PSAC president shares personal story about need for child care in new video
Robyn Benson is a proud grandmother. But when she was a struggling single parent in the early 1980s in Winnipeg, she had very few child care options. In a new video released by PSAC, the union’s national president describes the hard choices she had to make when there was no other support available.
“In 1980, when I started at the Winnipeg Tax Centre, I was a single mum with two small children. And, of course, at that point in time, there was no daycare anywhere,” says Benson. “Once my daughter was 10, 11 years old, then she watched her brother. She had the key and they had to walk home from school together.”
Benson describes the “nagging fears” associated with leaving her children alone or in substandard care. And she encourages people to think about child care when they cast their ballots in this federal election.
“Because there is nothing worse than a young woman or a man trying to enter into the workforce after having their children and not being able to afford child care,” says Benson.
The video is being launched in conjunction with the Vote Child Care 2015 campaign’s Talk it Up for Child Care week of action. PSAC supports the campaign’s demand that election candidates commit to building an affordable, universal, non-profit child care system.