The post Ending Britain’s childcare arms race appeared first on Anglican Mainstream. by Miriam Cates, Artillery Row: What is the end goal of extending childcare provision? In the UK, childcare has become something of a political football. The two...
The post Ending Britain’s childcare arms race appeared first on Anglican Mainstream.
by Miriam Cates, Artillery Row:
What is the end goal of extending childcare provision?
In the UK, childcare has become something of a political football. The two major Parties are locked in a childcare arms race, competing to offer more and more hours of “free” childcare to parents of young children.
In March, the Chancellor of the Exchequer raised the stakes, committing to extend full time state-funded childcare provision to babies from the age of nine months in a considerable expansion of the current offer for over threes. Last week Labour hit back, outlining plans to create thousands of new nursery places as part of a “modernised childcare system” available from the end of parental leave (usually around six months). It seems the consensus political plan for babies is a few short months at home before being handed over to the State so that mummy and daddy can get on with the important national endeavour of generating GDP.
Because let’s be honest, while policymakers sometimes claim that childcare policies are about education — as if toddlers require formal instruction that only someone with official qualifications can be trusted to provide — the truth is that free childcare is all about getting parents back to work.
Now there may be good reasons for this, such as helping families to increase their income and concerns for national economic growth. But let’s not pretend that these motivations include the long-term best interests of children.
Infants may not be a target audience for politicians but, if the voting age was reduced to zero, (maybe one day in Scotland), my bet is that babies would not vote to be taken from their mothers and put in the care of strangers for hours and hours every day.
Perhaps surprisingly, this seems to be a contentious thing to say, especially on Twitter where a post I wrote to this effect on Friday has had 2.4 million views and counting. I may be new to this platform but I do know that going viral is not usually an indication of popularity. The Twittersphere — and the “progressive” establishment — very much wants to believe that it doesn’t make any difference who looks after babies and children, because it allows the unhindered pursuit of the liberal dream of full individual autonomy and the socialist dream of universal participation in the workforce.
But in reality, it does matter who looks after a baby. There is a wealth of evidence to support the importance for babies of a secure attachment with a single caregiver — normally the biological mother — and the negative consequences of this attachment being disrupted. For the State to actively encourage mothers back to the workplace as soon as possible is to completely devalue the irreplaceable role of mothering in the crucial first two years of a child’s life. It is also increasingly clear that there can be negative long-term impacts of long hours in institutional childcare for infants. There are many skilled and dedicated early years professionals, but as far as babies are concerned, mothers are not fungible.
The post Ending Britain’s childcare arms race appeared first on Anglican Mainstream.
