..aaand the brutal reality is…
March 18, 2008 by piereth
I just replied to a post to Jen, who was encouraging me to go for it, baby-wise. In my reply I worked out I spend about £6,000 a year on Mouse’s nursery. I get 5% discount for 2. So, maybe £11,000 a year to have them both cared for to the high standards you’d rightly expect, and what’s the point of me working again??
This country wants an expanding middle class, and responsible people at the helm, and women at work, and mothers to be earning and not be a burden on the state; added to which I actively WANT to work, I have a career with prospects and a tertiary education, not to mention that I’m bloody good at what I do. What assistance is available for me?
Child Benefit, at £112 a month, and that’s it. Great, I can get a long way on that!
Where’s the support? Where’s the benefit in working and putting a child into good quality care? You’re practically forced to co-opt a member of your family (which is not an option for me) as an unpaid skivvy, or pack up your job and let your brain rot.
And then, don’t get me started, you’ve got a million and one useless, fag end of creation, jobless, burdensome dole bludgers who smoke fags and drink, and have the big dish for sports, and abuse their children by depriving them of love, attention and care, and they get houses, benefits and sympathy.
Where the fuck, pardon my latin, am I supposed to get the king’s ransom it’d cost me to have another child that I dearly want and who would be so dearly loved? I hate this bloody country.
I was in a similar situation. Luckily, I can work part-time teaching at the community college and my child care can be covered by husband and mother so I work in the evenings some and do a lot on the weekends. This is a full year of me making 1/3 my normal income and we have adjusted. No Mexican vacations (thus no SCUBA) and I have seriously refined the idea of being a tightwad. For me to do childcare that I like (either at the University or Montessori) is around $800 US a month for one child as well so this is a much better option for right now for us. I will continue part-time until public schooling begins and then we may still do a private school just depends on how much we like the public program I suppose.
This is where I also seriously think the US is lagging behind civilized nations. Luckily I am in a profession where it is pretty much expected for child bearing age women to take a short ‘leave of absence’ to raise their young children. Of course, we make squat compared to other professionals so it isn’t all that much of a concession. I’m with you on needing serious child care reform laws!
I understand that in France, women are incentivised to have more than one child. And the Scandinavian countries put us to shame with their childcare provision.
Grrr!!
I’d like to expand on Mamatried’s agreement with you. It seems to me that Canada is up there with the US in this regard. Perhaps it is English speaking nations that are strange this way. (I have no clue about the NZ or Australian situations). My take on it has been that North Americans don’t like children. I mean as a society — not each and every specific North American though do consider the fact that it is pretty socially acceptable to say “I don’t like children” — I’ve heard that too many times to count.
I think you’re right, ABS. Western societies see children and their parents as a necessary evil, a regrettable but necessary break from the process of making money. Enjoy your children? Sinful! Want to spend time with them? That makes you half a person! And mentally ill, to boot! Gah.
Kids? Personally, I hates ‘em. Filthy little cretins. Like retarded little dwarves, they are.
Unfortunately, we got stuck wit’ three of them, so the missus stays home and drives herself crazy with cotton balls and glue and crayons. Yippee.
Feeling a little jaded, robodad??