Childcare crisis is not helped by lazy parenting
I feel great sympathy for the teaching assistant who stated in The Mail on Sunday last week that there is no chance of any early learning being provided to youngsters in childcare centres while all their time is being spent trying to deal with unsocialised infants in nappies. Surely this nonsense has to stop. Parents must take responsibility for their progeny until that child is, at the very least, out of nappies.
John Beckett, Farnham
My wife owned a children’s nursery for more than 14 years. The current additional funding is woefully inadequate, coupled with a country-wide shortage of qualified staff. The Government’s plan to extend free childcare from April seems hell bent on putting two-year-olds in the same class as older children with just one teacher. There is a reason for the strict ratio of teachers to children, and safeguarding is going to be completely ignored.
Sean Connolly, Stretford, Manchester
Children should be out of nappies by the age of two. Both of mine were out of them at 15 months and never had accidents. It’s just lazy parenting and the introduction of paper nappies makes it too easy now.
Ruth Edney, Preston
When I had my children 37 years
ago, I wanted to stay at home to look after them. Before we decided to have children, I made it a condition with my husband that we would need to be financially able for me to do that. The idea of me going to work and leaving my child would have been enough to cause severe anxiety. So I have the greatest sympathy for working mothers who have no choice.
Name and address supplied
The organisation and staffing of nurseries is not a parent’s responsibility. Much as I would have loved to stay at home with my daughter until she started school, the cost-of-living crisis meant that I had no choice but to return to work when she was seven months old. The UK currently has the third most expensive childcare system in the world. These additional free hours go some of the way to mitigating that, but there is much further to go.
Keeba Critchlow, Bedfordshire
I think the anonymous teaching assistant has put it in a nutshell. The place for children as young as nine months is with a family member, not in a childcare centre with 50 other children. When I became a single parent 40 years ago, there was no free childcare at all. Parents today have it so good – why on earth can’t they bring up their children for a few years?
Janet Ellis,
Soudley, Gloucestershire