Spending cuts to hit the North Harder - but what will they mean for you? | Mum In The Madhouse

Spending cuts to hit the North Harder – but what will they mean for you?

The wonderful Baby Genies post about the upcoming spending cuts really resonated with me today.  I am starting to wonder what is coming to the world.  I have blogged about make take on politics, the election and what I wanted to see before and it seems to be as though none of the politico’s were listening.
So what will this week bring?  It seems to be that the word of the month has been fairness, although I fail to see what is fair about taking child benefit from families where one parent is in the higher tax bracket, especially is like us, I am not working.
Nick Clegg also announced this week that 15 hours a week of  preschool education will be open to children living in deprived areas.  This really makes my blood boil.  I live in a deprived area, in fact it was number two in a recent BBC survey of the least resilient areas to be able to cope with the forth coming spending cuts and the neighbouring towns in the number one position.  
I have witnessed first hand the death of local mums and toddler groups, due to the way that surestart operates in the local area.  I have been to events, where the mums leave their children with the surestart employees and sit and chat rather than getting down and playing with the children and I for one am unsure what help there is in putting these children in to a nursery or preschool situation from 2 years old.  They are just babies at this stage and surely wouldn’t the money be better spent educating the parents what the children need rather than getting someone else to look after their children.
I understand they are trying to break the chain of poverty, but I do not understand what is to be gained for society by putting these children in to an educational setting at such an early age.  Shouldn’t parenting children be down to parents not teachers and preschool educators?
So what else will the spending cut review bring and what will it mean to families like mine, who are funded by one main breadwinner (MadDad) whilst I look after the children, act as a care to my mother and also try and regain my health?
I have to say I fear for the NHS, I am not too young to remember the terrible waiting lists and was myself a victim to them in my early years, so much so that I had to have my tonsils and adenoids removed privately at 4 years old.  Currently I need the NHS, I need them to be available to help me with my chronic condition and also long term with my reconstruction for my double mastectomy.
We pay for both our boys to attend swimming lessons, as they only get one term of lessons at school and we both feel that being able to swim well is of key importance in life.  If any cuts to education comes then those lessons will be the first things to disappear and we scrimp and save to be able to afford lessons (£80 per 10 weeks for the boys).  We are unable to be able to afford to go swimming at the weekends with the boys now that the free swimming for under 16’s has been cancelled and on speaking to the leisure centre attendance is down.
What about our village library, will that be cut too?  The village school is one of the largest in the area and seems to have building works done every summer, but it is still too small and more houses are being built, so what will become of the school, will class sizes get larger, there is already 30 children in Mini’s class and 90 in his year?
So what do you think this week will bring, do you think it is fair and what are your fears for the future?

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