There are calls for stay-at-home parents to be paid by the State for the work they do raising their children.
It comes after a survey by UK insurers Royal London found that the daily cooking, cleaning and chauffeuring carried out by a stay-at-home parent is worth a salary of almost €50,000.
The survey also found that eight-in-ten people valued the work at less than €28,000 per year.
On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Laura Erskine, Parenting Expert with the BabyDoc Club, said COVID-19 has highlighted the worth of stay at home parents.
“I think we all value the work carried out by stay at home parents now more than ever,” she said.
“I know it was quite the challenge and continues to be the challenge for those of us who are working from home and it really highlights the need for parents who stay at home and choose to stay at home to be remunerated in some way, supported financially in some way, by the State for that valuable role that they are taking in providing that primary childcare role for their children.
“I suppose many of your listeners will be saying why should the State pay for parents to stay at home? That is a choice.
“Well it is not always a choice. Sometimes you are forced out of the labour market because of the prohibitive costs of childcare and, in fact, you are staying at home to provide that childcare service.”
State supports
She said more parents would choose to stay at home if there were proper State supports on offer.
“I think choice is the key thing here,” she said.
“There is a false framing of paid labour as being liberating, particularly for women who would be traditionally the primary carer, but actually it is choice that is liberating.
“At the moment many people are forced to stay at home because of the prohibitive costs of childcare, certainly in the early years.
“But I think we need to recognise that actually, as a stay at home parent, it is not just the early years that are most valuable in terms of the role they play in their children’s development.
Children keep social distancing and sanitary measures as they go back to school in France, 14-05-2020. Image: Jerome Domine/ABACAPRESS.COM“We need to look at how children today are suffering more in terms of mental anguish and anxiety; how they have a much-reduced resilience to previous years and how, as parents we can influence that and improve that.”
She said children will need parental supports in the coming months more than ever with the potential for schools to temporarily close due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
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