Writing for life

Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 16/05/2007

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am. Then I read another article in the paper about the endless cycle of commute-work-commute that’s wreaking havoc with the lives of so many young parents, and breathe a huge sigh of relief that we abandoned the rat-race when we did.

For too many couples today the arrival of a baby is fraught with more than the usual parental dilemma’s of dirty nappies, sleepless nights and colic. Baby has no sooner arrived, than poor mum and dad are racked by financial concerns. They’d love for one of them to stay at home to look after the little one – but the numbers just don’t add up. As soon as mum’s maternity leave is over she’s off back to work to help make the exorbitant mortgage repayments. After all, they have to keep a roof over the new arrival’s head.

Of course, the new baby has to be looked after while both parents are in work and the provision of – or more to the point the lack of – quality childcare and nursery places in this country has become a hot political issue in the run up to the current general election (although interestingly not much has been said about it during the campaign itself).

For busy working parents it’s one of the most important issues on the political agenda. In a nationwide childcare survey by the website Recruitireland.com back in November 2006, more than 72% of respondents said that their vote in the 2007 election would be influenced by progress on childcare issues. 66% believed the current government had performed poorly on the issue, and 80% said that the annual payment of €1,000 to offset childcare costs was an inadequate response. For many young parents this is a crisis issue.

Now it’s crunch time – the election is upon us, and if the November survey is anything to go by, parents around the country will be voting according to the availability and cost of childcare in their constituencies. But are more childcare places really the answer?
So many parents are caught on the wrong side of the work/life divide that they don’t stop to think whether what they’re doing is necessarily the best thing, for them or their young families. They’re entrenched in a never ending cycle of commute-work-commute – struggling to maintain a standard of living that’s destroying their quality of life.
There has to be a better way!

In the UK parents are beginning to have second thoughts about putting their babies and toddlers into childcare. Since Labour came to power there in 1997 they’ve introduced a staggering 1.2 million new childcare places for the very young – but a report by market analysts Laing and Buisson shows that last year nearly a quarter of UK nursery places went unfilled. Mums, and the occasional dad, are electing to stay home to take care of their own babies and young toddlers. They’re sacrificing income for something infinitely more valuable.

Children need love and attention – and they need it from their parents above all. Encouraging young parents to abandon their children and re-enter the workforce to generate more tax revenue and pay for more childcare isn’t the answer. Parents need help: help like extended parental leave, tax breaks and incentives that make it viable for a family to survive on a single income for at least the first two years of a child’s life. Now there’s a policy that would win any party the parental vote!

Technorati Tags: Irish politics, parenting, childcare, Evening Echo