It’s getting hard to find good headlines. Coof, recounts and Miami condos are all anybody wants to talk about. But here’s a previously unseen episode of Australian Twilight Zone!
Australia Talks finds six out of 10 regional families can’t easily access child care
h ttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-12/regional-child-care-shortage-australia-talks-survey/100195218
By April McLennan, 11 June 2021
Mother-of-three Alanna Wardle has found living in regional Australia with young children can be isolating. She believes it is vital for parents to have the option to return to work for social and emotional, as well as financial benefits.
But Ms Wardle said that opportunity was taken away from many parents in the South Australian town of Crystal Brook when it lost its only childcare centre about five years ago.
Crystal Brook has a population of about 1,500 and almost 400 hundred families, but no child care.
Ms Wardle said she had heard of parents to driving up to 120 kilometres a day for care.
“I’ve got my youngest daughter on the waitlist for three different childcare centres, and I haven’t been able to get her in, I’ve been on the waitlist for over six months now,” Ms Wardle said.
“We’ve got all the main services here in Crystal Brook . being the hospital, our medical centre, supermarket, school and retirement village . but unfortunately we just don’t have any child care available out here.”
That’s outrageous! They have no church! Ah, that’s right… “no child care”.
The Australia Talks National Survey 2021 found 57 per cent of people living in rural areas said they had some sort of difficulty finding good quality childcare, compared to 41 per cent of those in inner-metro areas.
With those ratios, why is this even a news story?
Because Skankie isn’t haaaapy.
Ms Wardle said it was impacting on the local economy.
“If we want to attract young families and those skilled employees, then we really need to be able to provide that childcare service for them in our town.“
The aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic saw some city dwellers flee to regional Australia, including to towns like Crystal Brook.
If you want to attract young families and skilled employees, then why do you want to offer child care which only appeals to single mothers and bitter corporate Amazons?
But with local residents struggling to access and afford child care, new parents settling in country towns are already at a disadvantage.
You poor urbanites gotta go back, then. Have you considered raising your own kids? Like your own crops? Like the dirt people (now your neighbors) do? Doing without luxury services is generally the point of moving out to where there aren’t any luxury services.
The United Workers Union’s early education director, Helen Gibbons, is concerned about early education in remote areas.
“Rural and regional communities need early education, they’re an essential part of the community in the same way that schools are,” Ms Gibbons said.
“It’s really important to those areas, the economy and to families that they continue to exist and that they’re healthy and well-staffed with people who are qualified and experienced in their roles.”
Yes, it’s important to the economy that women work… because being happy at home is not taxable income.
Tamara Garrett has an early start at her family day care, opening the doors about 5:30am to cater for shift workers in the Queensland mining town of Mount Isa.
You’ve come a long way DOWN, baby!
What is wrong with you women?! You get life on easy mode! But you don’t even want it! You keep wanting to be judged on merit then you wonder where that glass ceiling came from.
“You could make more money working in the mines than what you could in child care.”
I say again: What. Is. Wrong. With. You. Women?
Single mother Hannah McPhee has experienced the struggle first hand.
Oh, right. Single motherhood is what’s wrong with you. Does the poor little fish want a bicycle yet?
She is raising three children in regional Tasmania, and has to stay home to look after them.
Ms McPhee said if she paid for child care, she would be unable to put food on the table to feed her family.
“[I would be] looking at about $80 for one day for one child, it’s not cheap at all,” she said.
“I don’t really have any other support with family and friends, so if they can’t look after my children while I go do things, day care is the only option I’ve got, which I can’t even afford to do that.”
We don’t need childcare. We need FATHERS!
I saw this article and had the same thoughts.
How can people demand taxpayers subsidise their childcare so they can work? That clearly shows that their ‘work’ is worth less than their home duties.
In Australia you’d be cancelled for saying that, though, so nobody does.
It’s another signpost along the road to decline, similar to the contempt for the young dispayed by lockdowns.
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