Posts tagged Expense of childcare
Not everyone is lucky enough to work at RedBalloon
0429 days
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.
It’s the same old question….
0429 days
Most nights I feel like a broken record…. “Ok, who is doing the drop off and pick up and have you paid kindy?” It is the same conversation every night! We have to juggle meeting schedules and start and finish times to enable someone to pick up our daughter from kinda. While we are lucky as she only attends 3 days a week, it is still a massive struggle when you work 70+ hours a week.
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.