REPORT: 20 September 2024
What do mums want from the early years?
Eleanor Vivian and Fiona Mackenzie MBE
“Our government’s single-minded push to maximise the working hours of mothers has left today’s mums with no choice, no ‘balance’ and no village: just work.”
Today’s big policy offer to women is low cost childcare so mums can work more after a baby. But is that what they want? Polling suggests not. We wanted to know why, so we asked them.
Mums told us they want family friendly work, more parenting time (not less) with young children, an economy that allows for care, and a village of support. Much of this is not new, it just now needs to be delivered. This is not a fringe issue, birth rates have slumped but most young women want children. We must make the UK the best place for them to be a mum.
What our mums told us: the headlines.
69% of mums viewed the proposed childcare expansion negatively, and 40% gave it 0 out of 10 on “making me feel listened to and valued as a mother”.
87% of mums of infants said they wouldn’t want to work more hours - if finances allowed.
Mums do want to work – on their terms. Only 9% would give up work if money were no issue.
Mums taking career pauses to care in the early years reported greatest satisfaction with how they spend their time, followed by part time working mothers.
This is not news: consistently, polling says the same – but for the first time we asked mums WHY they need a totally different offer from Government.
We’re a non-partisan think tank developing policy in women’s interests. Mums gave us 582 stories, 23 interviews and 8 named case studies, and they show how motherhood has changed, at the same time as the policy offered to mums has withered from the promise of the 21st Century.
Mums say they want:
1. More time with their children in the crucial and formative early years.
“Before I had a baby I thought that the free nursery offer was fabulous. Now I’m a parent, I really wish I had the option to stay home with my baby for longer.”
Mums told us that full-time working left them with only two hours a day with infants. UK Maternity pay and leave is pitifully low, and mums cut maternity leave short, needing two incomes to get along. We now know that at least the first 3 years – not just the first year – are vital for later life outcomes. We want to give families time: a new parental leave approach to TRIPLE time that parents can opt to spend in the early years: and grandparents too.
2. A jobs market which reflects the needs, availability and talent of mothers.
“I had to leave my well-paid job because they didn’t allow part-time hours, and the cost of childcare was more than my mortgage… things need to change… it can’t be work full-time or not at all.”
For decades, government sought to maximise working hours of mothers, but didn’t change work to accommodate them. This policy left parents needing long hours of paid childcare, and skilled mums stuck in low quality part time roles. We say we must make quality part time work and flexibility happen this time, for mums and dads and grandparents – starting with a major review of working practices and rights.
3. An economy that affords a family – with incomes & housing costs to match
"I know exactly why people aren’t having children, I am certainly not planning more, and it’s not tenable for my husband and I to both work and pay for poor quality child-care. We were on a decent household income, and still not getting what we need.”
We ask for a national conversation on how we afford children: we must pay parental leave properly, make families’ taxes and pensions make sense - and fix wages and housing, to break the need for parents to need two full time incomes to get by in the early years.
4. The village: rebuilding of parenting support and communities.
“There is absolutely no playschool type provision that my own mother benefitted from in the 80’s… I live in a rural area, and worried… that I might be judged for being a lesbian mother; I was completely wrong, I’m judged endlessly for being a stay-at-home mum.”
Maximising families’ time at work means no volunteer-run groups. We must support parents to parent – with revival of the brilliant Sure Start style programmes. And if we give families time to care in the early years, we may see the village of informal support rebuild.
5. To value mothers and their views: they do not believe that Westminster understands what they need.
“The current reform feels like it's just to benefit the economy and has not been designed with families in mind. I want more options to participate in the workforce and be with my child.”
Westminster views mothers’ time with children as wasted: ‘economic inactivity’, or a ‘penalty’. Mums disagree. We must think better about this – with the ambitious return of policy which responds to real lives and better metrics than GDP and Motherhood Penalties. And any policy must give parents choice: like Family Credit to care themselves or use for nursery.