Letter to the Editor
Source:
National Post
Format:
Article
Publication Date:
8 Dec 2006
AVAILABILITY
See text below.
EXCERPTS
Re: A daycare plan that deserves to die, Andrea Mrozek, Dec. 5
…
Childcare services provide concrete benefits to children. Scientists at the U.S. National Academy have concluded that "the positive relation between childcare quality and virtually every facet of children's development that has been studied is one of the most consistent findings in developmental science."
The antediluvian Institute of Marriage and Family Canada may oppose childcare services and long for a world of stay-at-home mothers. Nevertheless, its communications manager should stay up-to-date on current facts and not fudge the evidence.
Susan Prentice, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
____________
Allow me to correct two inaccuracies in this column:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on Canada, 2004, was an external report, written by three experts from Belgium, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The statement by Ms. Mrozek that the report was "written in part by Toronto-based childcare advocate Martha Friendly" is inexact and misleading.
- "Family day care" is defined in all OECD reports as non-parental care, taking place in the private home of an external carer. The term is not used by the OECD to refer to family members. Following this misconception, Ms. Mrozek says that the OECD's choice of terminology "reflects the unconscious bias of those seeking to force state-run day care down our throats."
The OECD has no bias, conscious or unconscious, again families taking care of their own children.
…
John Bennett, manager of the OECD review of Canada, Paris
- reprinted from the National Post
Re: A daycare plan that deserves to die, Andrea Mrozek, Dec. 5
…
Childcare services provide concrete benefits to children. Scientists at the U.S. National Academy have concluded that "the positive relation between childcare quality and virtually every facet of children's development that has been studied is one of the most consistent findings in developmental science."
The antediluvian Institute of Marriage and Family Canada may oppose childcare services and long for a world of stay-at-home mothers. Nevertheless, its communications manager should stay up-to-date on current facts and not fudge the evidence.
Susan Prentice, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
____________
Allow me to correct two inaccuracies in this column:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on Canada, 2004, was an external report, written by three experts from Belgium, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The statement by Ms. Mrozek that the report was "written in part by Toronto-based childcare advocate Martha Friendly" is inexact and misleading.
- "Family day care" is defined in all OECD reports as non-parental care, taking place in the private home of an external carer. The term is not used by the OECD to refer to family members. Following this misconception, Ms. Mrozek says that the OECD's choice of terminology "reflects the unconscious bias of those seeking to force state-run day care down our throats."
The OECD has no bias, conscious or unconscious, again families taking care of their own children.
…
John Bennett, manager of the OECD review of Canada, Paris
- reprinted from the National Post