March of the Mummies?
A March for all Mummies? (Source: Pregnant Then Screwed)
Let’s recognise Choice for all Mummies.
Mothers At Home Matter’s response to the highly publicised March of the Mummies.
One real emotive power driving mothers’ anger is grief at the loss of being with their children. When economic necessity steals you from your children to another workplace it adds insult to injury if most of the working wage ebbs away on ‘childcare’ – paying someone else to usurp our precious privileges – the first steps, the funny words, the infectious laugh, the awesome questions.
Mothers at Home Matter sympathise with the call for more taxpayer funding for ‘childcare’ but only if it does not further discriminate against and deny mothers treasured childcare time of their own.
It is easy to forget that the same families needing financial help are also taxpayers. What does it mean to take 20% or 40% in tax from a family and hand it back as ‘childcare’ – but only if it is outsourced? It looks like simply an attack on families' freedom of choice to do what they think is best for their children. If taxpayers are funding ‘childcare’ we should insist it does not discriminate against and exclude the option of childcare by mothers at home. Or indeed fathers or grandparents according to how we need to order our choices.
The truth is that 80% still think one parent being at home is more ideal for their children but only 10% now can afford the simple family arrangement our grandparents took for granted; governments have been instrumental in stealing away that choice. Those of us who manage to be home make financial sacrifices but many more mothers feel unable to make this choice. What they have lost is time with their children. And the children?
Raising children is important work, not the ‘burden’ bandied about in political debates, hindering mothers from more ‘productive’ work and ‘wasting their talents’ by being based at home. That nurturing roles are not recognised as contributions to the economy does not mean the contribution does not exist.
It is time to change the narrative and start a new quiet revolution which values care. Mothers do want choice. True gender equality would recognise this choice and value this work as equal to work outside the home. This would be real progress.
October 2022
MAHM would like to see:
An economic level playing field for parents who stay at home with the option of being taxed as a household with a transferable allowance for couples or an additional person’s allowance for single parents
Fair taxation for those who stay home and those who work
Childcare subsidies to follow the child, with parents able to choose whether they use it to stay home, or give it to a grandparent, childminder or external setting for care
Child benefit to be distributed fairly
All mothers to be eligible for their state pension regardless of whether they sign up to the Child Benefit or not
Further action?
Please consider reaching out to your local MP about this issue, or writing your own letter to a newspaper to raise the profile of the need for fairer family taxation.
Visit our Campaign Resource page for more information.
For more information about taxation: