Warning: Humourless Rant Below

I don’t often use this blog to moan (do I??), but today I need to let off steam about something, and this seems as good a place as any.
It’s about childcare. Not a thrilling subject, I agree, but of great importance to those of us with children.
Childcare: why is there not more of it? Why, even in a country like France, which likes to boast of its high birth rate (2 kids per woman on average, the baby-boomer of Europe), does the state not provide anywhere near the number of nursery places to satisfy everyone?

Yesterday I spent a very uncomfortable 10 minutes on the phone to the director of BB’s crèche, begging and pleading and trying really hard not to get over emotional… just to try and secure a place for BB’s little brother.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t blame the director in any way: she has a limited number of places, and probably half the mothers in Toulouse trying to get their offspring into her crèche. I know: I did the same for BB. We told her I was pregnant way back in January (in bigger cities like Paris, you practically have to apply for places a year before you plan to conceive!) and yet the “battle” still rages, because other mums are pregnant too and, well, it seems that childcare is a cut-throat marketplace like any other.

The story will almost certainly have a happy ending for us, because the lovely director has promised to do her absolute best for us, and BB’s brother will probably be able to start crèche in November (sooner than I really wanted, but beggars most certainly cannot be choosers).
But what about the unlucky ones?

Is it even right that we only secured a place for BB in the beginning thanks to a “friend who has a friend who…” (a process known in French as “se faire pistonner”, something that happens a lot here, and in other cultures too, I suppose)?

And there’s something not very pleasant about the whole process, I feel. My poor baby is still floating around in my belly, slurping a bit of amniotic fluid and learning how to open his eyes… and I am already battling to find someone who will take care of him while his mum goes out to work.
And yet this is the reality for many of us who simply cannot afford to take more time off work.

Surely more should be done to provide decent, affordable childcare?
ALL “working mums” (the quotation marks are ironic because all mums are by definition “working”) should have the right to CHOOSE a nice, safe environment for their child, so that they can go off to do their office job, or whatever it is they have to do to pay the bills, secure in the knowledge that their child is safe and happy.

Surely it’s not too much to ask?

Rant over. Thank you for listening.