Do you know what's really stressful? Organising child care. It's really stressful. You've got little kids, so you probably don't get that much sleep—I know I didn't. You're trying to work out whether you can find child care that lines up with the days you work or the hours you work, how you're going to get there, how you're going to make sure you get the kids there safely and pick them up safely, how it's going to line up with your breastfeeding schedule if your child's still breastfeeding, whether you're going to need to pump at work and then organise frozen breast milk, whether you're going to have to switch your child to formula and whether you really want to do that. And then, on top of that, is the child going to have a good time at child care? Are they going to make friends there? Are they going to feel lonely there? Are they going to miss you? How are you going to feel when you drop them off for the first time, if they're crying or if they're not crying? One of the biggest stresses, if not the biggest stress, is the cost of child care. It's incredibly difficult for a young family to manage the cost of child care. It's very clear to us in Labor that you need to ease the burden on working families when it comes to the cost of child care.
Australia needs a better childcare system
05 August 2021
Australians deserve a better childcare system.