Time Out !

Take Time Out for Kids !

Children are the most important thing. They are our futures.

And every family should be able to take Time Out to enjoy bringing up their kids.

They should be supported if they want to take some time out from work for a few years to rear their young age 0 - 3.  And once the kids are at school, right up to the teenage years, there should be the possibility to work part time for at least one parent.

The current push to make the school day longer will not suit many kids. The school day is long enough and many kids just need to get home to relax after school.

We need to stop thinking that people who "stay at home" with kids (a misnomer if ever there was one !) are somehow a different species !
Many mothers, and a few fathers, take a few years out when their children are babies and toddlers. This is what many want to do and its great for the kids.  Relaxing in the playpark while playing with friends, running across the grass after toddler group, visiting friends, going shopping, going swimming, picking strawberries at a fruit farm, playing football, going to playgroup.  Now most of these things I have listed are free things to do,  or at least very inexpensive, as parents work together to run toddler groups and playgroups. Its a community effort !  Now surely that is worth valuing.

So lets all realise that Time Out With Kids can be a good thing.  It has been shown to be good for the children's mental health with respect to bonding with their parents, attachment theory etc. and apart from anything else it is good fun. It is what life is about.

I like this piece which was a reading at a funeral I was at recently, of a friend's father who was very much a "family man", it makes me think of how there is a "time to work, a time to spend with your young children, a time to support your older children, a time for your parents, etc." :

There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:
A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.
A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.
A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.
A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.
A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for discarding.
A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.
A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peaceWhat do people gain from the efforts they make?
I contemplate the task that God gives humanity to labour at.
All that he does is apt for its time; but although he has given us an awareness of the passage of time, we can grasp neither the beginning nor the end of what God does.
I know there is no happiness for a human being except in pleasure and enjoyment through life.
And when we eat and drink and find happiness in all our achievements, this is a gift from God

Why Are Mums the only Ones Not Paid ?

Currently childcare subsidies go to just about everyone who cares for kids EXCEPT for the mums !!
There is an illogical-ness in this situation !

We have the bizarre situation where the only person who can't be funded to raise their own children is a mother (or father).  Now  we should be getting annoyed about this. We should be standing up for ourselves as we deserve this as we have often had to stop working / given up a salary in order to raise our own kids.

And it is good fun - and its good for the kids too !

We used to go to swimming lessons / playpark / toddler group etc. or even just taking time to go to the shops etc. Its all time with your Mum and on a 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 basis so great for language development and for you to learn to share a bond with your kids with no pressure. So I would recommend it.

If its really not for you then by all means employ the best help but funds should be paying for all options.

If we value our future kids then we should value and recompense those caring for them.