Good afternoon Stuart!
December 9th, 2006 at 12:00pm
Good afternoon Stuart (what an unusual sentence…I’m used to saying good morning to you)
What a pleasant surprise to hear your voice in the afternoon, I remember the first time I heard you away from Lawsie’s show on Christmas day in 2004, I was eagerly trying to remember your name thinking "he sounds a lot like the co-driver…I wonder…"
Call me old-fashioned if you want, but I just don’t see the fuss about the child care rebate, surely if you have minimal financial difference between working and staying at home, the answer is obvious…stay at home with the kids! Most families are civilised and the parents should be able to come to some sort of agreement where either one parent works full-time or they both work part-time. Surely it is better for the children if a parent can be at home in those early developmental years, and I think home cooked meals will be much healthier than take away food every night.
If more people considered staying at home as a good option we would have less demand on child care, and in turn it would probably be more affordable for those who really need it.
On a different note…what a silly idea to dump the Westpac and NRMA rescue helicopters in favour of a for-profit Canadian company…I think a furry little alien by the name of Alf summed it up many years ago when he said "If it ain’t broke, don’t step on it".
Enjoy the food that Lynne Mullins brings in later today…I get the impression it won’t be a force feeding!
Have a good afternoon, and don’t disappear from overnights just yet!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
Entry Filed under: Talkback Emails
4 Comments
1. Jey | December 9th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Oh Samuel,
often both parents need to work to get by.
Also I could give you a whole feminist type rant about career womyn etc.
But I don’t wanna touch that can of worms
2. Samuel | December 9th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Jey, we agree, we just don’t seem to be reading each other’s messages.
Jey wrote: “often both parents need to work to get by”
Samuel wrote: “If more people considered staying at home as a good option we would have less demand on child care, and in turn it would probably be more affordable for those who really need it.”
Similar statements, basically what I’m saying is that if it was only the parents who both need to work using childcare, there would be less demand on childcare, and the laws of economics (with perhaps a bit of assistance from the government) would force the price of childcare down a bit. The government may also then be able to afford to pay more of a childcare benefit.
Jey wrote: “Also I could give you a whole feminist type rant about career womyn etc”
Samuel wrote: “Most families are civilised and the parents should be able to come to some sort of agreement where either one parent works full-time or they both work part-time. Surely it is better for the children if a parent can be at home in those early developmental years, and I think home cooked meals will be much healthier than take away food every night.”
I didn’t say anything about Women not being able to have careers, in fact I said something about the parents coming to an agreement on who would work and when.
Of course I could just be being optimistic about it all, and we don’t really live in a society where people focus primarily on “needs” and not “wants”, but surely it would be good if just a few more people did.
3. Jey | December 10th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Fair ‘nough.
May I plead laziness in reading the post due to that plague I’m still suffering from?
4. Samuel | December 10th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Most certainly.
I probably didn’t make the post perfectly clear anyway. If I’d spent time elaborating my email would have had no chance of getting to air…I think it was cut down as it was.