Free breakfast clubs are an admission the system has failed working parents
Breakfast clubs are now essential for many working parents, but they don’t come free, writes Alys Denby in today’s Notebook
No such thing as a free breakfast
Mornings are having a moment on social media, with videos of absurd routines involving buckets of ice, weight-lifting and protein sludge doing the rounds. If these vain attention seekers really wanted a productivity boosting start to the day, they should try the school run.
For parents, the end of the Easter holidays means a return to the iron discipline of getting teeth brushed, uniforms ironed, book bags packed and children out of the door by 8.30am. But for thousands that will now be a little easier, as the government has opened new ‘free’ breakfast clubs, offering a meal and 30 minutes of extra childcare in the morning at 750 schools.
The Prime Minister has said the policy means “parents will no longer be hamstrung by rigid school hours and have the breathing space they need to beat the morning rush, attend work meetings and doctors’ appointments, or run errands”. It’s a dilemma many will recognise, but it’s also a tacit admission of how badly the system is failing working families.
If both parents work normal hours, breakfast clubs and after-school care aren’t a matter of “breathing space” – they are essential to make your life function in a world that’s still set up on the assumption that one parent (let’s be honest, usually the mother) is constantly available.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be provided to everyone by the state. There is strong evidence for the benefits of breakfast clubs for the most disadvantaged children, many of whom would otherwise arrive at school hungry and struggle to learn. But it is less clear that a universal provision that will also go to wealthy families who could otherwise afford to pay should be a government priority. And claims that this will somehow save parents £450 a year are completely spurious given that taxes are almost certainly going to be hiked again to fund Labour’s spending plans.
What I’ve been reading
A novel about a father and son on a desolate journey through an ash-strewn, post- apocalyptic wasteland with only the distant menace of cannibals for human company may not sound like the perfect beach read. But I was completely transported by Cormac McCarthy’s The Road on a recent holiday, and the scorched, volcanic setting of Lanzarote was an evocative setting. There’s a moment near the end where the protagonist “wake(s) in the black and freezing waste out of softly colored worlds of human love, the songs of birds the sun”. Reading this book is like experiencing that dream in reverse, you raise your mind from McCarthy’s hell and remember how much beauty there is in life.
Holiday like a Tory
Speaking of Lanzarote, while there we visited a restaurant which proudly commemorated a visit by David Cameron. It was during the period when, sporting his signature blue polo shirt, the ex-Prime Minister would be photographed on holidays that were slightly less posh than his obvious preference. I was reminded of a Tory MP who told me that, on bumping into a fellow Tory MP enjoying the exact same attractions in Cornwall, had remarked “what a coincidence!” – to which their colleague had replied “it’s not a coincidence though, is it?”.
A recommendation:
Regular Notebook readers will note that our authors rarely hold back from a bit of self-promotion, so in that spirit I recommend the My Martin Amis podcast, where contributors like Janan Ganesh, James Marriott, Will Lloyd, Zoe Strimpel and your humble pen-holder discuss the late novelist’s work with host Jack Aldane.