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

That Sunday night feeling

Today I had that Sunday-night feeling for the first time in 9 months.

It swept over me like a tidal wave, starting at my feet and heading rapidly up my body, making me feel sick to my stomach. I had it even though it's Tuesday and I don't even have work tomorrow (just a bit of mopping and a trip to Nom Nom Cupcakery).

What caused this tsunami? The news that tomorrow is my son's last day in his current room in nursery, next week he starts pre-school proper. Which means he's leaving the people who've cared for him since he was 8 months old, 4 days a week, all year round except for family holidays.

Problem is, I'm going to miss them more than he will. And he's only moving to the room next door.

And this move also means I'm coming to the end of my maternity leave, meticulously timed to coincide with him starting pre-school. Cue the Sunday-night feeling.

What it's made me realise is that there are 5 stages to maternity leave and they are:

Stage 1 - counting down the weeks til you finish work and start maternity leave

Stage 2 - start of actual maternity leave and suffering from major fear of missing out (FOMO) and wishing you were back in the office (and daily internet shopping, especially babes with babies!)

Stage 3 - BLISS! Loving your baby and the new routine, loving the holiday feeling, loving the new tan, loving the cakes and coffee

Stage 4 - the return of the Sunday-night feeling as you count down the weeks to the end of the maternity leave

Stage 5 - back in work and wishing you were still on maternity leave, occasionally fooling yourself that getting pregnant AGAIN would be easier than work.

I'm at Stage 4 right now. Just over 4 weeks left to go til baby Eve also gets dumped in nursery for more than half her week. *sick feeling just returned*

On the upside, I'll be getting my morning coffee from Nero once again, having lots of laughs with the great bunch of people with whom I share an office AND my children get to make new friends.

Win. Win. Then why can't I shift this sinking feeling? (pass me the wine someone....)

This post is dedicated to Cheryle, Lucy, Frankie and Amy in Rising 3s at the amazing Treetops Children Centre in Dursley

picture shows the beautiful outside space at Treetops.