WOMEN: "Give working mums a break" (The Australian)

(Way back in the 70s I had to give up my interesting bio-medical research career in order to satisfy my family-caring duties. It did not pay me to work part-time, pay for child-minding and home help. Both my husband and I worked odd and long hours, necessitating some help with after-school child-care, proper meals prepared for us all instead of take-aways, etc. After paying my helper and taxes, there was very little left for me,- so I decided to look after the kids and house myself. Soon afterwards, my 11-year old asked me: "mum what do you do all day? Most mums go to work to earn money as you used to!"
There is no great appreciation for-stay-at-home mums,- nor for those who work for little reward! Give them a tax-break for all home help and then see how many marriages are saved because the blokes won't have to do, or be begged to do some of the housework.
MM. )


THE AUSTRALIAN

Caroline Overington
Give working mums a break

Friday, December 08, 2006

IT’S about time that well-paid, hard-working parents got a tax break on childcare.
They ought to be able to claim all their childcare costs, including the wages paid to nannies. How are parents supposed to go to work, if they don’t have childcare? It’s obviously a work-related expense.
The government provides funds to mums who want to stay home, in the form of Family Tax Benefit, A and B. It also provides funds to mums who put their children in long day care centres. But the women who have stormed the workforce since the 1970s work as police officers, firefighters, surgeons, anaesthetists, pilots, lawyers, judges and flight attendants. They don’t have 9-5 rosters. They work on weekends. They can’t use childcare centres.
Some mums have one child at school, another still a toddler. They need nannies, too. There’s an idea—a stupid one—that only rich people have nannies. Actually, it’s the highly-educated, taxed-like-crazy, hard-working class that have nannies.
At the moment, the nanny industry is all black market, unregulated and unsatisfactory.
Professional women contribute a massive amount to the economy, both in personal taxes and in spending power. Their taxes are doled out to mums who don’t work, and that’s fine; or to mums who use childcare centres, and that’s fine, too.
But it’s time to give them something, as well. A tax break is a good start. What do you think?