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Every morning Karen Allen wakes up at 5:30 and begins her day.
A single mother, she supports three children, her mother and her granddaughter by herself. Her daughter is 18 years old and as she watches her younger brothers, Allen puts her 13-month-old grandchild, Kiarah, on her hip and begins her walk to work. Allen is 36, and she spends her busy days, from morning to night, taking care of your kids.
It's around 6 a.m. when she finally reaches the Children's Village daycare centre, time to get snacks ready, open doors and begin organizing the day's activities before the barrage of children comes through the door.
Summertime in Toronto has thousands of children spending long days and evenings in daycare as their parents work.
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A Star investigation published this week uncovered a litany of serious problems in some of Toronto's daycare centres.
Experts say problems in Ontario daycares are the result of a child-care crisis in Canada caused by chronic under-funding. A major international study last year ranked Canada at the bottom of a list of 14 industrialized nations when it comes to spending on early childhood education. The study, conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), found Canadian child-care services rely on underpaid workers, high parent fees and small subsidies.
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"We get no respect here. We are looked at as just babysitters," says Lindsay Linton, 27, an assistant working out of the infants room at Children's Village.
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Early childhood educators make $14 an hour at most daycare centres; at Ryerson University, a full-time early childhood education program takes four years to complete.
Assistants such as Allen and Linton, who lack degrees, start at minimum wage. Allen makes $10 an hour.
She says she doesn't have the time or money to go back to school. Even working full-time at Children's Village and doing odd jobs such as hairstyling, she finds it hard to pay the mounting bills.
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- reprinted from the Toronto Star