The 2023 UK budget was announced last week and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, has extended thirty hours of ‘free’ childcare from the current age of three down to nine months old for working families. With one flash of the magical money wand, tens of thousands of one-year-olds are going to speak their first words, take their first steps and try their first taste of ice-cream away from their parents and under the care of the state.
Predictably, the Main Stream Media were raging. ‘Wait one moment,’ they fumed, ‘Our children are going to spend their whole lifetime paying off the national debt you have accrued of over 100% of GDP, our little ones are being indoctrinated in trans ideology and perverse sex education in your failing schools, over seven million people are waiting for treatment at the hands of your disastrous NHS, it seems that everyone and his dog is on strike. No, you will not get your hands on our babies and toddlers. Everything you touch turns to ruin: leave our children alone’.
I was joking in the last paragraph.
Instead, the BBC dredged up sob stories of mothers who are desperate to get back to work and hand their children over to the government but are unable to because the state (supreme supplier of all our needs) will not enact this ill-thought through policy until September 2025.
I often wonder who defends the rights of nine-month-old babies to the loving care and attention of a mother and since I am a career mum (raising my seven children is my career), I have decided to do it myself.
1. The Government Has No Biblical Mandate to Care for Our Babies:
God instituted civil government and it plays an extremely important role in our society. The Apostle Peter writes that the role of government is to ‘punish those who do evil and praise those who do good ‘(1 Peter 2:14). Show me an area where the government is meddling outside of the biblical mandate and I will show you a disaster.
Conversely, the Bible is also clear that the responsibility for raising children is placed on parents (Proverbs 1:8, Ephesians 6:4). This does not mean that we may not outsource some responsibility, but it does mean that we do not hand them over blindly to strangers so that the state can reap more taxes from us.
2. Government Childcare is Bad News for Babies:
Jeremy Hunt makes no bones about the fact that the government is providing ‘free’ childcare in order to get mothers back to work. The impact on precious little children is irrelevant, beside the point and not even worth discussing. He does not even bother to put a ‘good news for babies’ spin on things. The whole policy is about bodies in the workplace paying taxes. Automatons, producing babies to hand over to the state machine so they can get back to work.
Young children need to spend their waking hours bonding with mothers who will likely be at their side for years to come, rather than bonding with adults who will disappear out of their lives for ever once the child celebrates their next birthday.
Day-care stresses little children and a study by HR Vermeer carried out in 2006 showed that children in a day-care setting as opposed to a home care setting had higher levels of cortisol (the primary stress hormone) and this was particularly notable in children under the age of 36 months. It is blindingly obvious that to separate little ones from their parents induces stress and strain in babies. How many parents have dropped distraught babies off at childcare? Is it not apparent that little children who cannot make a case for themselves are deeply disturbed at an unnatural severing from their parents?
My husband and I ran a toddler group for five years at our local church and I could tell which children had spent most of their lives in childcare – they simply would not leave their parent’s side! I know this is just observation rather than hard scientific fact, but to me it makes perfect sense that separating babies from their mothers at an early age can induce insecurity in children.
3. It is Absolute Madness to Hand Precious Children Over to Adults Whom We Know Nothing About:
Sure, we might land a place at the amazing nursery of our choice, but to which individuals exactly are we handing the care of their waking hours? Do they blaspheme in front of our children? Are they married (to a member of the opposite sex) or single and celibate? Can we be certain that if our daughter innocently puts on a policeman helmet, workers will not push a trans agenda on her? Will they complain about ‘the parents’ in front our children? Will they nurture them as individuals or herd them as sheep to conformity?
4. Mothers Cannot Serve Two Masters
I have gained some insight over the years, one of which is that a poorly child needs blankets, cuddles, a sofa and a Paddington movie. What a poorly child does not need is parents arguing over who gets the short straw to stay home and watch the invalid. Children should not be made to feel that they are an inconvenience and a burden.
Around about the time that we did not place our oldest child in childcare at the age of three, I met a girl at the park who worked at our local nursery. She told me that her little boy (who spent his afternoons at a different day-care) was ‘having issues’ because mum was looking after other people’s children all day rather than him. Obviously, the fault lay with the child. There was no room for the controversial idea that perhaps little Johnny does not like getting the ragged end of mum while other children profit from her attention during her best hours. Wherever did we get the idea that it is more acceptable for mothers to look after other people’s children for pay, rather than her own?
5. Our Children Will be Grateful
I have palpable and long-lasting memories of gratitude towards my own mother for staying home to welcome us when we returned from school each day. Even as a seven-year-old, I distinctly remember feeling relieved that I was not a ‘latch-key child’ to enable a career. Nothing could have been worse in my childhood mind.
I often look around our little church where every single child has a mother who has chosen to make home the centre of their activity. Little do these little ones know how highly-favoured they are. Many of us have husbands who work in Christian ministry and I am certain that every single one of us wondered how we would make stay-at-home-mothering work. But we can testify to the goodness of God who always looks after his children.
Finally,
Motherhood is not always a bed of roses. I would be the first to admit that we have ‘up’ days and ‘down’ days (as with any paid work). Yet it is an investment into the lives of the most precious people we know. The feminists do us down when they suggest we ditch our littlies for a career. There is not one woman on earth who is as well-qualified as I am to mother my own children since nobody is more fiercely committed to their well-being than I.
Children truly are a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3). I wonder whether our Chancellor of the Exchequer could quote the Psalmist’s words the next time he stands up in parliament, rather than selling us fool’s gold.
