Friday, March 17, 2006

Choice in Child Care

Today is the day that was chosen by Sara, from Choice for Childcare, for bloggers to stand up for choice in childcare.

It also happens to be my sons 4th birthday. Happy Birthday Buddy, I know you will have a great day today.

I know this because his Mom has worked very hard organizing a birthday party to take place later today. She baked a Spiderman cake, bought the balloons and loot bag goodies, blew up a bunch of balloons for decorations, and arranged for some of his little friends to come over for the party. She does this all, surrounded by the usual kaos that takes place daily in our household, and quite frankly I really do not know how she does it all and can remain sane.

The 'how' part is hard to figure out, but the why is easy.

When our first child was born we went the daycare route for about 2 years, until one day my wife and I sat down and we discussed her plan to quit her job and stay home with our daughter.

The reason was this: Our daughters first few years only come once, and she wanted to be around to share them. I couldn't argue with that, and although the income hit really did hurt and almost resulted in her having to return to work, the result was worth it.



I am not going to preach to anyone on how to live their lives or raise their kids, but I also expect that you should not tell me how to raise mine either.

It is called choice, we made ours and others may make different ones, but any child care plan that does not offer this choice is not fair, not universal, not Canadian, and absolutely not needed.

This story was crossposted to Colbert Report

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