Germany: unions and employers call on government to drop its plan to introduce a premium for stay at home mothers

Ideological battle.  When is a mother considered a ‘good mother’?  Is a mother who puts her child in daycare to go to work a bad mother, a “Rabenmutter” (unnatural mother) or, on the contrary, a confident twenty-first century mother?  Does a stay-at-home mom apply an outdated system, which may even be detrimental to the child’s development?  Since the parties of the coalition in power – CDU/CSU and FDP (liberal) – have decided, on November 6, to start paying, in 2013, a special bonus (Betreuungsgeld) to parents who decide not to rely on collective daycare to raise their young children, this ideological battle, which isn’t new in Germany, was revived.  Not only does it bring the parties up against each other, it is also agitating the Conservatives.  The draft, zealously defended by the CSU in Bavaria, a fellow party to Angela Merkel’s and developed by Kristina Schröder, CDU Minister for Family Affairs, provides to give parents, starting in 2013, a monthly €100 bonus at first, during the second year after the birth of the child, and then €150 starting in 2014.  This €150 bonus will also be paid for the third year following the child’s birth.  In addition to the amount of the premium, the outline of the system, which will be the subject of a bill by next summer, is still uncertain.  Will parents who work full-time and appeal to paid help (nurse, babysitter, home childcare…) also be entitled to this bonus?  Apparently, according to Schröder, they will.  During a heated Parliamentary debate on November 9, the Minister defended her system, explaining that it fully respected the parents’ “freedom of choice.”  With this new benefit, the parents will be “totally free” to decide between collective daycare, individual daycare or even staying at home, the Minister said, reminding that the parents would also enjoy, as of 2013 as well, an enforceable right to daycare when the child is 1 (instead of 3 today).