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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks.

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Speaker 2: At be at our House. This week, the juggle gets real.

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Speaker 2: After a year's maternity leave, my wife is heading back

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Speaker 2: to work with a nearly one year old and a

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Speaker 2: nearly nine year old. We are balancing the two kids

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Speaker 2: with two working parents. Every day is logistical jiu jitsu.

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Speaker 2: My wife has actually been making this point for ages,

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Speaker 2: but as we have counted down the days to the

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Speaker 2: new normal at our place, I've really come to appreciate

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Speaker 2: its salience more than ever. Even though I think we

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Speaker 2: would all agree that young people are the key to

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Speaker 2: our future economic and otherwise, somehow we have created a

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Speaker 2: society that makes things incredibly tricky for many young families.

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Speaker 2: So first of all, to have, you know, like a

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Speaker 2: reasonable middle class home owning life, most households these days

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Speaker 2: need two working parents. And of course there are exceptions. Okay,

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Speaker 2: there are exceptions to everything, but I reckon most households

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Speaker 2: today need two working parents if they aspire to a

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Speaker 2: reasonable middle class home owning life. It's my sense that

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Speaker 2: this probably didn't used to be the case. In the

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Speaker 2: post war years, it was quite normal to have households

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Speaker 2: with one working parent. It wasn't that families were flush

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Speaker 2: with cash or anything like that. It's just that relative

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Speaker 2: to incomes, housing and the cost of living was perhaps

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Speaker 2: more affordable. I think, so two working parents for most

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Speaker 2: middle class households, and of course many jobs, if not

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Speaker 2: most jobs, will require staff to work an eight hour

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Speaker 2: day nine until five. But school, Oh no, no, no, no. School.

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Speaker 2: School is a six hour day, so school goes from

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Speaker 2: nine to three, which means that if you're on pickup

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Speaker 2: duties you probably need to be checking out of work

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Speaker 2: at two thirty. But work goes from nine till five.

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Speaker 2: Hang on a second, but then consider the holidays. Well,

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Speaker 2: standard leave provisions for a full time worker in New

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Speaker 2: Zealand a four weeks annual leave plus the public holidays. Okay,

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Speaker 2: let's do the math together. That means that in a

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Speaker 2: two parent house, if both parents are working and the

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Speaker 2: parents never have more than a long weekend off together, well,

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Speaker 2: they can cover about eight weeks a year. Right, four

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Speaker 2: weeks annual leave plus four weeks annual leave equals eight

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Speaker 2: weeks and you'll leave per year. Buts kids get at

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Speaker 2: least twelve weeks of school holidays. Hmmmm, Hang on, a

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Speaker 2: second look, I'm just convinced. I don't have any data

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Speaker 2: on this, but I am convinced that school holiday programs

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Speaker 2: and after school care were not nearly as common or

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Speaker 2: necessary when I was a kid let alone in the

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Speaker 2: sixties or seventies eighties, Right, and then for younger children

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Speaker 2: it's just as challenging, right for kids who aren't yet

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Speaker 2: at school. Sure, the government has increased its maternity provisions.

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Speaker 2: When my mum had us, she got nothing back in

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Speaker 2: the day. But while they provide twenty hours free childcare

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Speaker 2: for children over the age of three, maternity payments only

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Speaker 2: go for the first six months of a baby's life,

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Speaker 2: even though supposedly a child's first one thousand days are

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Speaker 2: the most important. There's a two and a half year

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Speaker 2: gap in support. So the first six months you qualify

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Speaker 2: for maternity support, then you don't qualify for anything until

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Speaker 2: your kid's three. So what's a family to do if

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Speaker 2: their grandparents aren't around or available every day to help.

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Speaker 2: If they don't have immediate support, one parent can choose

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Speaker 2: to stay home with the child, or a parent can

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Speaker 2: go back to work and effectively redirect all of their

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Speaker 2: income into childcare. Neither option is amazing and look. New

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Speaker 2: Zealand's birth rate has massively dropped off in the last

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Speaker 2: few decades, same with our fertility rate. We don't yet

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Speaker 2: face the kind of population crisis that afflicts the likes

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Speaker 2: of Italy and South Korea. But as the eldest of

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Speaker 2: four something tells me the sale of Mitsubishi chariots has

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Speaker 2: massively dropped off in recent years. You just don't see

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Speaker 2: anywhere near as many big families as with a norm

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Speaker 2: a few decades ago. And I want to be clear,

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Speaker 2: right like, when it comes to our family, we are very,

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Speaker 2: very fortunate. We are the privilege for few, right I'm

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Speaker 2: lucky to be very well paid, we have support, and

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Speaker 2: yet it is still a real hustle. And I can't

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Speaker 2: help but think what for the working families who don't

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Speaker 2: have my income or support close by, or flexible employers

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Speaker 2: or more help with childcare. For so many families, it

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Speaker 2: must be more than a juggle. It's a real struggle,

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Speaker 2: and honestly, I'm not sure that's in anyone's interest.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

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Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,