As a working mother who chooses (or has no choice but) to send her child to some sort of childcare provider, whether that be a nursery, childminder or nanny – you become resigned to the extortionate cost that comes with it. The cost of childcare is what you used to spend on weekends away or exciting holidays and now it goes into a bottomless pit of childcare fees.
Most working parents are not able to get any free childcare until their child turns 3.. let’s do the maths shall we. So, let’s say you take your full maternity entitlement and take a year off, you start paying fees around your child’s 1st birthday – from this point you have extremely limited support until the term AFTER your child’s 3rd birthday, where you then may be entitled to 30 free hours a week term time only. Once your little one turns 4 it’s off to school they go and childcare fees may even continue (after school club, breakfast club etc), but it is substantially less.
This means that for those first 3 years of your child’s life, you’re either receiving maternity pay (which let’s face it, is extremely hard to live on) or are paying approx. £1k a month for a full-time nursery place. Since when did having children become a punishment? Since when were mothers pushed into leaving jobs due to huge childcare bills? Where is the financial support for working parents? I know that tax-free childcare is available (if you’re eligible) and the childcare voucher scheme which definitely helps, but it’s not enough.
So many mums feel a real loss of identity after having their babies, they can only see themselves as ‘mummy,’ not who they were before. Going back to work can be a real outlet – it gives you focus, it puts that fire back in your belly and it can help you feel like YOU again. This feeling is what drives mums to want to go back to work, even if the majority of their income is spent on childcare fees, they’re going back for themselves and so they should! But surely something needs to change with childcare support? Don’t punish us for earning our career, stop taking our income.
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The Working Mum Project 