Okay, the revised edition.

[velvetpage]

Pursuant to the helpful comments of anidada and shavastak, I've made some changes. Anyone want to suggest any other changes?



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 in question. “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, and I only have one child. I know families in Toronto for whom it would not even cover one month. That’s not including all the other expenses that these families pay for with their two incomes. The fact is, there’s a hole that middle class families fall into. They don’t make enough to afford to have one parent stay home, even with that laughable $1000 rebate, even if that rebate turned out to be per child. But they make too much to be eligible for the current subsidies and the subsidized spots that go with them. 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. The real question here is, of those few families that might, with the help of the tax break, be able to leave one parent at home, how many would actually do that? Many people like being able to raise children and pursue a career at the same time. It seems overly simplistic to suggest that everyone who believes in that ideal would therefore like to live it themselves.

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

[anidada.livejournal.com]

I need an icon of someone giving two thumbs up. :D C'est bon!

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

The best thing for the child is whatever makes both parents most content. If a child is raised in daycare by day and then faces harried, exhausted, cranky parents at night, that's bad. If a child is raised at home with one parent staying home, but that parent is extremely resentful and feels locked in a cage, that's also bad. I was in the second scenario growing up, and let me tell you, it does -wonders- for the ol' self esteem :P

On the other hand, a child who goes to daycare and looks forward to cheerful parents and lively dinner conversation and maybe being read to before bed gets both the benefits of a nurturing household and the socialization that comes with spending a lot of time with other people, and a child raised at home with a parent who really wants to be there benefits from having that parental attention. Both of these scenarios are good.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

My feelings exactly. The problem is that the article set up "being at home" as better and more desirable than "being at work." My mom was a stay-at-home mother for many years, and I never had the feeling that she resented that. She was good at being a mother. I am a good mother, but I couldn't do the full-time thing. I do it two months of the year anyway, because of the way the school year works, and I start to go stir-crazy in the summer because of it. I need to do things other than look after my child. Whether it's staying home to write while she's at daycare, or going out to work, I need to do something else to be fulfilled, and giving that up would be counter-productive.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. It's part of the reason I'm reluctant to work from home, because I have my doubts that any actual work would take place. And the last thing anyone wants is to feel resentment toward their child. If that means going out to work, well, so be it.

[paka.livejournal.com]

How do these people come up with this tax cut logic? Taxes are there for a reason!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Well, it basically goes like this:

1) Canadians are overtaxed compared to other countries. (This is true, compared to the States or parts of Europe, but it's not true compared to the more socialist states that we most closely resemble.)

2) Overtaxation leads to a reduction in spending power. Reduced spending power leads to lower demand for goods, which in turn leads to a slower economy. Therefore, lower taxation would result in a faster, better economy. Therefore, lower taxation is to be prefered.

3) Putting money back into the pockets of the people who earn it gives them the power to spend it on what they need. This comes along with a fair bit of outraged majesty - what gives the gov't the right to think it can spend my money better than I can? This in turn leads back to the downside of the American Dream. "I have worked my butt off and created a good life for myself as a result. Anyone who works hard can do the same. Therefore, if anyone needs help, it's because they're not working hard enough. I have no pity for people who don't work hard. Why should I help them?" The real irony of this one is that it's often the right-wing Christians spouting it. Their justification is that they believe in charity on a case-by-case basis. That puts them, the righteous, in the position where they judge who is worthy of their charity - very Victorian of them, really. Also very unChristian, IMO.

I'm a socialist. I am willing to subsidize care for other people's kids, because I know a) it will be there for my kids when I need it, but can't pay for it; b) it's a deferred payment system - I pay with my taxes over the course of my lifetime, but use the service now while I need it; c) I want to see kids better prepared for school, hence for life, and this is the best way I see of going about it; d) it will improve the economy by requiring childcare workers to invest in improved education, result in the building of daycare centres, allow for a better standard of care overall, and permit more women to work because they will be able to afford care.

There are things I don't like about it. I'd like to see a publicly-funded, privately-delivered service similar to that of primary-care physicians in Canada, who own their practice like a business and bill the government for their services. Publicly-run means publicly-bureaucratized, and that's probably not a good thing. Still, it would be better than the piecemeal, overpriced, underregulated, and sparse care that's available now.