Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Letter: Care after school

Carolyn Butler
Saturday 29 November 1997 00:02 GMT
Comments

Sir: Mothers who wish to stay at home should be paid to look after their pre-school children.

Carmen Fielding's article "Why working life is not always a bed of roses" (27 November) is realistic and poignant. I am also a working mother;however I have five children, and with each one have experienced different periods of maternity leave, culminating most recently in a year.

The decision by Harriet Harman to invest millions of pounds in child care encourages the view that the separation of a child from its parents is not only natural but desirable. The result will be even more mothers forced through poverty to work in order to pay someone else to look after their young children.

For those mothers who wish to stay at home this amounts to an inefficient distribution of child care, to say nothing of the effects on their children of impoverished parenting.

CAROLYN BUTLER

London SW5

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in