They also regard using childcare as leaving children with 'a stranger', while using family members is 'the next best thing to being there myself.'
The Department for Children, Schools and Families, which commissioned the research, said the aim was to try to understand the language that parents from poorer backgrounds used around childcare provision so that the Government could communicate better with parents and increase the take-up of formal childcare.
It surveyed more than 100 parents who had an annual household income of less than £20,000 including benefits, and children aged between nine months and 11 years.
The report said, 'Childcare was contrary to the prevailing value system of this group, whereby they prioritised family relationships over work and money. Parents wanted to spend as much time as possible with their children and tended to see work as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. They were very disapproving of "career" people who (they perceive) have children and pay someone else to bring them up.'
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