One and done – why Working Mums and Dads deserve free ECE and 12months maternity leave
‘We can’t afford to have another child’: Why more Kiwi families are one and done
Courtney Hatcher has a 1-year-old and would happily have more kids.
“We can’t afford to have another child. We would have liked one more if money wasn’t an issue. It just wouldn’t be financially responsible, sadly.”
The 24-year-old from Wellington blamed the cost of living crisis.
“Groceries, kids stuff, Christmas, birthdays … It’s hard to find part-time work and it looks unprofessional to take my 16-month-old to interviews.”
Stuff
Of course it is bloody expensive having kids!
We are locked into this paradigm of the free market where we import migrant workers because we have stripped away any cocoon to raise our own kids in and the second they gain tertiary qualifications they flee over seas to pay off the student debt requiring more migrant workers to be imported!
The 40 year neoliberal experiment in NZ has been a disaster and if we are not prepared to confront that reality, we are doomed.
The state has an obligation in a country as rich as this to provide cradle to the grave subsidisation.
The root cause of pay parity issues is the biological fact women have babies.
Counter that by investing seriously into ECE and maternity leave.
Why should a couple of private Christian providers price gouge the entire sector?
To counter the cost of having kids and building up our own population we should have:
- Free school lunches in every school
- Free student use of public transport
- Nationalise ECE and remove all fees
- 12 months maternity leave
- Free Tertiary education for certain sectors in exchange for bonded 3 year employment.
If you want healthy babies and a growing population base that isn’t reliant on migrant workers, invest in early childhood care, meaningful maternity leave and no cost public transport and free lunches.
