One of the things about writing a parenting column is that expectant parents sometimes ask me for advice, as strange as that may seem to those who actually know me (or read this column). My advice is mostly the usual stuff: support the head, pat their bums; never refuse an offer of help or a chance to sleep; and don’t worry about nappy changes because any phobia of foul smells and runny fluids will quickly be replaced with a fear of everything on earth that can damage the fragile little person you’re in charge of.
Increasingly, however, I have to talk about money, too, because the single most abiding pressure of parenting – for those lucky enough to have healthy, happy children at least – is the fact that it is, basically, financially ruinous.
I have been writing this column for six and a half years and I have never once mentioned how financially perilous it has been, mainly because I’m aware that other people have it much worse. I also find it boring and embarrassing to write about my money worries full stop, and have an inkling that readers might feel the same reading about it.
But ignoring money entirely becomes, itself, irresponsible. There have been many months – years in fact – where it has been the single biggest parenting issue in my life, and not being clear about this is negligent. Baby formula costs £17 and, here in the sixth richest country on the planet, shops routinely keep it security-tagged. The UK’s statutory maternity pay is among the lowest in Europe and yet Conservative leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch thinks it’s so high that it works against the ‘personal responsibility’ of mothers – the kind she exercised when she had the good sense to avoid such worries by marrying an investment banker. Last month, we cheered when my daughter became eligible for 15 hours’ free childcare, and this week her nursery’s fees increased by almost the exact amount of money we would have saved.
This, of course, is the problem with creating a system wherein the economic benefit of working must be offset by the economic cost of having children. On the macro level, the UK’s powers-that-be claim to want its citizens to go forth and multiply. Think the ‘breed for Britain’ sloganeering, which accompanied the recent Tory party conference, rhetoric that had more than a slight ring of ‘summon the brood mares’ about it, even if they weren’t simultaneously clamouring for economic conditions that would make such fecundity unfeasible.
Our childcare costs, including nursery fees and after-school clubs, are roughly equal to our rent. We’d like to buy a home one day, but that feels increasingly like science fiction given that we usually end up with a little too much month by the money’s end – a situation we share with almost every other parent we know.
Were I to actually say all these things, any prospective parent will have wished they never asked me for advice in the first place. So, I assure them it’ll all be fine. Support the head. Sleep when you can. And marry an investment banker at the earliest opportunity.
Follow Séamas on X @shockproofbeats