Fight for free childcare, decent fully paid parental leave, and socialist change

Katie Simpson, Northampton Socialist Party

I was 19 years old, it was 2007, when I realised that I wanted to be a parent.

Unfortunately, it was the same year that the largest financial crisis hit in my lifetime. Not through any fault of their own, but unemployment and austerity left families struggling.

Shows like Benefit Street were commonplace on my TV. I remember seeing the scorn in the papers towards these parents.

‘Lazy, work-shy, skivers’. All of these terms for families just trying to get by. Many already had children before the financial crisis. I remember thinking: “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be one of those people.”

So myself and many in my generation decided to forgo having children, until much later in life. I had my first child at 34. My second at 38. Almost 20 years after I first determined I wanted children.

Caring for the next generation is still too expensive. Inflation has put food costs through the roof, not to mention school clothes and supplies, basics at home, and the additional rent required for larger properties.

On top, childcare costs that are so extortionate that parents can’t afford to return to work. Governments and councils have repeatedly cut and destroyed services, particularly for disabled children, that parents rely on.

The phrase “it takes a village” is common, as people recognise that trying to raise children as a couple or a single parent is an enormous struggle, even without the financial pressures that we currently have.

A slump in global birth rates has panicked capitalist economists, with some demanding we have larger families. This pressure has fuelled a new misogyny and sexism towards women.

What started in 2007 as an attack on women who have children outside of marriage or to multiple fathers, is now an attack on women not having children, not being ‘traditional’ mothers in the home. More women and mothers work than ever before.

We need good, flexible, free childcare, publicly owned and run. We need to bring back Sure Start centres that were cut through austerity.

Two weeks paid paternity leave is not sufficient time for fathers’ to support their family, especially with increasing numbers of babies being born via C-section. Paid paternity leave should be massively expanded. And maternity pay needs to be 100% for a year to avoid families falling into financial hardship.

Women and couples should be able to decide how many children they want to have, and when they want to have them. Whether they want to work full-time, part-time, or be stay-at-home parents. Not because of the needs or pressures of capitalism, but to fulfil their own aspirations for their lives. Only a socialist system can allow this kind of freedom to women and families.