Smiling young couple lying together on blankets on their living room floor at home with th

It's time for policy that recognises the reality of modern parenting. It's time for policy that gives parents the choice to care.

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Our exciting news is that we have taken on an advisory role to help form policy that supports caregivers and gives families genuine choice in how they engage in paid work and caring for their children. Our book was the trigger for this but it is a product of 4 years of banging on doors and demanding to be heard. The people at the top have not been listening until now. We would be happy to advise anyone and any party on the political spectrum on how to truly value care and give women genuine choice. This isn’t a conservative issue. It’s not a leftist or socialist issue. This is a human problem - it concerns all of us. It is indefensible to stand by and watch health outcomes decline for families, families who work longer and longer hours struggling to get by, watch quality of life declining, and do nothing.

@albomp @jasonclaremp @jesswalshvic

What will it take for the Albanese government to agree that serious reform of the ECEC sector is required?

Listening to @parentingoutloud and cheering them on for having important conversations but also questioning whether my ideas really are that controversial? Is the choice to care a controversy? Are people who advocate for more support for carers that outrageous that they need a trigger warning? Controversy is the state of our childcare system at the moment. Controversy is the amount of parents who deeply wish to be able to spend more time with their babies and young children but can’t afford to. When my kids grow up I can proudly say I was on the side of history that said how we treat mothers is unacceptable. I stood up for true choice.

For me, the problem was almost as much cultural as it was financial. I was really crushed by not feeling valued as I love to feel like I’m contributing. What was it like for you?

We are posting books! If you are a backer can you please check your emails (Kickstarter emails may be going to junk mail) - you will have received a request for your postal address. If you could please return that info as soon as possible that would be wonderful.

Other ideas for regulation of informal carers include leveraging the framework that is in place (and currently being reformed) for in-home carers in the aged care sector.

We spoke about the importance of recognising the entire care ecosystem, including of course unpaid care work, and not focussing too narrowly on the centre-based care model.

We also included these ideas in our recent submission to the Senate Inquiry into ECEC.

Let us know your thoughts.

Please make a submission!

We want to have all parents’ voices heard, not just the voices of the big childcare bodies and lobby groups.

We will be making a submission focussed on expanding the CCS to allow for financial support to grandparents, nannies and au pairs.

Link in bio to the inquiry page.

Any body else thought about how outdated mainstream feminism is? What’s up with that? How can someone who had an idea in 1912 which has been annihilated by science still be influencing culture and policy today? 🤯

In case you missed the PM’s enormous faux pas - he accidentally revealed his inner misogynist recently even though his PR team would be working round the clock to bring him into the modern ages.

When Alannah and I started Parents Work Collective in 2022 the aim was to have a seat at the table. So pleased to make some really important progress tonight at the @hilmasnetwork event with @larlmortlock @forparentsau @theparenthood @bubbadesk. Also got to hand out a few books!

1. Expanding the CCS and giving parents more choice is an immediate course of action while the childcare sector is improved.

2. 12 months PPL non-negotiable.

3. Long term systemic improvements to the sector are a priority, including implementing more strict quality measures and reducing the for-profit dominance. It remains unclear how feasible this is in the Australian sector given how our commercialised our childcare sector is.

4. Productivity is more than maximising the paid hours of parents from earlier and earlier ages. Parents should be supported in caring for future generations.

Sample unboxing! Next steps:

1. Some wonderful friends have volunteered to proof read for us over the weekend!

2. We correct the files. Give printers the updated files.

3. Our first print run.

4. Send our wonderful kickstarter backers their books!

5. Book available on Amazon and on our website.

Care matters. Women’s choices matter. Kids’ futures matter.

Our new book is here to challenge the system and start the conversations we all need to have.

Kickstarter backers—you lit the spark. Your books are on the way in the coming weeks.

Now it’s your turn. Pre-orders are live—grab your copy via the link in bio and join the push for a world that values care, respects women’s choices, and gives every child the best start in life.

This isn’t just a book. It’s a movement.

We are frequently asked about the cost of policies we advocate for. To us, early childhood spending is a cost saver. Healthier parents and children are a win for the budget no matter what way you look at it.

We stand in full support of @forparentsau petition to expand the childcare subsidy. We note that @theparenthood have publicly stated their opposition to the petition. It’s one thing to advocate for better access to childcare, it’s another thing to advocate this at the expense of choice for families. Until we have a better childcare system, parents deserve the choice to opt out.

Childcare abuse is of course far from the norm - but it is a risk. And when combined with systemic quality failures, profit-driven pressures and unrealistic expectations on families, it’s time to ask: is the “expand-at-all-costs” childcare model really serving children’s best interests?

We are calling for truth-telling about the limits of commercial care and a shift towards valuing all care, including the deeply important and yet overlooked unpaid care that parents provide at home.

Recent reports have exposed shocking failures in after-school care: alleged sexual abuse, physical harm, underqualified staff, and a regulatory system that leaves families in the dark.

This is what happens when care becomes a commodity.

The after-school care sector is now dominated by large private equity firms—funded by public money and operating with minimal oversight.

We need urgent reform. We need to value care—both unpaid and paid—and rebuild a system grounded in community, safety, and respect.

Stories from our community ❤️

A beautiful glimpse into the choices one woman in our community has made for her family. A path less travelled than the one we are typically sold.

The tide is certainly turning in that more parents are more vocal about their choices and preferences in this space, and we are seeing lots more conversation about freedom of choice and flexibility for parents with respect to the care and paid work balancing act. But this is not yet being reflected in policy and the media.

One clear and accessible policy reform is to expand the CCS to financially support parents to care for their own children, to contribute towards grandparent care or to use a nanny. This immediately provides more flexibility and freedom for parents.

It’s great to see this issue getting some air time at the moment. Now we need @albomp and @jasonclaremp to listen! Head to the link in our bio to join the 9000+ parents who have already signed the @forparentsau CCS expansion petition.

Another testimonial for our upcoming book that doesn’t feel real! Mothers are contorting themselves to fit an economy that has erased them. We have been fed a string of substandard solutions. The question is no longer - how can we somehow make mothers better fit into the economic model, but how do we change the economic model to accomodate mothers?

Momentum is really building in the advocacy space around creating more choice for families and we are here for it. This is what change feels like. This change is happening because people are realising we don’t have any other options. The current systems around how we support mothers, parents and young children are failing us. To everyone who has spoken up or refused to accept the status quo, rebelled in some small or big way, you helped make this moment happen.

Had to pinch ourselves this morning when we saw this from @parnellpalme in her SMH column today. Our upcoming book All Mothers Work has been a huge team effort here at Parents Work Collective and collaborating with @_motherism_ on cover design.

I cringe to think about this now. But before I had kids, I remember thinking to myself, “There is really no discrimination against women in my industry [professional services] or at least in this workplace. I get paid the same as my male counterparts, I get access to the same opportunities at work, we seem to have largely moved past this particular issue.”

When I became a mother, I realised that this was true only so long as I behaved like a man. Once I was visibly pregnant, took parental leave, worked part-time, needed to take sick days to care for my kids - it became obvious that the systemic discrimination was alive and well. It wasn’t personal. But the feminism that had worked so well for me, allowing me to obtain a world-class education and participate fully in the paid workforce, started to fail me when I became a mother and could no longer easily participate in a model that expects full-time, physical presence in an office in a paid work capacity in order to achieve “success” in life.

@virginia_tapscott discusses the history, the importance of and the drawbacks of “career feminism” in All Mothers Work and how it was never meant to be the end game, but a necessary step on the way to the true liberation of all women. One in which all of our contributions are recognised and supported.

There are 6 days left to become a Kickstarter backer and get a signed copy of this fabulous, incredibly important book. Link to Kickstarter campaign in bio.

— Alannah (co-founder, Parents Work Collective)

I am in the middle of a final proof read of Virginia’s book at the moment and there is just so much gold. I’ll share some of the bits I loved over the next little while. The quote above is in chapter 1 and really resonated with me.

Motherhood is so profoundly transformative and yet we often meet it with resistance. I know I resisted the changes that motherhood brought to my life and my sense of self. It was only with my second baby that I feel like I leaned into the joys and burdens of motherhood (like having a baby in my arms or on my hip 99% of the day). Why is this the case? Part of it is certainly that the prevailing rhetoric encourages mothers to “bounce back”, not to “lose yourself” in motherhood and to separate from your baby as early as possible so you can regain your old way of being in the world. I think this is gradually changing and there is more acknowledgment of the profound shift that is becoming a mother. Virginia explores these issues in her book in beautiful detail. What has been your experience?

— Alannah

If you would like to receive a signed copy of All Mothers Work then become a backer of our Kickstarter campaign by 26 July. Link in bio.

@virginia_tapscott

When children start to use verbal language, what may previously have been hard to see becomes so evident: the way they turn to you, over and over again, to help them make sense of the world and of themselves. You are the familiar place to which they can return for comfort and reassurance and an explanation of the funny, dark, beautiful ways of the world so that it makes some kind of sense. Home is you.

We acknowledge the deeply distressing impact of this news on all the families involved. We also want to acknowledge the anxiety this induces or exacerbates in parents who have or have had their children in childcare - ourselves included.

We encourage you to write to your Federal MP and demand that the system be overhauled and more creative solutions adopted, to ensure the highest quality care is given to our babies and small children. Reach out if you would like a template email to send.

#allmotherswork

This just in from one of our excited Kickstarter backers!! We can’t wait either. Thank you so much for sending this in. I spent years trying to make sense of what I was feeling in motherhood and now I have put it in a book. So I hope it helps more mothers feel valued and confident in their work.

Hate to share this on Mother’s Day and add to the To Do list but now is the time we have a spare moment! NSW parents - please share your thoughts and experiences with us about commercial childcare over the next week. Parents Work Collective will be making a submission this month to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the ECEC sector following the recent ABC reports into systematic issues, particularly in for-profit centres. We will be encouraging the inquiry to think creatively about other possible care options. Reach out via DM or email with any questions.

What is your take? Let us know your creative policy solutions. #allparentswork

Have a listen to our conversation with @omgjong on @abcdarwin - link is in bio (listen from 1:07:46). Thanks Jess for making space for these conversations.

The @abcnews_au Four Corners report on the childcare industry last night was deeply saddening. @parentsworkcollective is calling on both state and federal governments (@anne.aly) to implement more sophisticated, diverse child care policy that centres the needs of children and their parents - not the profits of private equity firms.

We are home from presenting at the @arc_forum about the immense public health and economic benefits that can be achieved through better supporting parents. Around the world there is a demographic crisis - persistently low birth rates mean we now do not have enough working age adults, paid and unpaid, to support older and younger age groups. This results in understaffed care services such as hospitals, inadequate infrastructure and higher taxes for everyone as a result. This is all a direct consequence of the systemic and long standing failure to value caregivers and appropriately support them. This isn’t about population growth anymore, it is simply about stabilising populations enough so that they are able to replace themselves and meet human needs adequately.

Interestingly, countries with world leading parental support policy frameworks are also unable to halt the birth rate decline which is now wreaking havoc on health and economic outcomes. This is because we are up against cultural forces that also devalue caregivers and make parenting a more difficult experience than it needs to be.

Presenting at this conference was also an important way to promote our upcoming book All Mothers Work, highlight the vital work we do and secure the future of our organisation.

On the home stretch before sending our book to the editors - thanks for all the messages of support, your encouragement and your patience!! At this stage we are looking more at an April print run and deliveries for backers so hang in there. Cannot believe we’ve put down 70,000 words on such a crucial issue. Beyond excited to get it into your hands.

We will never stop trying to show people that valuing unpaid care work is feminism’s unfinished business - this is the key to true liberation. Frankly, early feminists would be disgusted if we stopped fighting for liberation in every sense and for women in all their work. These women stopped at nothing for equal rights, and that includes the right to care. @_motherism_

I quote a lot of Simone de Beauvoir in my book, All Mothers Work, to illustrate the mindset of equality feminists whose work was instrumental in erasing mothers and eroding support for care work. She refers to caregivers as ‘parasites’ who “achieve nothing, but simply perpetuate the present”. As recently as 2019 Australian columnists have also argued to mandate returns to paid work, saying stay at home parenting should be effectively banned. When the feminism movement is guided by people who despised the female body and show shocking disdain for caregivers, it should come as no surprise that we end up with the attitudes to care and women we currently have. Can you believe that people thought, and still think, de Beauvoir was progressive? If a man said this today - what we would call him?

My book does a deep dive on how misguided some aspects of equality feminism are. Head to Kickstarter to back this project!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/allmotherswork/all-mothers-work-a-book-to-start-a-revolution

@_motherism_ @_dreamanddo_

This is a failed reel I tried to do a few years back and it pretty much sums up our juggle here at Parents Work Collective. We are advocating for parents while trying to be one. We don’t have fancy production teams, social media management, IT departments or funding. We are a completely volunteer run organisation taking our message to the very highest levels of politics and policy development. We can’t do this alone. We are going into the final weeks of the campaign to fund the editing, publication and marketing of our book All Mothers Work. This book will be an absolutely vital tool to challenge the dominant narratives that devalue care work and do all women a disservice. It will spread our work further afield than ever before. If you are able - please head to the website and back the book. Pledge whatever you can to get this book off the ground: The link to our funding platform Kickstarter is in our bio! So far we have made the first FOUR chapters available to backers of our project with more on the way. @_motherism_ @bush_bambinis @_dreamanddo_

Step number 1 - assign value to yourself and your whole contribution! If we don’t value ourselves, no one will. This is as simple as noticing the shame of feeling like you are not contributing, identifying the social conditioning that leads us to feel that care work is not a valid contribution and realising that the shame is misplaced. Imagine the power of a whole generation of parents who know our care contributions are valuable and non-negotiable. This would shift community attitudes and lead to policies that genuinely support caregivers. We can’t live in a world that doesn’t exist yet, but we have to start somewhere. A future where parents have the right to care for their babies and young children, where caregivers have financial independence, adequate leave and retirement savings, where reproductive and care labour is truly supported, is within our reach. We must demand it.

Support our book - All Mothers Work! The link to our funding platform Kickstarter is in our bio.

@_motherism_ @bush_bambinis @_dreamanddo_

In the census 93.5% of parents with children under age 15 said childcare was NOT a barrier to increasing paid work or that caring for their children at least some of the time was a PREFERENCE. For parents of children 4 and under this is about 84% of parents. Parents are telling it straight - we are doing ENOUGH. Why aren’t our leaders and other advocacy groups listening? Because it doesn’t fit their ideology which is based on building a society where all parents work full time from the conclusion of 5 months paid parental leave. This is not the solution. Parents don’t want this and it makes us less productive. Our book ALL MOTHERS WORK reimagines a future where parents are supported to have time with their children and make care contributions which have profound implications for both the economy and our wellbeing. Click on the link in our bio to support the book and read the first four chapters!

This book is a collaboration with @_motherism_ who designed the cover and is working tirelessly on this campaign to get the book funded!

@_dreamanddo_ @bush_bambinis

Happy Friday! Our backers just received Chapter 4 of our book All Mothers Work. This chapter looks at the difficulties we face in valuing ourselves as parents - when our self-worth is attached to paid work and tangible targets, parenthood is a whole new paradigm to navigate. We must redefine success and how we measure our worth. We are crowdfunding this book on Kickstarter and it is an ‘all or nothing’ campaign - if we don’t reach the target amount we don’t receive a cent! If you would like this book to see the light of day please head to our Kickstarter page (link in bio) and back the book.

This book is a collab with @_motherism_ designing the cover! @_dreamanddo_ @bush_bambinis

Our book All Mothers Work is 15% funded and it’s all because of you! Our community has long known that chronically stressed women feeling deeply conflicted about their mothering and paid work roles isn’t what liberation looks like. We are finally saying enough is enough. It’s not okay that millions of mothers around the world wake up each morning and go about their paid and unpaid labour with little or no support, sometimes bleeding or still injured from childbirth. Having to leave their children in inadequate care settings and experiencing ongoing separation anxiety because they have NO CHOICE. All of this is a result of our failure to value women and the vital work of care. It has to stop. Our book examines individual, policy level and market based solutions to these entrenched issues. @_motherism_ @_dreamanddo_ @bush_bambinis

A sneak peak of chapter 3 being released soon on our Kickstarter page. Follow the kickstarter link in our bio to be one of the first to read and receive a copy of the book! @_motherism_ @_dreamanddo_

In our book All Mothers Work we address many difficult topics - one being that care workers are poorly paid by design in a dual income society because parents must be able to afford it with almost any other wage. Not just be able to afford it, parents must be able to justify the cost of outsourcing care as a percentage of their hourly rate after tax. It’s an inconvenient truth that the commodification of care has advantaged privileged groups significantly more than underprivileged groups and continues to do so even today. Even when care workers are employed in the public system, even when the private system is heavily subsidised this legacy of wage suppression persists, because care work is inherently cheapened by the idea that it can and should be outsourced. That a parent is easily replaced by institutional care - that the work is easy and anyone can do it. Care work is in fact highly specialised and often takes years of experience to do it well, the skills that result in high quality care are not well understood and difficult to teach or impart. Aside from government subsidised or mandated wage increases (which then impact on tax rises and profitability), one of the most effective ways to address the low wages and poor conditions in paid care sectors is to more highly value and support care in unpaid care sectors. When we truly see the value of our own time and unpaid contributions at an individual level, only then will we see people and governments motivated to pay more for that work at a societal level.

We start addressing these issues in chapter 2 of All Mothers Work which is now available for backers on our Kickstarter page: link in bio!

We have released the second chapter of our book All Mothers Work on Kickstarter for BACKERS ONLY. So if you haven’t already please follow the kickstarter link in our bio and back the book. Share with your communities to ensure this book makes it out into the world. @_motherism_ @bush_bambinis

Women have made extraordinary contributions to the paid workplace and we will continue to do so. But women are doing enough. It is time to strengthen the economy and improve the wellbeing of families by better supporting our vital unpaid contributions. Parents can be such an extraordinary force for good, but we need to change attitudes that continue to place our only worth in careers and generating material wealth.

On the day we launched pre-orders for our book All Mothers Work (link in bio), our organisation was invited to speak at @arc_forum about the urgent need to better support parents and the incredible value of care and domestic work. That kind of platform is almost never offered to caregivers in Australia and we feel it was a watershed moment. We will never turn away from people we may disagree with on some issues, we engage with them and work to pave the way for better supported motherhood. I’m sure not everyone agreed with all our ideas but that is the beauty of truly inclusive and transparent debate - a process sorely lacking in Australian parenthood and early childhood discussions.

@_motherism_ designed our amazing biz cards so we can spread the word!!

What an incredible day! We are already 5% of the way to our fundraising goal to ensure the book is edited and published. We have just released the first draft chapter to our backers - thanks so much for your support and please send us feedback. The link to make a pledge and become a backer is in our bio.

Our letter to the editor. ✍️ @sydneymorningherald @mannix.liam

An absolute masterclass from the @sydneymorningherald and @mannix.liam yesterday on how to misrepresent the evidence on childcare. A huge reminder to remember to always click through to source links and check if they actually back up the author’s claims. In this case it’s impossible to understand how Mannix drew the conclusions he did - I had to wonder did he actually read the research? Also a great example that not even national science reporters are immune to confirmation bias - a blindness to information that doesn’t support their personal view. We are calling on the SMH to review the article, particularly the quick points including:

“There’s no downside in terms of behaviour”
“There does not seem to be negatives from ‘too much’ childcare”
“The benefits are across the socio-economic spectrum”
“Childcare seems to improve kids cognitive outcomes and school readiness”

All these claims are directly disputed in the research which the article links to. We are also calling for this article to be categorised as an opinion piece.

Our next step is to report this misinformation to the Australian Press Council.

EDIT: Slide three references a report from the Melbourne Institute, not the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The Productivity Commission rejected a flat rate universal subsidy for full time childcare because it was unable to establish that this was in the best interests of all children or that this measure would increase productivity.

Productivity and child welfare are inextricably linked: in order for childcare to increase productivity it must, at the very least, not expose children to poor quality care.

Being an enabler of parent participation in the labour force is not, on its own, enough to increase productivity because the gains could be offset by costs of subsequent remedial health and learning interventions that result from chronic exposure to poor quality care.

This report is a critical wake up call - when the Productivity Commission itself is drawing the line on exactly how much childcare is beneficial for children and for the economy more broadly we think it’s time to listen up.

A point that still requires addressing is the total lack of distinction between age groups accessing childcare. This report is based on a lot of preschool research and evidence related to children over 3 years old.

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@parentsworkcollective

ABOUT

OUR
MISSION

We believe that the system underpinning working and parenting is no longer fit for purpose. Combining working and caring for children is next to impossible. Parents are overstretched and stressed.

We believe that better support for parents to care for their own children, particularly in the early years, will improve the wellbeing of families and ultimately benefit society at large.

This is in contrast to current government policy which promotes, almost exclusively, the outsourcing of childcare so that parents can return to the paid workplace.

Champions

Parents Work Collective is endorsed by Robin Barker, bestselling author of 'Baby Love'.

Visit the Resources Hub for Robin's take on the incompatibility of child care for children under three.

Parents Work Collective is endorsed by Steve Biddulph, psychologist and world-renowned parent educator and author of 'Raising Boys' and 'Raising Girls'.

Steve says: "I am so pleased you are doing this. The culture of everyone - mums and dads - having to return to work before they are ready, or is good for their kids, is so predominant...individual parents feel immense pressure, social and financial to go with the flow. Everywhere I go, I meet parents who....felt encouraged by my writing, and the research picture - to trust their own intuitions, and stay home longer. They are always incredibly pleased they did."

Parents Work Collective is endorsed by Lael Stone. Lael is an author, educator and TedX speaker.

Lael says: "Alannah and Virginia...are opening up conversations around unpaid care work and supporting the family unit. I think these are important conversations to be had, especially if we want to prioritise attachment, connection and support for parents...I really believe that if we started supporting the family unit right from the beginning, then we would see far less issues further down the line."

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If these ideas resonate with you and you are tired of the government's failure to recognise the social, cultural and fiscal value of care work, please sign up to our mailing list below.

We are working to bring these ideas to decision makers and show them that millions of Australian families need more support and in particular want the choice to care for their kids.

By joining our mailing list you can help us demonstrate the number of families who share this view.

It's time for policy that recognises the reality of modern parenting. It's time for policy that gives parents the choice to care.

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