When a baby lands, it’s all hands on deck. Midwife, birth partner, friends bearing casserole dishes and, if you are lucky, your folks.
This week the company Saga has cemented the importance of Granny and Granddad with one week of paid leave for all grandparents when that baby arrives. Sure, on the surface, one week sounds like a minimal amount of time. But this new 'perk' speaks volumes about parental leave and the escalating importance of our own parents in the childcare ecosystem.
You see more mothers work now than ever before - three-quarters of mothers are now in work - and this is a number that is growing annually. When you set aside the dropping rates of paternity leave and the low uptake in shared parental leave, all of a sudden Saga's new policy becomes a lifeline.
Gran and Gramps are papering over the cracks of eye-wateringly expensive childcare. Research from Age UK found that 40% of grandparents in the UK have provided regular childcare for their grandchildren. And the reality is that without the help and support of grandparents, we would see the costs of childcare pushing even more women out of the workplace.
Saga is simply giving our folks permission to help us as we raise kids in a world that values men's work higher than women - with women being paid on average 40% less. They are filling the holes of a warped system that doesn’t recognise that supporting the childcare sector can help more women work - can help the economy ‘Build Back Better’ as Boris Johnson is so keen to do.
The reality is, the childcare sector in the UK is on its knees – one in 6 nurseries closed this year – and many women cannot afford to pay for childcare and so they cannot work. So frankly new parents need all the help that they can get. It’s all hands - young and old - on deck.
While this new policy isn't a golden egg, it is a conversation starter. It is recognition of the ways we are Sellotaping over the childcare holes that we desperately need increased funding to solve. Grandparents having one week of paid leave isn't going to fix our crumbling childcare sector, but supporting this generation who are already helping to hold up the knackered infrastructure, and recognising this, is a good thing, indeed.
But at this point spare a thought for those who don’t have the support of their own mum and dad. Have a moment for the single mother without family support raising the next generation. The cracks in our childcare system are glaringly wide and many are falling through them.