The politics of childcare

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The Geddes Report in 1922 included an attack on nursery provision. Only one year earlier Queen Mary had opened the London County Council extension of the Deptford Nursery School. But at the same time the government was warning of the need for economy and forbidding new nursery schools!

Despite this reversal, the Nursery School Association was formed in 1923 to fight for the continuance and expansion of public assistance to nurseries.

They secured occasional sympathy from the political parties. But the needs of mothers of children were seen as secondary to the needs of capitalism to recoup what profits it could during the depression years.

Women It wasn't until another imperialist war in 1939-when women were needed once more as a labour reserve-that nurseries were provided at the drop of a hat' The numbers of nurseries increased from 100 to 1,182 between 1939 and 1943.

It is interesting to note that women's membership of trade unions increased threefold at the same time.

Another important development during the war years was the evacuation of working class children from slums in London.

Day nurseries, canteens, better maternity services which evolved out of the evacuation schemes all related to the necessity for an expanded and healthy labour force in wartime and for a new generation of healthy babies to replace the loss of labour in war.

•That attitude of the housewife to gainful employment outside the home is not and should not be the same as that of the single woman. She has other duties .:. Taken as a whole the plan for social security puts a premium on marriage in place of penalising it ... In the next thirty years housewives as mothers have vital work to do in ensuring the adequate continuance of the British race and of British ideals in the world."

Beveridge in his plans for Family Allowance and maternity benefit for women was discouraging them from employment, driving them back to the home to breed the Imperial Race.

Yet a study-not published until 1951-showed that many working class attitudes to family allowance were far from enthusiastic.

Resentment

Despite government propaganda to persuade couples to have more babies, the study showed that both men and women felt 'the strongest resentment' while many stressed the need for day nurseries-and not oniy as a wartime measure.

In reality the "progressive" Labour government had cut the grants for nurseries from 100% to 50% and meanstested fees were increased from one shilling (5p) a day to 16s 6d (82½p) and £16s (£1.30) a week!

What were the unions, that other voice of the working class, doing about this attack on their women membership?

They were advocating private day nurseries and factory run nurseries, tying the mother to the employer!

The TUC Annual Report of 1947 stated:

«There is doubt Women workers alongside men minds of the. General Council that the home is one of the most important spheres for a woman worker and it would be doing a grave injury to the life of the nation if women were persuaded or forced to neglect their (our emphasis) domestic duties in order to enter industry where there are young children to cater for."

The demand for nursery facilities in the trade unions continued to be a hardy perennial. At the 1953 TUC Congress the National Union of Hostery Workers deplored closure of nurseries and called for cheaper nurseries.

Godwin summed up the General Council's view:

"while we recognise the right of women to seek paid employment I do not think that the movement has ever accepted an obligation to maintain the children of those who do go out to work."

At that time 7½ million women were working, yet the only increase in nursery provision was in the prvate sector.

A Tory government circular of 1960 stated:

"no resources at present can be spared for the expansion of nursery education and in particular no teachers can be spared who might otherwise work with children of compulsory school age."

It is interesting to note here that four years later the government changed its tune when it instructed local authorities that if nursery places would encourage women teachers back into the profession they should be made available.

In 1965 however, the Labour government in an addendum to the 1964 circular stated that nursery education was "primarily ... for the benefit of children and is only secondarily of value in helping to promote the return to service of married women teachers."

Since 1961, the increase in the female labour force had been made up of married women, with the number of single women employed falling.

Between 1961 and 1971 the last count meant that 42% of married women were employed in World War I arms factory utside the home and 62% o ne female work force wer married. As one report mournfully pointed out:

"It is evident that the community is already extremely dependent upon married women o maintain, let alone increase ur gross national product, and it seems that this dependence is going that a growing considerable degree dependent upon the mother's earnings."

The National Union of Teachers, whose members were unhappy about the situation in he 1960s carried out a survey 1964 which gained wide publicity. Questions were raised in the House of Commons.

The survey revealed that 80% of nursery schools were in areas described as working class and heads complained of being faced with the ever-increasing waiting lists, and being forced to discriminate between deserving cases.

The NUT launched a campaign for the government to fulfil its obligation under the 1944 Education Act. This was an obligation on paper and supposedly in law but was inactive because it is a few that control the wealth-and they were quite happy exploiting the situation.

In the middle class areas, however, where no nursery provision existed, there was a widespread establishment of independent private fee paying nursery schools which increased in numbers during this period.

Fed up with official inaction one mother wrote to the Guardian saying that she was forming a 'playgroup' for her own child.

In their hundreds and thousands mothers and sympathisers took up the idea, which became the preschool playgroup movement in Britain. By 1967 there were 3,200 playgroups, with 80,000 children in attendance. The Department of Education and Science-eager to encourage. a system that they would not be responsible for-made a grant of £3,000 in 1967 to the new association, valid for three years.

Other government departments followed suit, and the Secretary of State for Social Services gave a grant for a national headquarters and an annual subsidy of £45,000.

The Urban Programme contributed £250,000 by 1971 for playgroups and advisors. Local authorities made widely varying grants from £25 to as much as £9,000.

It was attacked for its middle class background: yet it was in the middle class areas that according to the NUT there was no nursery school provision.

Playgroups however have helped fill a gap not just for middle class children but for a great majority from working class areas too.

The playgroup movement is not and can never be a substitute for nursery care or education: but it fills a gap, a need.

It has been likened to the early rush of assistance in a famine relief project-it is enthusiastic, well meaning and not terribly efficient.

As far as the capitalists are concerned it does not release women for the labour market, because it is fee paying, voluntary, and offers mainly part time provision.

At the same time as the Labour government of 1964-70 was assisting and encouraging the playgroup movement while still neglecting the more pressing need for the expansion of nursery and child care facilities, they were planning to raise the school leaving age!

Part time places

Women's employment rose by about 600,000 between 1966 and 1974, while males in work declined in numbers by nearly 14¼ million. There was growth in the public services at this time and women remained a cheap source of labour.

The Plowden Report of 1966 cannot be understood without seeing the increase of women into the area of part time employment. It recommended that:

"mothers who cannot satisfy the authorities that they have exceptionally good reasons for working should have low priority for full time nurseries for their children."

The Plowden Report recommended an expansion of part time places.

"Women workers, especially part time workers, offer a number of advantages to employers who want to make a quick profit in an economic situation of long term crisis. In such a situation employers are unlikely to risk heavy investment in highly productive capital intensive techniques of production which would enable them to employ a high wage labour force.

"They are more likely to prefer processes requiring a lot of cheap labour and relatively low capital investment. Women workers, and especially part time workers ... provide a suitable labour force in such circumstances, both because they are relatively cheap in employment and because they are more easily and more cheaply displaced when no longer needed."

"Part time employment enables employers to refuse vocational training for women ... it avoids all the problems concerning care of children, welfare for mothers ... it masks unemployment because part timers are regarded as being on full time."

Part time work also involves jobs that are familiar extensions to women's domestic role in the home.

The Plowden Report-like Thatcher's later proposals on nursery education-offered solutions geared to the needs of capitalism, not those of women or children.

Continued Glasgow nursery

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