Brian Cowen played Santa by giving parents €1,000 for every child under six in the Budget - but as children get older they do not get less important, writes Angela Long
MARTINA MURPHY, who speaks for nursery childcare, had it exact. "Children don't stop costing money once they start school," she said, during one of the myriad radio discussions on childcare and what Brian Cowen would do about it in his 2006 Budget.
Now we know that Mr Cowen played Santa to the extent of 1,000 a year for every child under six. Welcome money that will be to those struggling with the impossible juggle, two full-time jobs and one or more full-time children.
But Ms Murphy touched on a point that has been overlooked in the whole emotive dissection of childcare. Children get older. But they don't get less important. From hearing or reading much of the excited outpourings about "Ireland's childcare crisis", it would seem that once the young humans hit five or so and can be safely despatched to school or creche, the problem is over.
It's the assumptions that are troubling, the implication that children's need for their parents vanishes when they get to a stage where they can go out on their bikes, or argue for the use of the Playstation until all hours. The unspoken theme is that the ankle-biters are a terrible nuisance, really, when you can't just leave them on their own. When they are teenagers of course you can, because they know not to stick their fingers in sockets or play checkers in the bus lane.
Isn't this a cold-blooded, market-driven, assessment of children? Do teenagers matter so little? Does this picture fit you - as long as you have a vague idea of where the teeners are most of the time, and gardaí aren't on the doorstep, then it's hunky dory. Go on with the pursuit of wealth and career satisfaction. We have put a band-aid over the running sore of two-parent working in a 24/7 society which doesn't yet know how to handle sensibly its lovely toys of email, broadband and mobile phone.
Don't older children need attention too? We are a foolish lot. When something truly dreadful happens - like the death of Brian Murphy outside Anabel's, or the deaths of any number of less-reported young men from poorer parts of town from drugs or violence - there is a spate of anxiety about how we are bringing up our children. Then normal service resumes.
It could be because teenagers are "hard", whereas toddlers are relatively "easy" (yes, tell that to the mother or nanny tearing her/his hair out after a rainy day inside with the small fry).
Toddlers will stay in the house, won't want to borrow the car, have their bodies pierced, have sex behind a hedge outside the local dance. They might scream until they are blue in the face, but there won't be psychological warfare or the monosyllabic mystery treatment. Young children still believe their parents are right.
The economic argument is that we, meaning mothers as well as fathers, can go back to work once childcare is in place. Then the proper attention to our national competitiveness - "going forward" - can resume its rightful place at the top of the priority list. More than 50 per cent of mothers work outside the home now, and the workforce participation of women, especially young women under 35, is very high (over 75 per cent), according to the CSO.
It does upset the apple cart to suggest we should be undertaking a national downshift, to give more time to our children, or alternatively, a less frantic lifestyle so we do have time to listen to them and help build their identities during those tortured teen years.
Psychiatrist Erik Erikson, in his eight stages of development formulated in the 1950s, classified the teen years as key in an individual's formation of confidence, in the "industry versus inferiority" years. So even from a hard-headed economic view, we want those workforce units to have the competence which researchers like Erikson believe is formed in older childhood, up to the mid-teens.
Let's not throw the teenager out with the bath water. Legislators and business leaders need to be aware always that people have children who need care and attention - and society needs to take care of its most precious resource. We should view those approaching adulthood as more than units in a description of Ireland as a place with a "young well-educated workforce". A young well-adjusted workforce would be even better.
German social scientist Wolfgang Merkel, in an article praising the Scandinavian countries for their social welfare supports and the relatively bad performance in Anglo Saxon countries, calls for a "new productive, and socially just, mix of childcare, education, women employment, social security, and a longer but more flexible work life". A tall order, but first, attitudes have to change. The Holy Grail, the ideal to which we could aspire, is a world in which children are considered the keystone of the state - economically and socially.
State subsidy for whichever parent stays at home - it should be equally acceptable for it to be the man or the woman - is a rosy dream, but dreams can be pursued. Family leave should be increased - either short-term paid leave for a specific situation or leave without pay. The Government could give some force to the words of the Constitution - to cherish all the children of the nation equally - and recognise that childhood doesn't end with the clanging of the primary school gates.