We need more men in childcare

Gender imbalance in the home, in the workplace, in life, largely focuses on how to make things better for women. Lately I've been thinking about childcare and how important it is for children to be cared for by both.

Early years education is dominated by women for many reasons I don't need to go into here - negatively perceived ones such as pay, hours, status. But also for positive reasons like experience, expertise, empathy (and our ability to multi-task!)

But we're not going to change stereotypes or teach children to view men and women equally unless we do something about the care they receive in those very early years.

That means changing the way we behave at home (if we can) and encouraging more men to follow a career in child care.

Sexism isn't exclusively part of the male  psyche (oh how we all love to blame them). A quick poll of some of my mum friends reveals a suspicion of men who work in childcare. What are they doing that job for? They must be weird/sexually motivated? Couldn't they get a proper job?

This reaction offends me in oh so many ways.

It is a decent job and one of the most important anyone can do, a child's life is shaped in those first five years. It's well paid in the right setting, with excellent training and opportunities to study and progress. Looking after children is fun and rewarding so why shouldn't men enjoy it? Guess what - men like kids too!

We also know that children without fathers benefit from having strong male role models in their life. 

My children have been cared for by men and women in daycare and I'm hugely grateful for that.

So let's encourage more men into childcare, reduce the ridiculous stigma attached to doing a 'female' job and start giving all those who work with children the respect they deserve.

They taught me, my husband and my children everything we know.

Champagne childcare, lemonade wages

The average family spends more than a quarter of their income on childcare and we need to make it more affordable, says a report out today.

I don’t disagree. The cost of childcare can be crippling and it forces you to prioritise and make important choices in your life. To continue with the career at great expense (not always just financial) or give it all up because you just can’t afford it?

Reports like this always make uncomfortable reading for me and throw up some terrible moral dilemmas. The idea that childcare is too expensive makes me twitch.



practically perfect in every way



As parents we expect to have champagne childcare, but we're only willing to pay lemonade wages. 

We want our little monkeys to be looked after by Mary Poppins and we’ll pay them peanuts in return.

Then we’ll complain about the quality of care whilst we mutter disgust at the cost of last month’s nursery bill.

Because let’s face it, we’ll pay more for a cleaner than we will for childcare and to me that just feels wrong.

But I can understand why.  More of us live away from our parents and have no alternative support network. We don’t have the option to split the cost of care between family, in-laws and the occasional day at the child-minder.

Some of us just don’t earn enough to fork out several hundred on nursery care JUST so we can have the pleasure of slaving away at an unforgiving job all day, come home to a screaming child and another night of no sleep. 

The simple answer would be to give up work and look after the kids ourselves. But guess what, some of us don't want to, or can't afford to do that either.

As working parents, what we all want is affordable good quality childcare, with brilliantly trained staff who are paid properly for the amazing job they do looking after our children every day.

But that comes at a price we either can’t afford or we’re just not willing to pay.

So yet another think tank has looked at all the evidence, all the other European countries and has made another set of recommendations. 

The report concludes that bureaucracy is restricting the childcare options we have available and the best people for the job are being put off by paperwork and regulation. Relax that and everything will better. I hope they're right. 

For now I just know that everyone should have access to good quality affordable childcare (fortunately I do) and be able to at least have a choice.

Have a read for yourself and you decide  http://www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/affordable-quality.pdf