Apologies

Sorry about the faulty description, Mr. Bargeman. Clearly I should have said "distinguished union leader who valiantly resisted the constant manipulations of craven administrators". Either that or "former child minder and union hack". As Manuel was prone to saying on Fawlty Towers, "I am estupido." Also I blame the province.

Getting out of that box...

“Money is always an issue where child care is concerned. Any comprehensive plan involves billions of dollars.”

“ "We've had good economic times in the province for the last seven years," James observes. "Gordon Campbell has squandered the good times." She argued the government has consistently used "the challenge of meeting child care needs as an excuse." “

Maybe we need to drop some cherished paradigms here and admit that we simply aren’t now and never have been prepared to pay what it costs to bring up baby. What about the most comprehensive notion of all, giving parents the substantial and solid support they need in order to afford looking after their children themselves? Any outsourcing of this crucial job is no more than an attempt on the part of society to cut it cheap, to make the equivalent of burger joint products replacing proper home-cooked meals. If we are to survive, we must think differently.

The good times we’ve had would have been a little less, OK, a good deal less good, if we had paid our dues to the next generation. We have, instead, got what we deserve, a shrinking economy that will go on shrinking, because it was based on the assumption that ‘things’ (the number of people) would go on growing. Money in the bank and anywhere else is only meaningful, if there are people to put it to work and generate a return on it. And returns only get generated on a line of growth. If there is too much money in the bank and too few people to do the working with it, we go into recession. This is happening now, because we didn’t care enough about the next generation. We cared so little, that the enterprise of parenthood itself went into recession. This is world-wide and will not end, until we hit the numbers that will make us realise that people themselves are a priceless commodity, and start paying what it costs to make them and prepare them for a productive life.

I still vividly remember a couple of professional ladies I overheard on a bus, agonising over how important it was to not go ‘too cheap’ on one’s childminder, or one’s child could get saddled with inadequate social skills etc. Obviously, such set-ups are operating on a very narrow margin. Many working mothers in fact work for very little money, if childcare expenses are considered as the cost of doing business. It would perhaps not take much in the way of tax credits etc., to have many parents mind their own children, and we would be much richer for it as a society, maybe have some real hope for the future. The politicians need to get it through their heads, that they cannot insist on putting tax credit only into outsourcing of childcare, but they must be willing to also support stay-at home parents to the same extent, give people a real choice.

parents raising kids

"to have many parents mind their own children, and we would be much richer for it as a society, maybe have some real hope for the future. "

Traditionally children were raised by an extended group of relatives, siblings etc. Only for a brief period of time has the idea of Mom (or Dad) staying home to raise kids been the norm. Further, I would say a child in the care of trained ECE professionals and interacting with large groups of other children is better socialized and more well-equipped to handle the real world than a child raised in relative isolation with only the viewpoint/approach of one adult to inform their learning experience.

I do agree however that we cheap out on the expense of caring for children. I would spend the money on better childcare with trained personnel rather than leaving this important job up to parents who are for the most part not as well equipped for the task.

Parenting

Dorothy's comments highlight how charged this debate can quickly become. Of course some parents don't take their obligations to their children seriously. But implicit in Dorothy's comments is the notion that when both parents of young children work that they shortchange their children. That needn't be the case. It usually isn't the case. The notion that somehow it is the case is one factor preventing us from meeting the challenge of child care.

I was told that one trustee, when questioned about the shortage of out-of-school care in Vancouver, talked about "free babysitting". First of all, that's a real disservice to the quality of licensed child care in B.C. and the enormous talents of the people who deliver it. Secondly, it's a moral rebuke to families where both parents choose to work.

Furthermore, it's not just a money- and consumption-driven economy that's at issue. It's the nature of families. Thoroughly westernized Canadian families aren't as large as they used to be, and the gap between generations is bigger, so we need different social arrangements to replace what was provided by the sort of families that were once more commonplace.

That said, I'll add that a lot of child care advocates undermine their cause by not paying enough attention to the needs of those parents who do choose to stay home to care for their kids. Stephen Harper played to those people with his $100-a-month payments.

We shouldn't ask parents who choose to stay home to pay disproportionately through their family taxes for the care of children whose parents both choose to work. We need to better support parents who stay at home AND parents who choose to work.

What?

"However, many school districts -- Kelowna, North Vancouver and West Vancouver among them -- are more aggressive than Vancouver in meeting families' child care needs."

How is that? I live in North Vancouver and we've had a heck of a time finding childcare. Our neighbourhood school doesn't provide any and we just recently got a call back from the municipal recreation center wondering if we wanted our child to remain on the waiting list five years after putting her on!

If you mean more agressive being that they offer all-kindergarten to parents that are lucky enough to live near the limited classes the have (and pay for it) then ok. It isn't offered in any great supply in North Vancouver and I'm not sure that two-tier education is such a great idea anyways. You have to remember that, currently, many students get all-day kindergarten for free.

Many Vancouver schools have before and after school care in their schools, and that is a service that working parents really need. Where does that happen in North Vancouver? Not at my child's school.

What's more aggressive?

Making classroom space available to meet the need. Last summer in North Vancouver, the school board (are there two, city and district?) put out a request for proposals on behalf of parents needing out-of-school care and offering an empty classroom for the purpose.

Full-day and half-day K is itself another morass of bad policy, which I'll write about at a later date. If you wish to e-mail me so we can talk more about your experience in that regard by all means. I'm at

.

Not the only game in town...

“..a child in the care of trained ECE professionals and interacting with large groups of other children is better socialized and more well-equipped to handle the real world than a child raised in relative isolation with only the viewpoint/approach of one adult to inform their learning experience.”

“Thoroughly westernized Canadian families aren't as large as they used to be, and the gap between generations is bigger, so we need different social arrangements to replace what was provided by the sort of families that were once more commonplace.”

Well so I’m not saying extended families of the organic, blood relative sort will necessarily be re-established anytime soon, although some people who are not so thoroughly westernized ( ironically, some of them of western origin) have never really given up on the notion that some extended family setting is a good idea for children to grow up in,and do their best to facilitate an approximation of this.

I am a little flabbergasted that we are still talking as if the whole socio-economic kit and caboodle we have until now been perpetuating, is still the going thing. Have the crashes, which continue to happen, not made anyone sit up and take notice, that something is fundamentally wrong with our ‘thoroughly western’ ideas, that we must re-think not only the little curlicues on the surface, but the foundations, too?

...more

..more

I do not see, why interaction with large numbers of other children should be the thing. I would think a smaller group with a little bit of age diversity, such as ‘the gang’ I grew up with, composed of the children who happened to live on my street, would be better, more sort of like a family. A parent taking care of you does not mean that they are the only people you interact with; that would only be the case if the parents are of the persnickety sort, who themselves don’t chat up sales clerks and fellow passengers on the train etc. I certainly don’t see how following a parent around in his or her tracks somehow doesn’t represent the real world. Provided, of course that that parent lives a real life, which is certainly possible.

I see in the two excerpts above, as well as in Mr. Campbell’s comment a tendency to brand the idea of parents of child minders as somewhat obsolete, a job better left to professionals, a red herring that prevents progress. I think this is indeed influenced by the “money- and consumption-driven economy” set of values, where ending is better than mending, and we all hate old clothes. I cannot guess at what it is people may be trying to rationalize with these dismissive tones, but I think my important point is that care-by-parent should be made equally available as a choice, rather than denigrated as a threat to the sallying forth of other people’s ideas. I do not agree with Mr. Campbell, that it is somehow a stumbling block. The lack of political will to improve things at all is the stumbling block. If it wasn’t this excuse being used, the politicos would come up with something else.

My comment in its entirety counted 2,940 characters on Microsoft word, yet it was blocked as being too long. What gives?

Hardly obsolete

I don't know where Dorothy finds in my observations "a tendency to brand the idea of parents of child minders as somewhat obsolete, a job better left to professionals".

My wife and I take care of our daughter for two thirds of her waking hours each week. We're happy to do it. I sometimes envy those who choose to work less or not at all to spend more time with young children, just as they sometimes envy those who have continued with their careers. Like many two-income families we need the supports to allow us to work for that other third of our child's week. Kindergarten is a particularly problematic year for families where both parents work. We need to deal with that, just as we also need to respect and support the choices of those who put their careers on hiatus.

There are several systemic and social obstacles to dealing with these issues. Dorothy's right that politicians are always looking for excuses to avoid a complicated problem. And she's right that we over-consume and lose track of human priorities.

With out-of-school care, however, we have a service that should be easy to provide to parents who want it and often desperately need it. Parents usually pay the vast majority of the cost. And yet someone who advocates for improvement becomes a person who believes parenting is obsolete and a job best left to professionals?

With respect, Dorothy, that is part of the problem.

Once more, with feeling

"..we need different social arrangements to replace what was provided by the sort of families that were once more commonplace."

I think this is where I see the tendency of which you speak. For in fact, you speak for the people who are, perhaps reluctantly but nevertheless, giving in to the pressures from the surrounding consumption-driven society and it seems to me you are expressing that this is 'the new norm', and we must rearrange our thinking and child care arrangements accordingly.

I am asking for a thinking that gives room for more diversity, for there are people, whether they consider themselves otherwise westernized or not, who are dead against the two-paycheque arrangement and the outsourcing of childcare as the choice for their family. Nevertheless, they do produce employable members of the next generation, an investment we all should be interested in, since we have no hesitation coming for their tax dollars, once these emerge. And so I think these parents are equally deserving of full support in what they do for their offspring.

I think we will make no progress, as long as we have this hyper-sensitivity, that the mere preference of something different in others is seen as an implied criticism of what we have chosen. Are we so hopelessly insecure, that only razing of diversity and complete uniformity will reassure us we are doing it right? What I wrote, and which in your statement made the discussion 'charged' was this:

"Many working mothers in fact work for very little money, if childcare expenses are considered as the cost of doing business. It would perhaps not take much in the way of tax credits etc., to have many parents mind their own children, and we would be much richer for it as a society, maybe have some real hope for the future."

My point was, that the governments are remiss in only being willing to fund childcare if it done by paid workers in a facility. My call was for greater diversity, which is what makes a society rich and gives it hope for the future, as opposed to the cookie-cutter approach

Diversity absolutely

My initial response to Dorothy's comments concluded with this:

"We shouldn't ask parents who choose to stay home to pay disproportionately through their family taxes for the care of children whose parents both choose to work. We need to better support parents who stay at home AND parents who choose to work."

And I subsequently become in Dorothy's eyes a person who insinuates that parenting is obsolete and a job best left to professionals. The focus of this conversation has become whether better child care should be pursued and whether it's appropriate for both parents of young children to work.

The opening of my story asserts that "different ideas about parental versus social responsibility" make improving early childhood education and care a challenge. On that count, I rest my case.

Vancouver vs. North Vancouver

Vancouver already has before and after daycare in more than 1/3 of their elementary schools. There are currently 4 Junior Kindergarten (4 year-old) classes running, free of charge, in Vancouver. How is putting out expressions of interest more aggressive? North Vancouver (it's only one school district, 3 trustees elected from the city and 4 from the district) is way behind Vancouver in meeting childcare needs of parents. And ... Vancouver has nothing to brag about.