - I imagine it must be quite hard, looking after children is not an easy task. Its her implicit demand for money for doing this that puzzles me. In fact it even makes me question whether she has really become a mother for the right reasons!
Other mothers are getting to have their cake and eat it plus a government handout on top perhaps that's why.
Reply 18
Original post by Coffinman
Other mothers are getting to have their cake and eat it plus a government handout on top perhaps that's why.


At least they are working
Reply 19
Original post by redferry
Also I hate the woman for making my sympathise with Nick Clegg *shudder*


I can never be a politician; ergh, the things they had to put up with :pinch:

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