Don’t treat au pairs as skivvies, and pay up

FOR parents today there is no issue guaranteed to get us quite as hot under the collar as childcare. We have plenty of ideas about how the burden can be eased – none of which, it has to be said, affects our own pockets in a negative way. These include heavily subsidising it so that we can enjoy a Nordic-style model, with the State intervening to make life easier for our hard-pressed, dual-income families; meaning the taxpayer should cough up more for our privileges.

However, the endless demand for more ‘affordable childcare’, which really means cheaper childcare, betrays a Tiger-era sense of entitlement and a grubby and tightfisted attitude to those who take on the important role of carers on our behalf.

A good childminder can make the difference between a stable and sociable youngster and one who is insecure and ignored for hours on end.

No money can truly pay for that dedication, yet we expect it to come cheap.

If we really valued the work our carers do then we would not pay working-class woman as little as we can get away with – or squabble with them over the cost of petrol for the school run.

We would not be so desperate to cut our childcare bill to the bone that we’d exploit au pairs.

The Spanish au pair who became effectively her family’s domestic servant-cum-nanny, working 30 to 60 hours a week for €100, showed how au pair schemes have become a funnel for the economic exploitation of young women.

Unwittingly, perhaps, a prominent columnist has revealed a startling upstairs-downstairs attitude to the job, mocking his au pair’s baking skills in print as well as her disastrous attempts to iron his table cloth.

He seemed to think that his au pair was a skivvy, never once mentioning whether she was fond of his children or indeed the princely sum she was paid.

But his dismissive view of his au pair is fairly commonplace.

Parents think nothing of demanding impeccable round-the-clock service from carers yet they resentfully describe them as a continual ‘drain’ on their income – as if their children’s welfare was an avoidable expense, like a gas guzzling super car that costs a fortune to keep on the road. They fume that their childcare bill represents a second mortgage but, unless they are advocating slave labour, surely that’s at least what 40 hours’ work costs?

They say that, financially, childcare does not make it worth their while working, yet they persevere with careers, while often having a choice.

Now it’s true that all is not perfect in the childcare industry, despite some massive improvements since I became a client.

The free preschool year is a resounding success and our seldom-mentioned generous child benefit rates also help defray costs.

Yet there still needs to be regulation, so new mothers don’t have to scour the ads in SuperValu as if minders were like handymen or gardeners.

There could be a tax benefit for those who use crèches or pay minders legitimately rather than propping up the black economy.

But the last time anything like that was tried there was uproar from stay-at-home mothers who started shouting discrimination.

Doubtless, this time round, older mothers who shouldered the burden with almost no taxpayer supports will demonstrate the same begrudging attitude.

Any increase in taxation seems similarly doomed, given the catastrophe of Irish Water.

Perhaps parents should just grow up and accept that childcare is a costly service. We may have to give up nice holidays or good furniture to pay for it – but that’s just tough.

We have something that is worth its weight in gold instead – the luxury of knowing our children are well looked after while we are working.