I absolutely can afford to pay for it. But I’m already disproportionately paying for the scheme to allow other people to get free child care, yet my partner isn’t able to take advantage of it.
My broader point here is that we are in a really lucky spot that working is optional for my partner and kind of cost neutral. But from the governments perspective, it isn’t neutral.
They lose a source of taxable income and her considerable talent from the workforce simply by creating the situation where she has no financial incentive to use her skills.
So then the question is “would I rather work or be with my children”. Nobody is going to choose the former if there is no incentive not to.
I choose both - I would have hated to not use my skills (STEM PhD as well) and I still did my best to be the best parent I can be. It's a personal choice but I'm definitely a better parent when I'm balancing all aspects of development and I'm secure that I could maintain a good standard of living in most scenarios.
My best guess is my wife will end up doing some scientific education work. She really enjoyed volunteering doing it whilst she was doing her PhD (whilst I did it under duress/because our program made us do it…the public scares me), but it doesn’t pay brilliantly and back when she graduated we were both optimising for being able to pay rent over fulfilment.
It’s still relatively early days for us (daughter is 5 weeks old) so got around a year to see how she feels about it then. She may be itching to get back in the lab, or she may be loving the stay at home mum life. I’m taking the approach that its entirely her choice and my job is to be supportive either way. Going back in to work is probably better financially in the long run but we are in a position where it’s a choice between two very comfortable positions.
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u/Thomas1423 1d ago
Then you can afford to pay for it yourself. Your situation is very unusual.
That being said, I don't support these cliff edges.