While acknowledging that the costs and lack of childcare provision are two major reasons why parents don’t return to work (A sick child means a £700 hole in our budget: that’s the reality of life as a working parent, 8 March), a third is rarely mentioned – the difficulties when parents of young children must leave for work before their children’s schools or nurseries open, or they have a late, overnight or early shift. Before Brexit, provided they had a spare bedroom, such families could employ an au pair.
In exchange for a room in London, full board and lodging, free internet use, free use of laundry machines, all work-related expenses, free weekends and £120 a week, our family’s au pairs undertook 25 hours’ negotiated light work each week. They managed the school and nursery runs and were available on inset days, enabling parents to attend meetings, parents’ evenings and so on before and after school, knowing the children were safe.
For shift workers such as doctors, nurses, transport workers and so on, there was always a responsible adult in the house in their absence. Our au pairs also taught the children their language and became such close friends that two are godparents and holiday visits to them all are the norm.
The government stopped that. No two-year visas unless studying for so many hours that au pairing is impossible. European au pairs feel too unwelcome here now. Exactly who has benefited from this insane, ideologically driven prevention? Not children, not working adults, not the economy. So: who?
Anne Johns
Derby
• A Guardian editorial on (1 March) criticised Labour for its nebulous growth mission while saying little about “the far superior goals of maximising wellbeing and reducing inequalities”. It is very sad that in the current complaint about the lack of affordable childcare in this country we only hear about the goal of growth. The focus is on women not being able to go out to work, with no mention of the emotional needs of children.
In her article, Lucy Pasha-Robinson bemoans the fact that women are plugging holes in the state provision of childcare with unpaid labour. If they could work, she says, their additional economic output would contribute the equivalent of 1% of the country’s GDP. She mentions, among other countries, France, which offers free childcare from the age of two months onwards, as if this is a policy we should emulate. Pasha-Robinson rightly states that there are “reams of evidence on childhood development that has shown time and time again that education in our early years dictates future outcomes”. There are also reams of evidence that show that bonding with a parent in early years determines the future wellbeing of a child.
Why does satisfactory educational care of a child have to be separated from satisfactory emotional care? Instead of subjecting children, too young to appreciate time, to the terror of separation from a loving parent, wouldn’t it be better to offer help to mothers who suffer loneliness and feelings of being undervalued when they are looking after youngsters? Financial help would come into this, but equally important would be cooperation with other parents, as well as help from professionals. The Sure Start programme, eliminated by the Tories and promised again by Labour, would be a partial but welcome start to this goal of maximising wellbeing and reducing inequalities.
Anne Tyndale
Brighton
• Thank you to Larry Elliott for shining a light on the impact of childcare costs on women’s ability to go to work (UK women priced out of work by lack of affordable childcare, PwC finds, 7 March). I would recommend that he next look into the specific impact felt by mums of twins.
I am in the fortunate position of having a well-paid career that enabled me to chose to return to work. But I was surprised at how close to unlikely that (ultimately financial) decision was. As a parent of twins, it can be a shock to find that nurseries offer discounts of as little as 5%. We made the decision to pay just a little extra to hire a nanny.
When our nanny is occasionally unavailable, the costs are extortionate. We recently had to use more than £1,000 of savings for a short stint at a childminder.
I am lucky. On twin mum WhatsApp groups, I have read messages from many mums who are shellshocked to find that they simply cannot return to work. Women are propping up this country, a situation that this government is clearly content with and is perpetuating.
Alice Schofield
London
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• This article was amended on Monday 13 March. The words “too young to appreciate time” were reinstated to Anne Tyndale’s letter to clarify her meaning.
