Sir, – I was so saddened to read Fiona Ellis’s article (“Being a working mother is a horror show at times. The stress can be crippling“, Life & Style, September 23rd). How awful to think we have moved to this point in our society.
I can’t imagine any parent can possibly work to their full potential in their employment while they are checking in on their little ones on “grainy CCTV footage from the creche”.
Sadly, successive governments have failed to place any value on childcare when it comes directly from a parent themselves. Back in 2016/17 the foundations of the current National Childcare Scheme were introduced to much fanfare to assist with the spiralling cost of childcare, yet one can only access this support if the child care is provided by a creche or registered childminder.
However, if a parent decides to take time out from the “horror show” of juggling work and children that this writer so powerfully described, and actually take care of their children themselves, they are on their own.
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Stay-at-home parents, operating already on just one income, are being taxed more punitively than dual income families as a result of the tax individualisation policy introduced in 2000 to increase the number of women employed outside the home.
The home carer tax credit, supposedly there to support such families, is but a mere drop in the ocean, valued currently at just €1,950 per family and limited to married or civil partners.
It is no wonder that parents who wish to take a pause in their career to stay at home with their children for a period are now being priced out of the market. Stay-at-home parenting is becoming a thing of the past. Unaffordable for most, sadly.
Surely it is now time, almost 10 years on from this scheme’s introduction, finally to consider extending the subsidies to include the most natural childcare provider of all, the parent themselves? – Yours, etc,
CATHERINE WALSH,
Stay at Home Parents Association,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – As a mother working full-time with a one-year-old and a three-year-old, I read Fiona Ellis’s piece with a lot of recognition and sympathy, and I’m grateful to her for writing with honesty and vulnerability.
Her experience will be familiar to many readers. Too often, as women, we blame ourselves as individuals when we are working within a system that sets us up to fail.
Mothers here are entitled to 26 weeks of maternity leave; fathers get two weeks of paternity leave, paid at a flat rate many families can’t afford to live on.
The imbalance in parenting roles starts from day one, when the mother becomes the default parent, the one the GP, the creche and everyone else calls, even, as my partner and I have learned, when the father is listed as the first contact.
And it doesn’t stop there. There is no paid leave for when a child is sick, so those days fall to whoever earns less. Parents have only a right to request flexible or remote working, which employers can refuse, and creche fees remain among the highest in Europe, with long waiting lists for places.
The reality is when childcare costs almost a full salary, it is usually the mother who cuts her hours, which she pays for at retirement age with a smaller pension.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In Iceland, each parent gets six months of well-paid leave, only six weeks of which can be transferred to the other.
The upcoming budget is a chance to begin closing the gap here with properly paid, longer paternity leave, paid leave for sick children, a real right to flexible work, and affordable, available childcare.
Tackled together, these would lift much of the burden and mental load that mothers like us carry. – Yours, etc,
MAEDBH KING,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
