CHILDCARE

Topic 1 and Topic 2

Topic 1: Letter to the Editor:

Not Free but Affordable Childcare is the Solution

The Editor

The Telegraph

While striving for the “strivers' vote”, the Labour party's promise for the provision of 25 hour free childcare for children of ages 3 and 4 of working parents has made the stay-at-home mothers quite irate. They say the policy is quite biased. The favours extended to the working mothers should in no way make the stay-at-home moms consider themselves as a matter of less concern. This is clearly a negation of the rights of equality about which we talk so boastfully. Hence, the conflicting situation suggests itself that the childcare should be made affordable instead of being totally free.

The living crisis resulting from high childcare costs is because the childcare facilities are charging unfairly. The mothers, who want to work but are hampered due to the high costs of childcare as mentioned by Lucy Powell, need a safe, affordable and flexible childcare instead of a totally free one. Therefore, the government should devise ways for cutting down the costs instead of making it free by loading the burden somewhere else and simultaneously inviting the wrath of some other group of people who play an equal significant role in the upbringing of a child.

Besides generating a feeling of being neglected among the mothers who have chosen not to work for one reason or the other, free childcare provision has other disadvantages too. More working women may also imply lesser job opportunities for fathers. The long staying-away hours of the children from the parents is also not an appreciable aspect. Children need their parents especially mothers. There is no denying to the fact that a mother is a child's first school.

The policies made for the people should be such that they generate no ill feelings ...