Nursery World - A labour of living

Tralee Perkins (Letters, 13 June) has admonished those of us who dare to complain about our pay levels. While I agree wholeheartedly that childcare is very rewarding work, I must say that those able to disregard the financial side of the job merely for the love of what we do are fortunate indeed. How can we speak of 'careers' in childcare when the remuneration does not in many cases constitute a 'living'? Ms Perkins refers to the 'money you want', but I refer to the money we need. Practitioners who need their pay to be more than mere pocket money to supplement the income of the major wage earner struggle in today's economic climate.

How can we speak of 'careers' in childcare when the remuneration does not in many cases constitute a 'living'? Ms Perkins refers to the 'money you want', but I refer to the money we need. Practitioners who need their pay to be more than mere pocket money to supplement the income of the major wage earner struggle in today's economic climate.

Surely this is also partly to blame for the failure to attract more men into the childcare profession? I have known many excellent and experienced professionals who left for more lucrative non-childcare jobs when they found balancing the family budget made it impossible to continue. Why earn the minimum wage for such a responsible job, with all its pressure and paperwork, when you can be paid much more as a bank clerk, for instance, and leave your work behind at the end of the day?

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