chrisr@hcrvx1.UUCP (Chris Retterath) (12/11/86)
Re: Jim Clarke's pleas for government daycare I fail to see how government can provide daycare any cheaper then private daycare -- in fact, it will probably cost more, because of the extra costs required to administer it. I fear a trade union, like teacher unions, will then emerge at government daycare centers, which will force costs up even higher as they have done at public schools. Of course, this will all be justified by a requirement for child care degrees, which will help keep down the number of people providing daycare and rationalize the need for higher wages. (This is a classic element of unionization: the restriction of entry to the union to form a closed shop at the expense of people not in the union. Note that this been done with nurses, teachers, physicians, airline pilots, carpenters, plumbers, vets, university professors, et cetera.) There is no doubt that cheap but good daycare would be nice to have. It used to be that mothers stayed at home to provide 'free' daycare for their own children. This service is considered to be inelegible for payment when you take care of your own children, but not if you take care of anothers! (Just try paying your spouse a salary for babysitting/daycare services and deducting the amount as a child care expense.) Given that people may wish to work outside the home, they should pay for their own children's upbringing for that 5 year period before our professional daycare -um- schools take over. Given that some people want to take care of their own children, or may not see the benefit of working outside the home given the amount daycare will then cost them, I see no reason NOT to allow the payment of the prevailing rate for daycare services from one spouse to another, such payments to be fully deductable from income. What this would mean is that many more people who may want to stay at home during their childrens' developing years can affort to do so, with their contributions acknowledged with an income. This alone would free up more daycare slots for other children whose parent(s) are working. Chris Retterath.
clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) (12/15/86)
In reply to Chris Retterath and some others, whom I will be courteous enough
(to readers and to those who pay the bills -- I don't mean to imply any
disrespect to the posters) not to quote except in paraphrase:
First of all, daycare *is* education. The first five years -- in fact, the
first N years, for any small N -- are the most important learning years. We
traditionally used mothers to provide this education, and we should try to
keep that option open for those who want it, perhaps by paying mothers but
more likely (since paying people to do women's work is a pretty radical idea)
by providing tax breaks of some kind.
But many mothers need to work, and many more want to. If it's just "want to",
then I see nothing wrong with the present arrangement, namely a tax deduction
for the partner with the smaller income; this is my situation, and though
it's expensive as hell (let the Minister of Revenue look for daycare at
$2000/year, the maximum deduction per child!) it's basically not unfair.
But if a single mother needs to work, or if a couple needs two jobs to make
ends meet, like the policeman and chambermaid mentioned in another posting,
then I can't figure out why their children's daycare shouldn't be paid for
just like my older child's school. Or my school, or yours.
And if you'd rather have private daycares than public ones, we could argue
about that. I suppose it's like private schools vs public ones, and should
private schools be subsidized? -- but not quite the same, since children
in daycare don't need the same kind of socialization school children do. (So
if you want that argument, I'll just sit it out, thanks.)
But you must *not* try to lower the training requirements for daycare teachers.
Right now any licenced daycare centre, whether private or public, must have a
certain ratio of qualified teachers to children.
Some facts -- possibly misremembered, since it's a while since I got agitated
about this -- to help you argue with me: Ontario daycare centres must be
licenced if they take more than five children. "Qualified teachers" are those
with a three-year ECE (early childhood education) degree, from for example a
community college. Pay rates for qualified staff are low -- around $13K a few
years ago, though it must be up now, to maybe $20K? Those low rates helped
unionize a lot of daycares, I think.
Some opinions: The qualifications are important; my two younger children go
to the daycare centre at George Brown College, where ECE students are trained.
It is easy to see the difference between a beginner and a third- or even
second-year student. The staff requirements are minimal; we've used centres
where there are few students around to help the staff -- as is normal at
non-teaching centres -- and the staff work unbelievably hard. The pay is
far from outrageous; would you want your children to spend their most
important years with someone paid less than a graduate student? Is daycare
less important than secretarial work? (Are secretaries overpaid?)
And finally, opinion no. 0: Remember that we need good daycare not primarily
for the freeloading present citizenry, but for the vulnerable future citizenry
who actually spend their time in daycare. Those children will be in daycare
somewhere; the consequences, if it's bad daycare, are not only unbearable to
imagine if you know children, but serious political and economic trouble down
the road.
Sorry this is so long. It's lucky I didn't include anything!
--
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
(416) 978-4058
{allegra,cornell,decvax,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke