So, that being said, I’m 100% for free childcare. There is free education for children through public schooling so childcare shouldn’t differ that much. I know if I had the luxury of putting my son in daycare 5 days a week I would have alot more taxable income – and would be completely off Centerlink payments!

we can all grow happily together..businesses and children

I have a one and a half year old little girl and am also lucky enough to work at RedBalloon.

RedBalloon is truly the one and only organisation I have worked for that fully and wholeheartedly supports a work life balance – not just in writing in its polices and during the recruitment process, but in actions, every single day. I work part time, two days in the office and one day from home a week. If I need to work from home an extra day because I don’t have care for my daughter, it’s not an issue. If I need to change my working days in order to tee up some days off that match up with my husband’s days off, it’s not an issue. My boss treats me with respect and trusts that the work will get done. And as any working mum will tell you, we can squeeze a five day working week into three days!

I am extremely fortunate to have family that look after my daughter on the days that I work. I am degree qualified, have had a great career to date and would like to continue working as it makes me feel valuable outside my home, is positive for my family in many ways, and I believe sets a good example for my daughter. If I didn’t have family to care for my daughter, I probably wouldn’t work, or I would only work one or two days a week. I would prefer to stay at home to care for my daughter as my income minus the cost of childcare wouldn’t be worth spending the time away from my daughter for. I am sure I’m not alone and that’s such a shame. The Australian workplace is missing out on a huge pool of talented, qualified, experienced professionals because there isn’t enough support for them to go back to work.

For a woman to go back to work after baby there needs to be an extremely supportive employer, a supportive family and reliable childcare options that don’t stretch the already tight family budget even further.

Thank you Naomi for providing such an amazing place to work, and for creating this much needed initiative.

While we have to find the time, the cost of childcare is also an issue. My husband and I are both lucky to have fantastic jobs, and while professionally we are satisfied I wouldn’t say we are well off, we are comfortable. Due to this fact we pay almost $100 a day (of post tax dollars) for childcare.

It is a fact that has meant we have had to downgrade our family plans – 3 children in kinda would mean it is just not worth working… I would be better off as a stay at home mum. I don’t think that it is fair to have to sacrifice my professional dreams and ambitions nor those to have a happy healthy family – However, due to the outrageous price of childcare it is just the cold hard facts of our current reality.

What a great initiative this site is… I hope in someway we can start to find a balance for those mums and dads who want to have a career and a family.

Lyla - on a business trip at just six weeks old

In my teens I fantasized about having my first child at the age of 21 because I thought it was cool to have a young Mum. Well I delayed that momentous moment for 15 years waiting for the right time. That ‘right time’ came at the biggest business crossroad of my life. Quite ironic really. I had endured a 23 hour labor and 8 hours after my daughter Lyla was born I sat in on a 3 hour board meeting from my hospital bed and was told I had 1 week to raise US$1 million or my business would not survive the necessary move we needed to make to Silicon Valley.

Furthermore, it was expected that as soon as my daughters passport was issued and it was safe for her to fly, I would pack up all of my possessions and relocate to San Francisco. It took exactly 1 week to confirm the investment and another 6 weeks to secure my daughters passport. Unfortunately my husband had work commitments and wasn’t able to join us for 6 months so we had no choice but to hire a live-in au-pair – something that simply was not affordable in Australia.

Juggling a new country, an entirely new business environment in the biggest technology boom ever and a new baby was an incredible experience to say the least. The extra set of loving hands worked wonders and I can proudly reflect on those first six months to be relatively stress free, many wonderful memories and emotions of getting to know our daughter and the tremendous support of new neighbors and business colleagues was a god send.  We transitioned from a live in au-pair to a 8-5pm nanny at double the cost. However – being a female entrepreneur and the incredible opportunities that pursuing your dreams can bring to an individual, I would love to see free or reduced child care for other families who have a desire to be in the workforce. I honestly don’t know how families survive with the cost of living and the extreme cost of childcare and it’s truly sad for a Mum or Dad to have no choice but to stay at home.

To get and keep whatever work could get, we needed our kids in childcare 3-4 days a week throughout 2009 till the present. Despite the rebate, it has wiped out our savings. Although we seem to work 7 days a week we still feel we are living on a knife edge. We have no alternatives to look after our kids and our choice of childcare was to go with the only place we could get in. We live in McKinnon now so that we can be as close as poss to our kids’ ageing grandmothers.

The local commercially run day-care, despite having some great staff and our kids making great friends w kids their age, has been so below par on several occasions. DHS has been brought in several times. Our kids have come home crying from severe nappy rash, and Sarah has had to read the riot act a few times. Changes in management meant that things improved temporarily, but did not stem the exodus of the few decent staff. I do realise what a tough job daycare is and how poorly paid it is. Having bad leadership and bullying made a bad situation worse for some staff. All in all it has been a mixed blessing. Mostly our kids are looked after well, but that is the minimum you should expect throughout their lives going to schools when they are older.

The big question for me is, WHY, during the hardest years, when the kids are young, you’re getting no sleep, you’re learning how to be a parent, WHY must we be made to pay for it? When the rest of their school life it is possible to have full support in the public system..?? I realise this is a middle class problem, and that life wasn’t meant to be easy. But the stress of having so much money poured into something for which in other countries is free….??? Its been an excruciating few years and to put on a brave face in front of friends, family, let alone our kids is sometimes very challenging. I would happily have been a stay at home Dad, and Sarah would have put off getting her career restarted IF we had the proper support from from our government.

Surely our most valuable asset in this country is families? Why aren’t they investing as much as we can into families? By getting the family unit off to the best start you can give it would solve most of our social, perhaps even economic problems. We have considered nannies, but we believe that the socialisation our kids have received by being with other kids is very valuable. And as freelancers we work from home and need a quiet house. So please, dear politicians of the present and future, please make childcare free!!

20,000 signatures needed - it takes 2 minutes

I run DIAL-AN-ANGEL. We have just celebrated our 45th Anniversary in business. We have been attempting to get the Government to give our clients choice and provide a rebate for in home professional childcare, disability care and elder care since the 1970′s. People are paying for this service from their after tax income. If people registered their nannies for the rebate, it would stop the cash economy and hence the Government would be receiving extra PAYG from those who have not previously declared the payments.

Women will not advance into leadership / board positions if they are not provided with affordable and available professional childcare. All we are asking is for some equity and choice for our clients who would like to have an inhome professional childcarer care for their young children. What about people who do shiftwork? What happens when the children are sick and can’t go to day care? What happens if you want your children to have one-to-one care vs 1 to 4. It’s time for the Government to sit up and take notice.

Clients still need to use a reputable Agency (where the worker has been fully screened and interviewed) and not just some on line portal where cheap childcare options are available. We have developed a petition on www.makecarefair.com.au and need 20000 signatures to then lobby the Govt. This is a serious issue and needs to be addressed.

This is needed for ALL in home care not just childcare. I was indeed fortunate to have a professional child carer look after my own two children for 11 years. They are well adjusted children who were provided with the very best care available. We have many many clients who would be back in the workforce full time if a professional childcarer in the home had the same rebate as a childcare centre or family day care. The majority of our clients use our services on a part time basis (2 – 3 days a week).

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Great work…

It really hits a cord with my family…young kids, a wife who would love to work again but it just doesn’t stack up either financially or fitting in with my heavy workload. I’m certainly glad that all these issues are getting more attention…..

Grant

We could talk forever about the topic but you’re right….a lot of attitudes, work practices and support fundamentally have to change.

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Julie wrote:

My husband is very supportive of my career and does his share of childcare himself but just struggles with the housework!

I wonder what corporation you are referring to in your article. If it is my employer we have a way to go. We still have some old mentality even though we have come a long way to support diversity practically. What we struggle to find is an example of a return to work executive mum who’s career improved upon her return. We have an action to actually survey the workforce to find out. The point is trying to find out if we are paying lip service to the diversity angle or really making it work. I returned to a job – not a role. Given tasks that did not fit my skills and little or no support. My restricted hours (8-4.30 and 4 days a week) were seen as the reason I was not provided opportunities despite having greater experience

I really do agree that although we have a change to undertake to be effective leaders of diverse teams – we need the change to happen within ourselves. It took 5 months since my return to the workforce as a mum to finally get a real job – where I am valued and was happily allowed to work 4 days, remotely as long as I could manage the workload. Negotiated a payrise with it! My boss talks about our kids and seems to relish the personal side of his role.

I don’t like spending so much time away from my son but I do need to earn money and if I’m going to worm I’m not going to spend my time unhappily just bringing home the bacon. Life is too short and too damn good.

Free childcare…..how amazing. I have to consider whether I can have a 2nd child from a purely financial front due to the cost of childcare. Just horrendous. The rebate is the ONLY benefit I can claim from the Govt as my earnings push me out of any tax relief. Amazing that so many talented women and men are forced to stay at home as they cannot afford the support otherwise.

My friend cannot rely on the long day care hours – 7.30am – 6pm as she works an hour from home and runs a division of a large corporation so cannot guarantee the traffic or last minute issues won’t have her knocking on the door of a closed child care centre. So she has hired a nanny for the small sum of $70k p.a. which is taken from her net salary! She is no millionaire but has no choice if she wants a house.

Ahhhhhh…..anyway things are looking up…gradually.

Julie