If Boris Johnson Can’t Afford A Nanny, Has He Considered A Childminder?

'I've compiled a shortlist, all for an average of £6.50 an hour - or 0.004% of Boris' £150,000 salary,' says Isabel Mohan.

Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds

by Rhiannon Evans |
Updated on

The Covid childcare crisis has been well-documented - nurseries and childminders were closed to all but key workers for months, and many parents are still juggling childcare costs and availability alongside their potentially compromised incomes - but until now I had no idea it was on Boris Johnson’s personal list of problems, presumably somewhere between 'attempting to run a country during a pandemic' and 'just can’t do a thing with my hair'.

According to recent reports, the Prime Minister and his partner Carrie Symonds are 'struggling' to afford a nanny - and this has exposed the fact that, while swathes of ordinary working parents have been scrambling around, a privileged few have continued to lean on unregulated nannies throughout because the more official childcare options just aren’t on their radars.

It might be difficult to sympathise with someone on a six-figure salary not being to afford, well, anything, but we all know that any drop in income can feel brutal whatever the circumstances, whether you’re currently unemployed, furloughed, self-employed and lacking work, on a reduced salary while your company tries to find its feet, just generally worried about the future, or if, like Boris, you have recently expanded your family and taken a significant pay cut.

READ MORE: Can Grandparents Provide Childcare And Hug Their Grandchildren During Coronavirus Restrictions?

I’m not saying that the PM has huge amounts in common with someone on a zero hours, minimum wage contract in the service industry, but… OK, I’m going to end this comparison here, as they have nothing in common and it would be insulting and patronising to suggest they did. But apparently Boris and Carrie are feeling the pinch because he 'only' gets paid £150,000 a year to run the country and she’s on mat leave with baby Wilfred.

Previously he took a rumoured £275,000 a year for his Telegraph column (definitely in line with what they occasionally pay me to write reviews of reality TV shows) as well as fees for public speaking engagements - neither of which he’s allowed to do as PM - plus he has… counts furiously... several… children to support, so we can see that his plummeting income could be a bit of an issue, in their somewhat hard to relate to world. But I’m keen to let Boris and others of similar pedigree know that - get this - nannies aren’t crucial.

I’m not knocking nannies - I’ve dabbled myself and it was awesome; ours was so universally kind and caring that she once rescued a really ugly baby pigeon she found floundering in the street and hand-reared it until it was ready to be set free - but they are expensive. There are other options that offer many of the benefits but without the hefty price tag.

I work for tiney, a start-up reinventing the childminding industry, and it’s become clear during my time here that many people have no flipping idea what a childminder is. Take the brilliant MP Jess Phillips for instance - when tweeting about the very issue of Boris’s childcare woes, she asked, 'Does a nanny always live in? Or is it just a fancy word for childminder?' and this is a common misconception.

Be aware there is life beyond Mary Poppins. Modern childminders are smart, caring, qualified, located around every corner and incredibly affordable.

In their ever-confusing Covid guidance, the government even used 'childminder' as a blanket term for all people who care for children for a living, which isn’t accurate at all and caused huge amounts of confusion within the early years industry - so for the benefit of Jess and anyone else feeling bewildered, please allow me to explaintiney.

Nannies are unregulated and don’t need any specific qualifications - first aid training, DBS checks and childcare certificates are merely a nice-to-have: you could list yourself as a nanny on one of the many informal childcare platforms today and, if you can string a sentence together and have a friendly face, you would probably get enquiries from frazzled parents with money to spend. Nannies sometimes live in but, more often these days, have their own place and just come to your house to care for your children while you scrutinise your own nose on Zoom, or run the country.

A childminder, on the other hand, is a proper profession. They have to train - they can do this through the council, or they can sign up with an agency like tiney and get lots of support with admin and marketing - and undergo lots of safeguarding training. They are inspected regularly, they follow the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage - the same framework used by nurseries and schools) and they work from their own homes, which they transform into often magnificent micro-nurseries. Many of the childminders on our books (actually, it’s an app) are ex-teachers and teaching assistants, others come from diverse professions - from city workers to florists - while some are the kind of mums who make you feel inadequate on Instagram because they can effortlessly whip up toast in the shape of Paddington Bear. And quite a few are actually former nannies who now want to run their own business from their living room.

READ MORE: The Truth About How Much Childcare Costs Differ Around The World

Childminders also offer a natural bubble of sorts - basically they invented the rule of six, since that’s how many under-8s they’re allowed to care for at once (three can be under five, and only one can be a baby under a year old) - which is why many parents are seeing it as an option they feel comfortable with in this gloomy, virus-stricken world. At tiney over the past few months, we’ve seen a surge of interest from both prospective childminders and parents interested in signing them up. But still, the industry is misunderstood, because back when we were kids, a childminder was usually just your mum’s nice mate who’d pick you up from school and stick you in front of Blue Peter with a Wagon Wheel and a beaker of squash.

I’m not entirely sure what Boris and Carrie spend all their money on - although I have noted that she has some pretty nice dresses and he has recently taken on a 'celebrity' personal trainer - but I’d like them to be aware that there is life beyond Mary Poppins. Modern childminders are smart, caring, qualified, located around every corner and incredibly affordable compared to other childcare options. In this changing world of remote working and uncertain finances, they need to be championed.

Since we all know that Boris and Carrie are busy people, I’ve done some of the legwork for them and have compiled a shortlistof fantastic London childminders, all within a couple of miles of Downing Street, speaking dozens of different languages between them, offering ready-made playmates for Wilfred, home-cooked meals, outdoor play, creative activities and all of London’s wonderful parks on their doorstep… and all for an average of £6.50 an hour - or 0.004% of his £150,000 salary. You’re welcome, Boris.

If you’re interested in joining tiney’s community of brilliant early years educators, or hiring one for your own family, you can find out more here.

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