Families Across The UK Are Forced To Bear The Cost Of Childcare No Matter The Sacrifice – Why Does The Same Not Apply To The Prime Minister?

Crippling childcare costs are forcing people to make huge sacrifices, fall into debt, or even decide not to have children. So stories about Boris Johnson asking donors to pay his childcare bill feel beyond galling, says Clare Seal.

Boris Johnson childcare costs.

by Clare Seal |
Updated on

This week, as many parents set about the monthly ritual of transferring a large portion of their income to their childcare provider, Boris Johnson’s Downing Street spokesperson declined to deny that he had asked party donors to cover the cost of a nanny for his youngest son. Following weeks of rumours and speculation about how the £200,000 refurbishment of his No. 10 flat was funded, whispers began to emerge over the weekend about other areas where the Prime Minister was allegedly trying to outsource costs. One donor is alleged by the Sunday Times to have said: 'I don't mind paying for leaflets but I resent being asked to pay to literally wipe the prime minister's baby's bottom.' Yesterday, a No 10 spokesperson said Mr Johnson had 'covered all the costs of all childcare', but pressed if that meant the money came from donors the spokesperson said he had 'nothing more to add'.

Working parents are understandably upset by this latest allegation, as family finances are stretched paper thin by childcare costs. Johnson’s prime ministerial salary of £157,372 far exceeds the earnings cap on his government’s childcare tax relief scheme, whereby any household with a partner earning more than £100,000 per year is not eligible for government help towards their childcare bill. Most people would agree that this is fair enough.

I genuinely can’t have the baby that I so desperately want, despite working full time, because I simply cannot afford maternity leave and then childcare.

But it is not the high earners who will be feeling most aggrieved - it is the parents who have scrimped and scraped to afford nursery fees, who have taken on debt in order to be able to go back to work or, in some cases, the people who have decided not to become parents at all, for fear that they simply won’t be able to finance it. Becky, who is twenty-nine, is one of these people for whom the financial cost is a barrier to starting a family: 'I genuinely can’t have the baby that I so desperately want, despite working full time, because I simply cannot afford maternity leave and then childcare. I’ve crunched all of the numbers, and we just can’t make it work. Unfortunately, I know this isn’t a unique situation.'

For people who do choose to have children despite the considerable costs involved, it can often feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Many women - and it is still mainly women making these sacrifices - find themselves returning to work after maternity leave having compromised in some way, and with their take-home pay barely covering their childcare costs, or having to change jobs to fit their work around their parenting responsibilities. Informal childcare arrangements, where a friend or family member can look after your child while you work, have been made considerably more difficult by the pandemic, and pose problems even at the best of times - what if your childcare provider falls ill, for example? Another option is to take a career break until your child is eligible for further funding or ready to start school, but this comes with its own concerns - questions around employability, fear of losing skills and diminished professional confidence, let alone a big hole in your pension and national insurance contributions.

If we were to pay childcare out whilst I was working daytime hours, I would have been left with £18 per week from my wages.

Some families find a way round things, working opposite shifts, sacrificing annual leave and missing out on time together in order to keep those bills down. Jayne* has four children and lives in the West Midlands. 'I had to work nights to actually make working worthwhile,' she says. 'If we were to pay childcare out whilst I was working daytime hours, I would have been left with £18 per week from my wages. So I gave up my day job and my husband stayed at home with the children while I worked my 8pm to 8am shift - it was the only way to make my work worthwhile.' This isn’t an option for some - in particular one-parent families, who have nobody to shift-swap with, making the balance even harder.

For others still, even adapting work patterns to reduce the amount of childcare needed isn’t enough to keep the financial worries at bay, which is a feeling I recognise from my own experience. Childcare costs were a huge factor in the £27,000 of debt that first pushed me to start writing about money, with our childcare bill of £1,100 per month (for one child) outstripping even our rent. And I’m not the only one who’s been left in the red trying to afford to work. 'Childcare costs have completely floored us financially,' says Laura, 'and a combination of that plus reduced hours has caused us to accumulate significant debt over the past few years - I wish I had a wealthy donor to ask for help'

Don’t we all. With childcare costs a constant worry for so many working parents, how can we be expected to support a Prime Minister who reportedly thinks that his own care expenses should be someone else’s problem?

READ MORE: Colossal Childcare Costs Mean Parents Are Giving Up Their Careers

READ MORE: My Frugal Year Reveals Her Identity: ‘I’m Still £19k In Debt But I Don’t Want To Hide Anymore’

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