Courtney McGrailDear Editor, Minister Katherine Zappone’s childcare scheme unfairly discriminates against stay-at-home parents. This is both unfair financially and disastrously flawed socially.
The scheme sees parents who are both earning the median industrial wage, with two children in daycare, increase their previous yearly net income of €32,542 by €1920 (after tax and childcare costs). Meanwhile, a similar family, except that the mother leaves paid employment to care for their children at home, gains €100 per year, though their net income was already lower at just €29,000 even before the budget. This scheme blatantly incentivises paid childcare, not parental choice in childcare, especially to low-income earners.
But this scheme is not just about euros in our pockets.
It raises the question whether Irish society values, or devalues, the work and contribution of parents who take care of their own children at home during their early years. Before abandoning this model in favour of a model where childcare by paid professionals is the norm, we could look to Sweden where that drastic social experiment has already been carried out – and failed.
In spite of the material prosperity of the country, the Swedish commentator Jonas Himmelstrand wrote last year that “Sweden has youth with poor psychological health and poor school results, and stressed parents with weak parenting skills…Many Swedish parents panic when their child turns one.
“They feel there is no way they can possibly cater for the needs of their child. They simply must go to daycare.”
He adds that “a generation of parents…have been led to believe daycare, school, and before- and after-school activities will do a good share of the parenting and furthermore, do it better than they can. This is the most destructive message in the whole Swedish daycare scheme.”
If we want to imitate Sweden, by all means celebrate Zappone’s scheme.
If instead we want to empower Irish parents to fulfil their role to decide and enact what is best for their own children, it must be reformed in a more balanced way.
Yours etc.,
Ruth Foley,
Clondalkin, Dublin 22.