Ireland is not an easy place to raise children – five days off to look after sick children doesn’t feel like a lifeline

That is different. It’s good, I think, but as a parent of two young children, holding your left arm in your right hand feels a bit like someone is offering you a band-aid. It’s well intentioned, but hard to believe it will make any real difference.

Parents in Ireland get screwed. I realize this isn’t exactly poetic usage, but it accurately reflects what it feels like to be a parent in a country that is inhospitable to children and families. Yes, I said so.

Ireland is not an easy place to raise children. Of course it wasn’t always like that. Once upon a time (literally a generation before mine), children were raised by communities. My early childhood was spent “on the road”, happily hopping in and out of different houses and being nurtured, nurtured and cared for by a multitude of people.

Things have changed now.

Thanks to the housing crisis, few people have the privilege of living in the areas they grew up in, and while there are still areas with a strong sense of community, this is no longer the standard. If you’re a parent, you’re on your own. At least that’s how it feels.

When my children entered full-time childcare, it felt like a massive relief. Of course it’s not cool to say that. You should talk about your grief walking away from daycare, how you felt like your heart was being torn in two. That wasn’t my experience. I was grateful to be human again for a moment. To take a deep breath. Go to the toilet alone. Contemporary thinking would lead you to believe that this reflects some kind of disdain for my children or a lack of maternal instinct, but that’s nonsense.

Moms have always needed a little time away from their kids.

That’s why we were sent out to play, or my grandmother’s generation put the pram in front of the front door to get some peace and quiet. An elderly relative of mine was shocked when I explained to him that I never had a break from my baby. “How do you manage to finish your reading?”

Of course, childcare comes with crippling costs. In Dublin, daycare fees are around €900 a month. When the children reach primary school, after-school care costs between 600 and 800 euros a month. That’s at least €1,500 per month for childcare if you have one child in preschool and one in after-school care.

Sure, you’ll be a bit undocked by the time the youngest reaches the age when early childhood care and education (ECCE) hours begin, but even then it only covers three hours a day and eight months a year.

It’s no surprise that many parents, and let’s face it, they’re mostly moms, feel like they can’t afford to work. You can understand why five days off to look after sick children doesn’t exactly feel like a lifeline.

If you’re sick of hearing about it, I don’t blame you because I’m sick of talking about it.

The lack of support for parents in this country is nothing short of shocking. I know this because I have watched friend after friend have their blinders removed along with the birth of their children.

I was recently standing at a 40th birthday party in a noisy bar when a friend who had recently had a baby spoke passionately to me about how difficult it all was. “Nobody talks about it!” she yelled over the music.

“We do!” I yelled back. “It’s just that nobody listens unless they’re there.”

Sure, you hear about the wholeness of parenting, the lack of kid-friendly spaces, the cost of childcare, but do you really notice it?

no “It can’t be that bad,” you think. “It will be different for me.”

I certainly thought so.

The challenges parents and families are facing in this country are so great that they are really incomprehensible for people who have not yet experienced them, let alone the more disadvantaged families with additional needs.

It seems to me that after this stage of life nobody wants to go back there. So we have a society that either cannot or will not solve the very real problems that Irish families face. And they are fixable.

That’s the most annoying part I think. All of these problems can be fixed, as evidenced by the majority of countries across Europe. In Germany, the above 1,700 euro childcare scenario costs only a tax-deductible 250 euros. In other European countries there is social support for parents to counteract isolation.

However, someone actually has to do something about it, and I can’t help but believe that the gender and age breakdown of our lawmakers plays a role in the speed of change in this area.

If there were more mothers of young children in the Dáil these problems would be solved, but of course there will not be more mothers of young children in the Dáil, for where would we find the time? And of course, we can’t afford the childcare.