By Josephine Macleod

 Women are most likely to sacrifice their career after becoming a parent and the brunt of parenting is mostly left to women. A lot of women find the necessity to engage in politics because they feel disappointed, let down and abandoned by the Government after having a child.

Actually, the needs of working parents are really simple. For instance, it is important for the government to offer more flexibility with working hours. This will invariably make working parents more effective at work and at the same time handle the home front with ease.

Also needed is State support for quality education with more teachers on better pay package to attract qualified people to go into childcare as a career.

Also, there is regularly sending out surveys to parents to find out their challenges. This is important due to life’s dynamics. For example, new challenges have come up as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Furthermore, research also shows that women have the need for the government to establish free childcare centres, which should be means-tested within local communities.

Sometimes using the Swedish style of locating childcare centres near care homes, thereby creating a synergy between the elderly and the young, should be considered.

Again, more parenting courses and awareness highlighting the difficulties of parenting and where to get support is a necessity, according to most women

Government can also support companies to enable them to extend maternity and paternity leave. The government can do this by either through giving these companies tax break or subsidies.

Government can offer working parents a better paid package to work remotely or flexibly; also give parents paid time off to attend essential children’s activities.

More accessible free or subsidised child minders and nurseries with good Montessori type playgroup facilities with adequate playgrounds will help.

The government should give parents ownership of their time to suit their parenting needs and autonomy to make good parenting decisions.

“I will vote the political party that meets my childcare needs,” someone once said to me.

Being a parent is hard, but being a single parent is tougher. We have to recognise the immense sacrifices of parenting and the entire loss of freedom for so many years that a parent has to endure.

Women who take the lead in parenting are most likely to vote for a political party that addresses the issue of affordable child care, support of businesses to provide flexibility in working hours, provision of a data bank on a website of qualified registered childcare providers that are subsidised by the government.

The Scottish Government should realise that not all families are lucky enough to have grandparents that can take the role of nannies and careers.

The Covid 19 pandemic greatly reduced the numbers of grandparents that are willing or able to babysit or be a child minder for their families. So more needs to be done for working parents.

Macleod wrote in from Scotland, the UK.

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