The personal is political for women when childcare is cut

When people say "the personal is political", what they mean is that it's very hard to do your job when there's a one-year-old child whining and performing eccentric laps of the living room in the background.

- HANNAH FEARN

When that job requires a certain amount of focused concentration - let's say, writing a column for a national newspaper - it's almost impossible.

This is by way of explanation for any lapses in my grammar that follow because, with almost perfect pathos, my toddler's nursery couldn't take her at short notice this week due to staff shortages. So here I am, trying to do everything at once. It's horrible.

Thousands of families are about to be plunged into the same impossible situation as the cost of living crisis hits day nurseries. Already hamstrung by the lack of government investment, nurseries are now unable to meet rising wage bills alongside extortionate energy costs. To put it in the most basic of terms: it's expensive to run a nursery because you need constant access to heating and hot water all day long.

Many nursery managers are admitting defeat and closing before they face being forced into administration. This leaves working parents unable to fulfill their own obligations to their employers and at risk of losing their jobs.

The increased flexibility that the post-pandemic "hybrid working" culture now allows is only beneficial to parents of young children if they also have childcare. For anyone unclear about this: it is not possible to do a job competently at the same time as also having sole responsibility for a small child. Absolutely not.