KEY POINTS:
Bob McCoskrie argues that full-time parenting is a child's right, so no parent should be forced to work to survive financially. The same argument was probably put in the seventies when politicians were considering what to do about the growing number of unpartnered mothers.
Then the argument won
the day and delivered the domestic purposes benefit - the right for any single parent to be paid a living wage out of the Consolidated Fund.
Now it would appear conservatives want to extend that payment to all parents, based on their belief that childcare is bad for children - childcare being any care other than that provided by the parent.
McCoskrie presented ample research to support his case from United States, Canadian and English institutions but ignored a New Zealand report - Influences of Maternal Employment and Early Childhood Education on Young Children's Cognitive and Behavioural Outcomes. It reviewed both domestic and international studies and concluded that maternal employment in itself had no negative or positive effects.
Negative impacts for children arose from early, extensive and poor quality non-maternal care combined with poor quality home care. Further studies have shown, unsurprisingly, that children from poor homes can benefit from good quality daycare.
This doesn't concern the conservatives because it doesn't fit with their theory that all childcare is bad. In fact, to acknowledge that some parenting is poorer than childcare really queers their pitch because it is often the parenting already paid for by the state that falls short. In truth it isn't possible to make blanket statements about the effects of childcare because the care, the type and amount of, is as varied as children and their responses. McCoskrie's "a child's place is in the home" is one such statement. It's a "we know best" approach, somewhat ironic coming from a staunch opponent of nanny state's recent attempts to tell parents how to raise their children by outlawing smacking.
Not using childcare would involve costs running into the billions while simultaneously shrinking the workforce. Treasury hasn't been calling for higher participation in the workforce by women because it wants to damage children, it does so because New Zealand badly needs to lift its productivity. A strong economy has benefits for everybody.
Additionally, now would be a particularly bad time for New Zealand to deplete its workforce, because of our ageing population. Some might argue that the country needs to produce more children, but we already produce more children than nearly every other developed country. Those that offer the kind of assistance McCoskrie suggests are struggling with fertility rates.
There are no good economic or sound social reasons to turn our backs on childcare. It's part of the modern economy and makes a positive contribution to people's ability to make choices. A child's place is not unequivocally in the home and neither is a mother's.
* Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator
