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Child Care News for Parents & Carers
July 2, 2014
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Are you guilty of sending your kids to school when they're under the weather for fear of missing a work day? Working mums constantly worry they'll be penalised for taking days off with kids. We let you know your rights and how to manage. And with the ever increasing cost of child care making it almost not worth working we look at a low cost alternative to formal care - kid swapping.
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| Sharing the load & community spirit
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Swap kids to combat child care costs
A recent report in the Daily Telegraph of an investigation into the soaring costs of child care in Australia has revealed some full-time working mums are going back to work for as little as $3.44 an hour, the equivalent of a cup of coffee.
After they've taken childcare costs into consideration, not to mention income tax and other work related expenses, there is very little in the pot to make it worth going to work at all.
The Childcare Affordability in Australia report, prepared by AMP and the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, shows increases in the costs of child care have outstripped petrol price rises over the last five years.
"(Childcare) prices have increased sharply, they've gone up by more than twice what rent has, and three times the Consumer Price Index, so that's a challenge for government and families over the next few years because there is no magic way of making child care cheaper," NATSEM's principal research fellow Ben Phillips said.
So with the soaring cost of child care as well as other living expenses, together with the increase in part time work, surely one very sensible and cost-effective way to combat the lack of financial viability of going back to work is to go back to the old school community principle of sharing child care with other mothers in the community.
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| Have you sent your sick kid to child care?
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What are the rules for time off for sick kids?
By Sophie Cross
The minute my daughter complains of feeling sick or having a headache on a work day, I have to admit that my first reaction is to say: "You'll be fine. You can't be sick today, because I have lots of work on/a meeting. I really don't want to get a call to come and get you later either".
I'm not proud of this. It makes me feel mean and a bad mother every time, even if I suspect that said child is possibly putting it on or not quite as poorly as she is making out.
But there is this innate fear in everyone that having to take time off with sick children is going to affect your job, career and relationship with your colleagues or boss. It makes you feel guilty for being a parent. Which let's face it is utterly ridiculous.
Working mothers regularly send children to child care or school sick, because they don't feel able to take time off looking after them.
Researchers in a recent study found four out of 10 employed mums have sent their child to school when he or she wasn't feeling well, because they felt unable to take the day off.
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