Don’t devalue us mothers at home
LAST Saturday, the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed organised a ‘March of the Mummies’ in 11 cities to demand reform of the UK childcare system. our organisation, Mothers At Home Matter, was set up 30 years ago in the face of increasing pressure for mothers to return to work before they or their children were ready. We campaign to give mothers the choice and confidence to care for their own children at home. one thing angering mothers is grief at not being able to be with their children. When economic necessity steals you from them, it adds insult to injury if most of your wages are spent on childcare — in other words, paying someone else to usurp our precious privileges: the first steps, the funny words, the infectious laugh, the awesome questions.
We sympathise with the call for more taxpayer funding for childcare, but only if this does not further discriminate against and deny mothers treasured childcare time of their own. It is easy to forget that the same families needing financial help are also taxpayers. To take tax revenue from a family and hand it back as childcare, but only if that care is outsourced, denies families the freedom to choose what is best for them.
In fact, 80 per cent of people still think it is ideal for one parent to be at home — but only 10 per cent can now afford the simple family arrangement our grandparents took for granted. Governments have been instrumental in stealing that choice. raising children is important work, not the ‘burden’ bandied about in political debates, hindering mothers from ‘more productive’ work and ‘wasting their talents’. That nurturing roles are not recognised as contributing to the economy does not mean the contribution does not exist. It is time to change the narrative, give mothers more choice and start a new revolution that values care provided at home.