Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Renée Santosa
A summary of the Main Points
Too much emphasis is placed on work and worldly success.
Children need a time commitment to bring them up properly.
Raising children can be hard work and is looked down on.
Raising children is deeply undervalued in the society that we live.
Society has got the balance wrong, for both male and female adults.
A Brief Introduction About Me
I am a mother of two boys and my first priority is them. I do work around their school timetable when possible, but they come first. I feel they spend too much time at school without all the extra care needed to get by today. There should be longer school holidays and less enthuses in academic achievement for the under sevens, more art and creativity for all. England is losing art and creativity in its schools and community centres, this will be very damaging to people mental health and prospects for our work force in the future. England has relied so much on the nations creativity to bring in the money for many generations now.
Factual Information you would like the Committee to be Aware of
I would like the committee to acknowledge that children need parenting. Time is the biggest gift we can give our children. Both parents need to be able to make time. Ideally work should enable parents to be able to be with their children, when they are young. It has been clearly proved that separation creates high anxiety for children under the age of three. It is also proven that a child will grow up feeling secure if he or she is taken and collected from school by a parent up until the age of seven. Children need to be taken and collected from school as two separations or even three a day are very stressful on the young mind. The government need to build a society where this is possible for the future generations to grow in a emotionally secure manor. Once children reach seven years. Both family members can work full time as it becomes possible to give from 9am to 5pm for work and travel until children are 18. This is a good time for parents to take it in turns if possible.
The work/parenting balance needs to be addressed with some urgency. Do the United kingdom value bring up the next generation?
Any Recommendations that you would like the Committee to Consider including in its Report
Children are not prioritized and not care for well, due to working parents. TV is very damaging and should be limited to one hour a day, not used as childcare while the parents’ work. Their needs to be more emphasis on activities, love, care and just spending time with children. The government’s emphasis’s on equality at work means children and family life get sidelined again! Mothers and fathers, out all hours becoming directors or whatever leave the children in childcare all day. What is the point of worldly recognition, has it brought this country anything good, the economy is not booming? Do we need to be a world “big wig” at the expense of the next generation? Is it helping with our society out values? Both men and women seem to have lost the balance of priorities on this one. Family life is coming second to working life and this is deeply damaging to the next generation!
18 December 2012