Child care is not a luxury item
MetroValley Newspaper Group -- Maple Ridge News
11 Apr 2007
Letters -- Verity Howarth

Editor, The News:

Kourtney Thompson is quite fortunate that she was able to relocate her husband and children to a more affordable community and is able to live, albeit modestly, without additional child care.

However, this ideal situation is not reality for many families. Child care is not a luxury item.

I am thinking particularly of my younger sister. She lives in Prince George and works as a care aide in a long-term care facility.

She has a one-year-old child, who she is raising on her own. In the next while, she will be finished her maternity leave and expected to go back to work.

Unfortunately, because of a limitations to the child care system, returning to work will be a challenge. Few licenced day care spots are available which take infants and there are virtually none which can accommodate shift workers.

At this point, women like my sister have two choices. They can search out a private day care but with the questionable future of the Child Care Resource and Referral Program due to recent provincial and federal cuts, finding daycare could be more difficult for her....

Their other, less-desirable option, is to quit working and use public assistance to stay home and to raise her child.

Unfortunately, if she takes this route, she would be losing seniority and job security which has taken her 10 years to acquire and she would have difficulty getting out of poverty for years. The already short-staffed health care system would also be losing an experienced health care worker.

Benefits of a good child-care system go beyond individual families and can help our economy and society as a whole.