She's done it again.

[velvetpage]

Lydia Lovric, a columnist in our local newspaper, has written another article that got my ire up. The last time she did this was about this time last year, when she said that ten minutes a day in increased prep time was a laughable thing to ask for. That comment inspired one of my best letters to the editor.

Today's article was about subsidized daycare. Basically, she touted the Conservative party line that a tax rebate to allow parents to make choices about their families is preferable to subsidized daycare spots. Here's my response. I haven't sent it off yet, so if you have suggestions (anidada, I'm looking at YOU) please comment and I'll make changes.



Childcare letter

Once again, Lydia Lovric has made a few huge leaps in logic to postulate that Canadians would rather have a tax cut than improved subsidized childcare.

The first leap is in the actual finances of it. “Making it easier for one parent to stay home” is a lovely goal. Please, tell me how you’ll manage it. My family has a modestly priced home, one car only, and is careful about purchases. If the government would give us a $20 000 rebate on our taxes, we could probably afford to have one of us not work. Oh, hold on a sec. We wouldn’t be paying any taxes at all, if that were to happen.

The Conservative party line in the last federal election was to give each family a $1000 tax rebate to put towards childcare. That would cover about two months of my childcare costs. I know families in Toronto for whom it would cover one month. That’s not including all the other expenses that these families pay for with their two incomes. In short, it’s not about funding a lavish lifestyle. It’s about putting food on the table and paying the mortgage.

The second leap is from a statistic to a general statement of preference. The ideal situation may well be to have a parent at home. Frankly, ideal situations are not what count. The real question is, how many of those families would arrange for one parent to quit their job in order to stay home if it were financially feasible? The fact is, many parents are simply not interested in giving up their careers to stay home full-time with their children. They are happy being parents in part because they have the option to work while their children are young, and they would not be happy fulfilling this ideal in their own families.

The last leap is the actual statement itself. Apparently, 90% of those surveyed thought that one parent staying home would be the best thing for all children. I am not convinced of this at all. Certainly it is often true, but to claim it is universally true is to ignore some of the facts. Are teenage parents with no high school education necessarily able to raise a child to school readiness better than a trained daycare worker? Mrs. Lovric is lucky. She has the education and the opportunity to give her children a good start in life. For those with fewer resources, a helping hand before age four might make the difference that will lead to success in school and elsewhere. Denying underprivileged children the chance to go to a good preschool has the side effect of continuing the cycle of poverty and lack of education that many of their families are in to begin with. Children need to be school-ready when they go to junior kindergarten. They need to have some basic concepts of literacy, numeracy, and social skills. If their parents can’t provide them with that education, by all means send them to a preschool that will.

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Can I clean up the second paragraph of what you wrote and include it in my letter? It's exactly what i need to say.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I added a few sentences already, anticipating your response. :) But I'm going to leave in the last paragraph, because it answers a different question. There are plenty of kids for whom parental care is NOT the best thing, because their parents don't have the education or the will to give them what they need. A more accessible daycare system might encourage a few of those parents - in particular the ones who are just barely out of the eligibility range for subsidies - to put their kids in daycare or preschool, if only part-time, and thereby give them the best shot they'll get at breaking the poverty cycle.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Agreed.