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Toronto lawyer recalls halcyon daycare days

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Day Three in the Toronto Star's series "The Child Care Challenge", Part 3
Author: 
Monsebraaten, Laurie
Format: 
Article
Publication Date: 
19 Feb 2011

 

EXCERPTS

Some of Sarah Rogers' closest friends date back to her childhood as a toddler in West End Parents Daycare.

"I remember it as a wonderful, caring environment," says the 30-year-old Toronto lawyer.

Even though Rogers has been a vegetarian for more than a decade, she still craves the daycare's chicken wings with the homemade sweet sauce.

"I can still taste them today," she says.

...

Her mother, Judy, a market researcher, had an arrangement with her employer that allowed her to leave at 3 p.m. and work at home after Sarah and her older sister were in bed.

Judy has fond memories of the "hippy-dippy" daycare opened in the early 1970s by "activist" mothers in the Dovercourt and College area. And she acknowledges her flexible work arrangement was unique.

...

Today, her daughter wonders how she and her husband, who works in the film industry, will be able to juggle their busy careers when they have children.

"It really all comes down to child care," Rogers says. "And it's not any better than it was 30 years ago for my mother."

- reprinted from the Toronto Star

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