I have written before about the importance of universal childcare to a progressive society and now, as the cost of living crisis deepens, it’s time to talk about it again. I don’t have children but I have seen my friends and family members struggle for years with childcare. As the eldest in my family I have been left holding the fort when no one else could step in. It does not have to be like this.
Last year the Canadian government announced a plan to provide parents with, on average, $10-a-day regulated childcare spaces for children under six years old, within the next five years.
In India, the government launched the Integrated Child Development Services program in 1975 — and it has grown to 1.4 million childcare centres. Other programmes in the country are run by states. The Self-Employed Women’s Association, the largest trade union representing self-employed female workers in India, has been operating child care centres for decades.
Research by the Gates Foundation and the International Development Research Centre, published on International Women’s Day, revealed the extent of the unpaid care burden that women around the world bear and which has only become worse since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has found that women are spending 30 hours per week exclusively on childcare, which is almost like working a second full-time job. This is unsustainable and unacceptable and things have to change.
But I am hopeful because we now have an Education Secretary who is listening. Nadhim Zahawi understands that it is time to treat childcare as essential infrastructure — just as worthy of funding as roads, new schools and high-speed internet. As the man who delivered the vaccine roll-out and got this country back on its feet, he also understands that in the long-term affordable childcare will help create a more productive and inclusive post-pandemic economy and country.
I am thankful his thinking does not include the idea of ending the legal limit on how many nursery children an adult can supervise. This would create a system that is not just as unfair as the one we have today, but also more dangerous. The idea that those who can afford it would be able to have the current legal ratio at their nurseries while poorer families would have to put their children at risk is just unthinkable. It’s something a civil society should never consider.
We need to look towards our neighbours and fellow Commonwealth countries and see how we can deliver for the next generation of children and their parents, because when we do we will all win.
Better childcare will free up women from the unfair and unnecessary burden they have been under for decades. I will not get off the soap box on this. It will be a key issue in the next election — one for all parties, but one which the Government could deliver now.
In other news...
Blac Chyna has lost her $108 million (£86 million) defamation case against the Kardashians — yes, that family whose wealth to me appears based on profiting off black culture. Chyna, a model and reality TV star, had accused Kim Kardashian — along with her sisters Khloe and Kylie and mother Kris Jenner — of defaming her and of plotting to get her TV show Rob and Chyna axed.
Though cleared, the Kardashians have subjected Chyna to some hellish stuff. Her ex Rob posted nude pictures of her after they broke up. Kris allegedly called Chyna “ghetto”, yet the sisters dress like her and appear naked on the magazine covers. The Kardashians are a toxic cultural obsession. We need to let go of them. While Chyna has said she will appeal the case, the Kardashian family should remember black women stand with Chyna and not them.
