Most women these days can't afford to do without some form of daycare
The Vancouver Province
01 Apr 2007
Editorial -- By: Christy Clark

Why is it so easy for governments to cut daycare funding?

Because politicians can rest easy knowing that when it comes to child care there are lots of voters who still live in the 1970s -- people who believe that if more women would choose to stay home Canadian kids would be much better off.

They are completely missing the point. They're missing the modern reality of our new century: Most women these days have to work.

It's pointless to engage in a debate about whether or not moms should stay home. Most of them can't.

Back in the 70s, and even into the 80s, it was affordable for many women to stay home. Not anymore.

Staying home is no longer a choice. Sending both parents to work is a necessity. That's especially true for those of us who shoulder a mortgage in B.C.'s outrageously expensive housing market.

Nor is staying home a matter of making a few sacrifices like cancelling a Hawaiian vacation or selling that second car.

The Vanier Institute of the Family reports that the choices confronting today's families are much starker: Raise your children in poverty or send both parents out to work.

Its statistics show that families with only one working parent are five times more likely to live below the poverty line.

And when both parents have to work, their children need child care.

The debate isn't about whether it's better for kids to stay home. That debate ended with the era of cheap housing and cheap gas.

Now it's about what kind of childcare will be there for the thousands of families who don't just want it -- but who desperately need it.

Researchers have learned a lot about child care since the 1970s. Put simply, they've learned that it should be more than babysitting.

They've learned that if it's done right it can endow kids with huge advantages in school and for the rest of their lives. They've also learned that cheap, low-end child care can be damaging.

Children who get high-quality care are more likely to graduate from high school. They're less likely to go to jail. They're less likely to end up on welfare.

In short, they're more likely to become productive, contributing, law-abiding members of society than kids who grow up in low-quality care.

My mom married a teacher. She stayed home and Dad's income paid all the bills. She had a choice that many women don't have anymore.

Raising kids on a single teacher's income is tougher today if you live in Vancouver, Abbotsford or Prince George.

So let's quit this debate about how much we'd like to turn back the hands of time to a decade that's long gone but apparently fondly remembered. The real debate is not about whether parents need child care. It's about whether the child care they find for their kids is good enough to build good citizens.