$100 a month per child

[Melanie_]

Of course you can assume.

Perhaps men stay at home as well - I know I did.

So lets not go down the sexist road please.

Bottom line is government money for day care is not acceptable.

Want kids? Great I support that - but it is not up to me to pay for their upbringing.

Borg

Again, it is great when parents are able to stay at home, mothers or fathers - I apologize for coming across as sexist. It is far more common, however, for mothers to take that path. It is even more common today for families to require some form of out of home care for their children. Why is it so bad for government to take on a role in ensuring that whatever form of care is available meets the minimum standards for children's safety and well being? This doesn't equal institutionalized brain washing - people who work in child care centres aren't sent to some programming camp to tell them how to shape the "citizens of the future." Its more likely they enter the field because they love children and want to make a difference in their lives, and are willing to do so for lousy wages, few benefits, and little respect from the public at large.

[Canadian Blue]

The problem is though, that I think especially in urban areas many parents find themselves having to work two jobs in order to make ends meet. I think the solution is public daycare, however if it does turn into the government simply trying to indoctrinate children then their is a problem. At the same time however, if you want to opt out of public daycare, then by all mean's you should be able to. As well it shouldn't be completely free, their should be some fees in order to compensate for the administration of a public daycare as long as it's cheap.

[Riverwind]

The problem is though, that I think especially in urban areas many parents find themselves having to work two jobs in order to make ends meet.

Some families need two incomes to make ends meet - many others want two incomes to maintain the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

[Borg]

Well, first off - our folks seemed to be able to manage without the government - as did my wife and I - why not today?

Second - I have no doubt there are some good folks out there - but most starting jobs at a daycare are low wage / minimum wage - you honestly think that some person is going to give your kid the same treatment that you will? Unlikely. I am sure you will find good ones - but not a bunch of long termers in this trade.

I did not "breed" those kids - to use Riverwind's expression - and that means I am not responsible for them.

Finally - I have to say on general principal - I do not want to pay to raise your kids or anyone elses kids. Period.

I raised mine. My colleague raised his - and his wife was very sick. And our sisters all raised theirs. All with husbands who were not rich executive types - they drove used cars - had only one vehicle - lived WITHIN THEIR MEANS - avoiding debt. Their homes were not mansions, but they were solid middle class places and they carried mortgages.

Once again - we lived within our means and did not have to have the finest in electronic systems and the finest cars and the finest .......

We were family oriented - not "things" oriented.

Almost all were in retail or the trades - and they did just fine. My last one will be in university within the next two to three years.

I will reiterate. If you cannot afford to have and raise kids - then do not expect me to do it for you.

Our kids did not suffer from this. They managed to get good marks - managed to find someone at home when they were finished for the day. Actually ate meals at the table. Including breakfast. Actually have manners today and actually have pretty decent futures. Most will be graduating as professionals within the next 5-6 years. We paid for their educations without help from the government and the kids will not have student loans to pay off.

Yeah, we actually SAVED for their education. What a novel concept..

Daycare? You want it fine - but do not ask me to pay for it. Pay for it yourself.

It will be the ruination of the family unit - but that is what the re-engineering folks want. Hence the institutionalized daycare.

Amazing how many people out there think the family is a piece of crap and not worth saving.

Why have kids if you are simply going to warehouse them for 8-12 hours out of every day?

I often wonder why people never ask this question.

Univesity studies are often touting the family is no longer important - as long as the child can "socialize" at an early age - meaning of course in daycare. Horse pucky!

I am in EST tonight and it is very very late - must be up in about 4 hours and away on the road for about a week or so - unless things get tough - then I might be back in a month. Time will tell - depends on the situation.

Have a good one,

Borg

[Saturn]

Well, I am of the opinion that institutionalized day care is institutionalized brain washing.

What brainwashing? Right-wingers are simply afraid that if their kids go to daycare, they'll make friends with the kids of gays, with brown kids, with muslim kids and they'll never learn to hate such "filth". Because family values such as homophobia, racism, sexism etc. take long time to instill and playing with those scary kids will interfere with right-wingers' kids picking those good family values up. That's what this evil "brainwashing" can achieve - make it difficult for parents to make their children hate others.

[Saturn]

I raised mine. My colleague raised his - and his wife was very sick. And our sisters all raised theirs. All with husbands who were not rich executive types - they drove used cars - had only one vehicle - lived WITHIN THEIR MEANS - avoiding debt. Their homes were not mansions, but they were solid middle class places and they carried mortgages.

Great for you and them. However, it is those stay at home parents who constantly scream that they should be paid good wages for raising their kids at home. It's not the working parents who want income-splitting and who benefit the most from beer and popcorn money. It's those who chose to stay home and want everyone else to pay them for it. Take your complaint to them.

[Riverwind]

It's those who chose to stay home and want everyone else to pay them for it. Take your complaint to them.

Try again. People who make lifestyle sacrifices so they are able to live on one income while raising their kids are not the ones who started this debate. The debate was started by middle class voters who want the government to subsidize their daycare so they don't have to sacrifice the two income lifestyle. It is only natural for one income families to demand equal treatment if the government is subsidizing the lifestyle choices of parents who both want to work and raise kids.

[Saturn]

The debate was started by middle class voters who want the government to subsidize their daycare so they don't have to sacrifice the two income lifestyle. It is only natural for one income families to demand equal treatment if the government is subsidizing the life style choice of parents who both want to work and raise kids.

It's natural for one income families to demand equal treatment, except they consider sitting on your couch to be a productive economic activity. Naturally, anyone reasonable will disagree. If they choose to sit on their butts and do nothing productive, it's their choice and nobody should be paying for it. On the other hand, working people should be given enough incentives to continue working. In an economy with labour shortages, it makes sense to give people more incentives to work, not to give them more incentives to do nothing and be a drag to society (once by doing nothing productive and twice for increasing taxes for those who are productive).

[Riverwind]

It's natural for one income families to demand equal treatment, except they consider sitting on your couch to be a productive economic activity.

You are obviously someone who has never raised kids if you think stay at home parents sit on the couch. Do you think people who run day cares sit on the couch while the kids look after themselves?

In an economy with labour shortages, it makes sense to give people more incentives to work, not to give them more incentives to do nothing and be a drag to society (once by doing nothing productive and twice for increasing taxes for those who are productive).

Your economic argument is a bunch of BS. Having one spouse stay at home frees the other spouse to do more work. This means the couple will end up producing more than they would if they both worked. More importantly, the additional production often does not show up as more income if the working spouse is in a salaried position. i.e. if society helps one parent stay at home society gets higher productivity from the worker that stays in the workforce.

[Canadian Blue]

What brainwashing? Right-wingers are simply afraid that if their kids go to daycare, they'll make friends with the kids of gays, with brown kids, with muslim kids and they'll never learn to hate such "filth". Because family values such as homophobia, racism, sexism etc. take long time to instill and playing with those scary kids will interfere with right-wingers' kids picking those good family values up. That's what this evil "brainwashing" can achieve - make it difficult for parents to make their children hate others.

So all "right wingers" are homophobes, racists, sexists, etc. Isn't that bigoted comment. I think the problem occurs if the government tries to let's say advance some kind of policies which instil values which some religious members find offensive. However daycare shouldn't become some government ploy to talk about how great some political ideologies are. However I doubt that'll ever happen, which is why I support a national daycare.

Some families need two incomes to make ends meet - many others want two incomes to maintain the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

Agreed, their will be abuse with any social program. But at the same time I prefer to think about the majority of people who do feel the crunch when it comes to financial matters.

[Riverwind]

Agreed, their will be abuse with any social program. But at the same time I prefer to think about the majority of people who do feel the crunch when it comes to financial matters.

Most people make choices to purchase homes and or cars that they cannot reasonably afford on 1 income. They might justify these purchases for any number of reasons, however, once they have made the decision they will quite honestly feel a financial crunch. That does not change the fact that choosing to purchases these homes/cars in the first place was a lifestyle choice that is being subsidized with low cost daycare.

[Saturn]

It's natural for one income families to demand equal treatment, except they consider sitting on your couch to be a productive economic activity.

You are obviously someone who has never raised kids if you think stay at home parents sit on the couch. Do you think people who run day cares sit on the couch while the kids look after themselves?

That's why they make $30K for looking after 7-8 kids. Stay-at-home parents figure they deserve similar pay for looking after a couple of preschoolers and that I should pay them for it. That's bull. What? YOu think that working parents don't raise their kids? They don't clean the house, they don't do the laundry, they don't make lunches, they don't take the kids to hockey practise. It's only work-free parents who do it. Bull. You want money, get off your ass and earn it.

In an economy with labour shortages, it makes sense to give people more incentives to work, not to give them more incentives to do nothing and be a drag to society (once by doing nothing productive and twice for increasing taxes for those who are productive).

Your economic argument is a bunch of BS. Having one spouse stay at home frees the other spouse to do more work. This means the couple will end up producing more than they would if they both worked.

That's even more bull. Giving people money to sit home doesn't increase productivity in any way, shape or form. Giving money to stay-at-home parents is simply welfare for those who are capable but unwilling to work. Keep your stupid examples because if one parent is more productive, he'd be the one working in any way case - subsidies for laziness or not.

[Who's Doing What?]

Can you think of a social program that is not abused by some people? I can't. Do you get as exercised about:

1) People who refused to work more than the minimum number of weeks required to get EI in martimes

If they worked the minimum to earn the minimum what is the problem? They did go to work. They also have to work X number of weeks to get Y number of weeks of EI each year. It's not like they refused to use birth control and now the rest of the country has to support their child for 6 years, plus other expenses like schools, that go along with what children need, and we all get taxed for.

2) People living in million dollar homes collecting GST rebates MSP premium exemptions because all of the family income is over seas and not reported.

I have no sympathy for the finacial hardships of anyone living in a million dollar mansion. Sell your home buy or start a business or simply take your money and retire to Mexico. (unless you are from Woodbridge, then you might want to go to Costa Rica )

Do you believe we should cancel the EI, GST rebate and MSP premium exemption because some people appear to receive the benefits unfairly. That is the logic you are using here.

Cancell it for those who don't need it, for sure. Any blanket policy, like handing out $100 to every family with a young child, is quite simply idiotic.

What we need to do is allow people to employ their own spouses as daycare providers and to claim the child care costs as a deduction. This would eliminate the discrimination against single income families that exists in the current system. As long as the system discriminates against single income families you will see people demanding programs that help single income families.

Now that is an excellent idea! Too bad common sense and the House of Commons don't get together very often.

[Who's Doing What?]

Well, I am of the opinion that institutionalized day care is institutionalized brain washing.

I do not support any tax funds going to day care.

While I do not support my taxes going to people with kids under the age of whatever, I know it happens and I suck it up.

I believe that if you have children, you exercise adult responsibility and support them. If you cannot support them you do not have them.

Borg

Would you support your taxes paying for free birth control so the adults who don't realise and want the responsibility, wouldn't be having "accidents"?

[margrace]

There have been and always will be people who have no sympathy for anyone but themselves. I often wonder what happens to these people when Hard Times strike, as they can at any time for any of us.

These people will be found in Churches, it is a good place to associate with others, and helps in your business, they will be found in expensive social clubs, it is a good place to help your climb in life and increase in wealth and they have a need to look down on others to make themselves feel good.

They like the poor will always be with us and it is important that the common folk realize how these sociopaths operate. It is not in their interest to help others but they also are very good at out and out lying. They have no conscience so there is no way of appealing to them. We just have to be on our guard and realize who they are.

[Who's Doing What?]

There have been and always will be people who have no sympathy for anyone but themselves. I often wonder what happens to these people when Hard Times strike, as they can at any time for any of us.

These people will be found in Churches, it is a good place to associate with others, and helps in your business, they will be found in expensive social clubs, it is a good place to help your climb in life and increase in wealth and they have a need to look down on others to make themselves feel good.

They like the poor will always be with us and it is important that the common folk realize how these sociopaths operate. It is not in their interest to help others but they also are very good at out and out lying. They have no conscience so there is no way of appealing to them. We just have to be on our guard and realize who they are.

What are you talking about?????

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I am a single income family father of three, whose wife works hard taking care of the family home and the kids. We are not allowed to do income splitting, so the money that I make is taxed at a higher level then a family that makes as much as I do through the efforts of two individuals. I make too much money to get the government to give me the child tax credit. The kids are school age so we don't get the 100 dollar kiss either. In short the government doesn't do a lot for me. I pay for my health care benefits, I pay my taxes.

I don't begrudge those who would want the government to pay daycare costs or anything else. Perhaps they need the government to help them, and I won't prevent somebody from getting some help. What burns me is those individuals who chose to stand up and voice their opinions on stuff as if it had some impact on them. Like single people complaining about child care, or men complaining about abortion or any number of issues where their opinions simply aren't valid.

[scribblet]

What brainwashing? Right-wingers are simply afraid that if their kids go to daycare, they'll make friends with the kids of gays, with brown kids, with muslim kids and they'll never learn to hate such "filth". Because family values such as homophobia, racism, sexism etc. take long time to instill and playing with those scary kids will interfere with right-wingers' kids picking those good family values up. That's what this evil "brainwashing" can achieve - make it difficult for parents to make their children hate others.

Now there's an enlightened tolerant statement which adds a lot to debate of good governance not. At least we know here what we are dealing with - an example of what liberals supposedly are against - intolerance, and malicious stereotyping.

[margrace]

There have been and always will be people who have no sympathy for anyone but themselves. I often wonder what happens to these people when Hard Times strike, as they can at any time for any of us.

These people will be found in Churches, it is a good place to associate with others, and helps in your business, they will be found in expensive social clubs, it is a good place to help your climb in life and increase in wealth and they have a need to look down on others to make themselves feel good.

They like the poor will always be with us and it is important that the common folk realize how these sociopaths operate. It is not in their interest to help others but they also are very good at out and out lying. They have no conscience so there is no way of appealing to them. We just have to be on our guard and realize who they are.

What are you talking about?????

Obviously you aye?

[Who's Doing What?]

Obviously you aye?

Double dosed the morning meds I see.

[Riverwind]

Stay-at-home parents figure they deserve similar pay for looking after a couple of preschoolers and that I should pay them for it.

Someone can pay a stranger to take care of their kids and get a tax deduction but they can't pay their own spouse to do the same job. Why should I have to subsidize the life style choices of people who refuse to take care of their own kids?

That is what it comes down to: whenever the government subsidizes daycare the government is subsidizing a life style choice. That is why stay at home parents should be entitled to similar benefits.

That's even more bull. Giving people money to sit home doesn't increase productivity in any way, shape or form. Giving money to stay-at-home parents is simply welfare for those who are capable but unwilling to work. Keep your stupid examples because if one parent is more productive, he'd be the one working in any way case - subsidies for laziness or not.

Why don't you try to read what I wrote instead of making stuff up? I said having one spouse stay at home makes the working spouse more productive because the working spouse can work more hours without worrying about childcare. I can see this effect in my workplace because people who are single or have stay at home spouses get more work done. The people with working spouses and kids have to constantly interrupt work to run off 'pick up their kids a daycare'.

I am not saying that this is true in every case, however, it does mean you cannot claim that having a stay at home parent is some how a drag on society.

[Saturn]

That is what it comes down to: whenever the government subsidizes daycare the government is subsidizing a life style choice. That is why stay at home parents should be entitled to similar benefits.

Government should subsidize daycare because it's a lifestyle choice that is productive and beneficial to the economy. Sitting at home is a bad lifestyle choice - it's a big waste. Good lifestyle choices should be rewarded and bad choices discouraged. So stay-at-home parents are not entitled to laziness subsidies.

I said having one spouse stay at home makes the working spouse more productive because the working spouse can work more hours without worrying about childcare. I can see this effect in my workplace because people who are single or have stay at home spouses get more work done. The people with working spouses and kids have to constantly interrupt work to run off 'pick up their kids a daycare'.

I am not saying that this is true in every case, however, it does mean you cannot claim that having a stay at home parent is some how a drag on society.

Yes, I can because a stay-at-home parent is just that - another welfare bum. There is no way in hell you are twice as productive as your co-workers whose spouses work. A parent with a stay-at-home spouse may be more productive as someone who has to pick up the kids once in while but the difference is undetectable (if that were the case employers would hire only people with stay at home spouses).

[Riverwind]

Sitting at home is a bad lifestyle choice - it's a big waste. Good lifestyle choices should be rewarded and bad choices discouraged. So stay-at-home parents are not entitled to laziness subsidies.

Abandoning your children is a good life style choice that is good for the economy? Taking tax dollars from productive people and using it to subsidize work done by less productive people (i.e. people than cannot earn enough to pay the cost of daycare) is _not_ good for the economy.

There is no way in hell you are twice as productive as your co-workers whose spouses work.

You assume that all labour is equal - that is not true. A skilled engineer or doctor working a few hours a week is going to produce more wealth for the economy than someone working 40 hours flipping burgers at MacDonalds. That is why is wrong to assume that having one spouse stay at home is bad for the economy.

[Canuck E Stan]

Government should subsidize daycare because it's a lifestyle choice that is productive and beneficial to the economy. Sitting at home is a bad lifestyle choice - it's a big waste. Good lifestyle choices should be rewarded and bad choices discouraged. So stay-at-home parents are not entitled to laziness subsidies.

Yes, I can because a stay-at-home parent is just that - another welfare bum. There is no way in hell you are twice as productive as your co-workers whose spouses work. A parent with a stay-at-home spouse may be more productive as someone who has to pick up the kids once in while but the difference is undetectable (if that were the case employers would hire only people with stay at home spouses).

For you it's not about the children, too bad.And it does little for a lot of parents.

The Price of Day Care Can Be High

The province was spending $1.4 billion a year on a grand social experiment, yet no one had bothered to look at the results.

So three economists took up the challenge a few years ago, realizing that the program offered an excellent way to examine a much-debated topic. The three — Michael Baker and Kevin Milligan, who are Canadian, and Jonathan Gruber, an American — collected data, looked at various measures of well-being since the program started and compared Quebec with the rest of Canada over the same period.

When they finished last year, the answer seemed clear. "Across almost everything we looked at," said Mr. Gruber, an M.I.T., professor, "the policy led to much worse outcomes for kids."

Young children in Quebec are more anxious and aggressive than they were a decade ago, even though children elsewhere in Canada did not show big changes. Quebec children also learn to use a toilet, climb stairs and count to three at later ages, on average, than they once did. The effects weren't so great for parents, either. More of them reported being depressed, and they were less satisfied with their marriages — which also didn't happen in other provinces.

But there is now overwhelming evidence that — at least in the first year of life — most young children are not well served by spending long hours away from their parents. They will have more behavior problems on average and won't learn as quickly, according to various studies done over the last decade.

As Ms. Waldfogel, a Columbia professor who has been a working mother, said, "I didn't set out to find effects on the kids of parents who are working in the first year." In fact, she said she had "tried really hard to kill off the effects" by looking for other variables that could have been the real culprits. "But the effects are there," she said.

The big lesson from Quebec is that parents really do need more support, but they need the kind of support that allows them to choose what is best for their family.

[iamcanadian]

$100 a month might not cover the full cost of daycare for my daughter. However I will gladly take $100 a month if its offered. I work 2 jobs to cover the $600 a month bill. Still, I do not support a state run daycare program. We don't need another half assed run social program that will be cronically underfunded.

You would think our health care system would have taught some lessons. Oh! I forgot, lefties think failure is success!!!!