Hands out for handouts

A QUARTER of working mums have been plunged into debt due to the crippling cost of childcare, a recent report has revealed.

The survey of 4,000 working parents found that two-thirds say they can't afford not to work, but struggle to pay for childcare.
Mums claim they are fighting a desperate battle to keep financially afloat as childcare costs are rocketing, but their salaries are not.
The report, published jointly by two charities – the Daycare Trust and Save the Children – comes at a time when childcare costs have never been higher.

We have to assume that these mums (Not parents, note) wanted these children and planned ahead for them?

The average cost of full-time childcare is £385 a month, but this rises to £729 for children under two.
Part-time care comes in at £193 a month, or £364 for the under-twos.

So why so expensive? It's because after a sick freak killed a couple of kids, the shouty media went into overload and a hideous government who thought civil liberties were a plaything to be toyed with a will, decided everyone who even looks at a child needs to pay for a piece of paper that says they are fit to do so.

These pieces of paper cannot be transferred from one job to another and they don't last all that long. That means childcare companies need to keep shelling out fees and the government gets a big keerrrchiing!

Mum-of-two Verity Ryan, 37, of Darwen, a full-time shop assistant at Heaven Sent, on Blackburn Market, said: “I have ended up below the breadline by going out to work over the years and paying for childcare
"The tax credits you receive aren’t enough. My children, who are 11 and 16 now, went to after-school club and it cost me £90-a-week just for that. It’s so expensive.

The wage of a shop assistant on Blackburn market can't be a lot. Where is the children's father in all this? No mention is made throughout this article about male wages contributing to the upbringing of these children. Are men just sperm donors these days?

True enough the tax credit system is rubbish; a lower tax rate would be much simpler, although you yell "Tax credits aren't enough" like you expect the rest of us to be footing your bill for raising your children.

“Lots of my friends never went back to work after maternity leave because they couldn’t afford to pay someone to look after their children and finding jobs to fit around your children is nearly impossible so they gave up their careers.”

Now these are the people that didn't think long and hard before having children. If they had they would have weighed up the cost of childcare and decided to have children at that time, only if they could afford it.

These people didn't think. They simply said, "It's my human right to have have children so I'm doing it. If I can't afford them, I expect the taxpayer to stump up the cash".

Anand Shukla, chief executive of the Daycare Trust, said: “We hear from parents every day who are being forced to make difficult decisions about their career and family life as a result of Britain’s high childcare costs. Parents are being forced out of work.”
The study says the number of women opting to look after their children, instead of doing paid employment, has risen by 32,000 since last summer.

Parents are not being forced out of work. They are making the choice to move from employment to benefits because the system will give them more money. Money which they need because they made an ill judged choice to have children when they couldn't afford to do so.

There is no force in play here, it's all down to choices, good or bad. Such as this one -

Kirstie Howson, 18, is starting at Blackburn University later this month, where her five-month-old daughter will receive free child care, but she worries about the future. “I want to go to uni to get a good job, but I don’t know how I’ll pay for childcare when I start working. I wouldn’t be able to go to uni if I couldn’t get help with paying for childcare. It’s a worry.”

What worries me is how many teenagers don't know how to keep their legs shut. We really need to stop throwing money at these irresponsible people. "“I want to go to uni to get a good job, but I don’t know how I’ll pay for childcare when I start working".  And whose fucking fault is that? Hopefully you are doing a worthwhile course at university and you will knuckle down to it rather than getting pissed every night. If that happens then you probably could get a good job and afford childcare without putting your hand out. It would be one way to make up for the mistake of not knowing how to use a johnny at the age of eighteen.

Jennifer Simpson, 34, [...] said she’d have to get a second job to fund child care if it wasn’t for her parents’ help.
She said: “My family have always looked after my seven-year-old son so I can work, but if they couldn’t do that, I’d have to get another part-time job.”

There's another one that doesn't appear to have a husband/father in the picture.

Mum-of-five Asma Sidat, 31, of Blackburn, added: “I’ve only just started working again now my youngest is at school. I have to work part-time so I can collect them from school. I can’t afford to work full-time because of the cost of childcare. It is limiting women’s working lives.”

No love. You're the problem here. Keep popping them kids out and holding out your hand a bit further each time. If you were dumb enough not to plan ahead the first time, at least that should have taught you how expensive raising a child actually is.

Why did you do it again, another four times?