It’s interesting how the federal government will do what they deem important to their end cause, such as needing women for jobs while the men were fighting, they will do anything in their power to make that happen, but the minute that agenda is fulfilled, they wash their hands of what they just deemed essential (daycare for working mothers). Mothers didn’t just stop “working” after the war was over. When the war was done the women we working even harder. Some were widows, some didn’t want to quit this new job they felt interested in, but somehow the government deemed women unimportant in the work force, so they took that childcare option away. If men were the primary childcare providers in a home as the societal standard, I wonder if the government would be more inclined to listen to their advocacy for universal childcare? We have made progress in the quality of childcare that is deemed adequate for babies and children. It’s no longer nuns, and a few others watching over a room of 30 cribs, tending to the crying children when they felt like it (thankfully!). The image of the child has evolved so much over time, to the point where people don’t see children as a mouth to feed, but as a little person who is contributing to society in their own way, with their own feelings and opinions. In the June Callwood recording, she quotes Barbra Chisholm, who said “daycare is not a babysitting service. It does not replace the parental responsibility. In the majority of cases, we might add, it makes it possible for the parent to be responsible.” This is a key point that was made in 1966, and is still being made today because people aren’t understanding that fact. The fact that universal childcare isn’t part of the federal government’s agenda is unacceptable. The government grant that parent’s receive when they have children in daycare drops significantly when the child reaches three years old. Why? My daughter turned three this month, and my funding is 1/5th of what it has been since she began. How does turning three mean that you somehow “cost less” money to raise? It feels like people have been advocating for childcare since forever, and while sometimes it seems futile, the recent government wage subsidy for ECEs shows that advocacy works. We just have to keep our foot on the gas pedal!
