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EXCERPTS
The current debate over child-care policy in Canada is plagued by a number of old myths that refuse to die and which get in the way of a reasonable discussion on our policy options....
I come now not to praise these child-care myths, but to bury them.
1. Non-parental child care is bad for kids.
More than 30 years of research in many countries, including Canada, have determined that good quality child-care programs have positive short-term and long-term effects on child development, school readiness and school success....
2. Non-parental child care is really "substitute" or "institutionalized" or "government-run" child care that undermines the family.
Non-parental child care is a family support program that supplements the care children receive in their families, but does not substitute for the family....
3. We have to choose between "funding the child" and "funding a child-care system." We can't have both....
There is no contradiction between offering enhanced family allowances and also funding a system of quality child-care services. Like all other industrialized countries, we can and should do both....
4. Child care is only for the poor, or only for working parents, or only for middle-class or wealthy parents who can afford it anyhow.
The research has shown that good quality child care has cognitive and social benefits for all children and parents regardless of income levels and parental work and study patterns....
5. Most working mothers would prefer to stay at home.
...
There is no research that I know of that demonstrates the readiness of large numbers of working mothers &emdash; or working fathers, for that matter &emdash; to abandon their studies, careers and incomes to stay at home nor are there any demonstrated social policies that reverse this major societal shift of the past 50 years.
6. The national child-care program of the previous federal government has failed.
How can a five-year program that is less than a year old, or, in the case of British Columbia, less than six months old, be described as a failure?.... The cancellation of these funds will place current and future progress at risk....
7. The current government's plan to give families $100 per month for every child under age 6 will give families more child-care choices.
There is no research base that demonstrates that giving out small amounts of cash will enable parents to afford the fees in licensed, community-based child-care programs....
* Hillel Goelman is a professor of education and associate director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP).
- reprinted from the Toronto Star