There’s an interesting review out this morning by our very own Andrea Mrozek (yes, Andrea has a life outside PWPL) on a British childcare report Canadians ought to know about. So many aspects of the childcare debate are neglected - including this one, which I had never thought about before reading Maggie Gallagher’s most excellent Enemies of Eros:
This is a perfectly obvious question and yet it is one we seldom ask. Where are the warmhearted substitute caregivers going to come from in a society which increasingly declines to celebrate children, child rearing, and mothering? Values are funny things. We cannot insistently warn women that childbearing is a potential trap and childraising a degrading preoccupation, and then expect the day care industry to be flooded with eager, commited, emotionally-giving workers.
Indeed. If we keep telling girls and young women that only social retards think staying home (or in a home-like setting) to care for snotty toddlers all day is a fun and worthwhile activity, where are we going to get the high-quality “educators” we need to make a national day care system be more than just a reasonably safe-ish place to park your kids?
The quote above is on page 102 of Enemies of Eros. The book was published in 1989, and it rings terrifyingly true in 2008. I only read it recently and if you haven’t read it yet I heartily encourage you to do so.
I’ve now heard from several sources that Chretien-era spin-doctor Warren Kinsella has been offering his services as the chap to write the 5,000-word “response” when the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal orders Maclean’s to run it.
This will certainly be tough on Maclean’s readers, but on the other hand it would establish the important legal precedent that no Canadian publication can run a Warren Kinsella piece until ordered to do so by a “human rights” tribunal.
Interesting confrontation at Louisiana State University. I find this dude’s reason to dismantle the pro-life (or anti-abortion, your pick) display very illuminating.
I only noticed it this week, but apparently the innovation has been around for a while. Laundry detergent that’s twice as concentrated as the, er, “concentrated” stuff. Which means less packaging, less weight, etc. Thoroughly cool. And no, it wasn’t because governments decided to regulate the laundry-detergent industry. Rather, this green initiative became popular and widespread because big bad capitalist companies like Target and Wal-Mart thought there was a buck to be made in the process.
A bit of a depressing piece in today’s Daily Telegraph about parents who “abdicate” their responsibilities by parking their kids in school all day.
Some mothers and fathers “dump” pupils at breakfast clubs and pick them up late in the evening because of the demands of work, said Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers.
Britain’s so-called “back to work culture” - which has also prompted many parents to place children in nurseries from a young age - risked undermining family life, he said.
[...]
He said: “Some parents are abdicating responsibility for their children. They dump them early in the morning at school and are late picking them at the end of the day. There is definitely a lack of care.”
Gosh, you think? Sure, most kids in this kind of situation (or those left in daycare for up to 8 or 9 hours a day, five days a week, before they’re even one year old), will learn to cope and turn out OK. But good grief, what kind of parent are you? There are cases where parents absolutely must work. But I’d be willing to bet they’re not the majority; rather, most working parents think they must both work if they are to afford a lifestyle that is, and should remain, out of their reach. It’s not the same. I know plenty of moms who’ve decided to stay home to raise their own kids (some of them work part-time from home), even if it means not buying a big-screen TV or going camping instead of flying to Disney. It’s a matter of deciding which is more important: your kids or your stuff.
We all know this, including most parents who abandon their kids for up to 10 hours a day, every single day of the week. That’s why they tend to get a touch aggressive when you question (or, dear me, criticize) their way of life. What do you think the British children’s minister [uh? a children's minister? it's almost as funny as Quebec's minister for social solidarity...] had to say to Mr. Brookes?
But Beverley Hughes, the children’s minister, insisted Mr Brooke’s comments were “unhelpful”.
She insisted that more schools were now offering wraparound care to give parents greater opportunity to return to work “if they want”. In a speech, she announced a new £13 million scheme to help vulnerable families in 15 areas. It includes more advisors to help parents organise childcare.
Unhelpful, really? Whereas professionals who advise parents on how to “organise” childcare…
It will only get worse. Kids today earn less than their parents did at the same age. Bad in itself. But when you think about the fact that there are an awful lot fewer kids today than there were back when the parents were the kids, that the same parents haven’t put enough money aside for their old days (the saving rate in this country is abysmal), AND that today’s ageing parents aren’t about to stop consuming social services like health care that will have to be paid for by fewer young workers earning less than their parents, and you have a nice little social catastrophe in the making.
It will now be 16 years old, instead of 14. With a “close-in-age” exception of five years, which will avoid criminalizing consensual teenage sex (no, I don’t believe 15-year-olds should be having sex, but I also don’t believe it’s the law’s business to discourage them from doing so). This is good news.
