… by enhancing and expanding programs that already exist and are funded by the province and cities.

Shocking, I know.

That's your evidence of the program? Because a foreign news agency accepted the thing sight unseen, I should do the same? No program was established, no money was budgeted, not one concrete step was ever taken to bring the thing into existance. You had an agreement "in principle" between an outgoing Liberal government and a bunch of provinicial governments.

That may or may not be a good thing – in principle – but in reality it never got past the stage of an idea. To see it cast now as an established National program that was recklessly disbanded is nothing but revisionism, pure and simple.

Let's look at it from a different angle. The Liberals put together a plan to reduce corporate taxes to 15% in 2011. The Liberals are attacking the Conservatives for agreeing with the Liberals.

So which of these two programs existed? The Liberals daycare program? Or the Liberals corporate tax cuts? Why do the Liberals claim that the former exists but the latter does not? Cognitive dissonance?

What are these rural jobs that women are not qualified for? I thought we had employment equity in this country – women and men being equal and all that. If I ever uttered a statement like that, you'd be accusing me of being a sexist pig in a heart-beat! And can you refer me to any stats that indicate unemployment is higher in rural areas than urban centers?

If her and her baby are not able to care for themselves and are on the verge of starving, I wouldn't call that "willy nilly", and I'm sure most parents would enjoy spending some time with the grand kid for a few years so that Mom can get her feet under her to provide for the kid once he/she is going to school.

"The purpose of these [Welfare] programs is to alleviate extreme poverty by providing a monthly payment to people with little or no income." (Wikipedia – Social Welfare in Canada). I agree that fewer people on Welfare would be a good thing, but sometimes (as in the case of single mothers) it's impossible for them to go out and work. Welfare has nothing to do with getting people jobs. Would you support cutting off Welfare benefits from any family that takes advantage of government subsidized day care? Trimming them?

Who are these callous employers who hate single moms? Most bosses are reasonable and accommodating people who wouldn't want to retrain a new employee if given the option not to. A 4 day work week is not unreasonable. Especially if she were to work 4 10 hour days.

Again, I'd reference you to Clinton's "It Takes a Village". It's not "mooching" anymore than subsidized daycare is!

Mis-representation, -comprehension and ignorance aside, you must be thrilled with the rejuvenated relevancy of your avatar!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/03/us-beav…

Sourstud is hopelessly out of touch with the real lives of Canadians. Just like Harper's Conservatives. They just don't get it, don't waste your time trying, Emily. The rest (70%) of mainstream Canadians DO get it.

Then I'm happy for your acquaintances, but I don't think their circumstances, whatever they are/were, are shared by all young parents. Emily, above, has expressed many of the concerns I have with your facile solutions. I would add to hers that not all grandparents want to, or are suitable to, provide childcare.

The biggest concern is that many families (single or two parent) lack the resources to afford SAFE, reliable care and some of the options on which they are forced to rely are, frankly, dangerous.

I doubt if many critics of state-subsidized (hence, affordable) safe daycare would mount the same arguments against universal state-funded education (or would they?) Aside from the ages of the children involved, what's the essential difference?

No, I'm expressly NOT referring to baby sitters, some of whom, while perhaps convenient, affordable and even well-meaning, represent the most unsafe option. I'm talking about graduates of two-year college ECE programs. The environments they are trained to provide are not only safe and supervised but also stimulating and educational. In fact, ECE graduates are deployed in many classrooms in Ontario to augment teachers' efforts and implement teaching strategies.

So, no, it's not even close to an "essential difference" because it's an uninformed comparison.

In what province do you live? In Ontario, the ratios is 3 staff per 10 children under 18 mos, 1 per 5 children 18-30 mos, 1 per 8 children 30 mos to 6 years, with a maximum allowable total in each category http://www.cdrcp.com/ccip/day-nurseries-act#Numbe…

"Why would a child – infant to 5 years of age need a person with a college diploma looking after them".

They obviously don't…but the assumption is that staff who are trained in children's development can create the best learning experience. Why do children in elementary school require someone with a degree in education? Same diff, just different age groups.

"I would think a lovely, grandmotherly type sitter would raised her own kids would do the trick…or perhaps a dayhome where a mom has her own kids and one or two other kids varying in age range"

Agreed. The problem is that those lovely nurturing arrangements aren't available or affordable to every family that could use them. How many competent, trustworthy caregivers do you know who charge $100/mo (the Cons' childcare subsidy)? In resorting to less adequate but affordable (remember…you get what you pay for) arrangements, some children find themselves in unregulated settings (babysitters) that are overcrowded and even hazardous.

"Stimulate and educate your kids when you take them home. That is your job as a parent."

Of course, but without regard for what happens to them the rest of the day?

And finally, yes, both of our kids, who are now well into their adulthood, spent formative years in daycare. Without qualification, it was a very positive experience for both. We were fortunate that spaces were available and that we could afford the full per diems. Many families are not as well endowed.

"Children who are school age get a teacher with an education degree because they have hit the milestone in their lives when they are ready to begin their formal education. Prior to that, they through socialization and play."

According to most credible developmental psychologists, the first 6 years span the most critical period in human growth, during which children typically benefit greatly from appropriate stimulation and learning opportunities. The age 6 to which you refer is merely an arbitrary point at which to commence "formal education" (and varies from province to province, as I'm sure you're aware); nor, given the variances in children's maturation, is that yardstick applicable to every child.

I concur completely with your observation that "day care should not be the only option". I don't think I've argued or even implied that it should be. Neither do I have an objection to the government providing "more funding in a direct way to poor parents". The problem remains that, given the shortage of quality care spaces for children in many (most?) communities or even satisfactory private options for many families, even that additional cash in parents' pockets will not translate into suitable arrangements for their kids. In an unknown percentage of situations, the government is probably subsidizing some very unsatisfactory setups, for lack of better options.

OK, we have differing expectations of government on this issue…fair enough.

My only final observation is that the old-fashioned reliance on extended family and community for providing safe environments for pre-schoolers is not as realistic as it was when you and I were children. Geographic mobility, the relative lack of community stability (almost constant turnover in home occupancy in many neighbourhoods), and the increasing isolation of many nuclear families from their extended families mean that simplistic nostrums about finding a nice grandmotherly neighbour with whom to entrust the kids is not feasible (let alone affordable) for many young parents.

I think politicians who suggest such strategies for finding childcare need only look around their own family or neighbourhood to see how unrealistic they often are.

Thanks for the exchange.

Hard cases make bad law.

IOW, we don't have to arrange our entire society to accomodate the needs of the most disadvantaged. We only need to arrange some targeted programs to address the needs of those individuals. And we already have some; subsidized housing, social assistance programs, food banks, private charities, and so on.
We don't need another National Program on the basis that some small subset of the general public finds raising their children to be too challenging. There is already help available for those people. We don't need to help the whole country to solve the problems of a few.

IOW = In Other Words

You were talking about hard cases. You were talking about the plight of single mothers without family support or other resources. Those are the hard cases I was referring to.

Now you are focusing on the problems of the average middle-class family (something of which I have some experience) and my response is "figure it out." The solution you find may not be perfect, but that's the nature of the world. If you are a typical parent, concerned with the best interests of your child first and foremost, your solution will be superior to any government program.

Raising children is not easy, it never has been, and it never will be. The government can't solve all your problems and heaven save us from any that could.

Others in this thread have focused on single parents. However, if you look at my preceding comments, you'll note they included "young parents" and "many families (single or two parent)", so my comments refer to all families of young children with limited resources. My reference to parents who can afford quality day care was to make the point that, if even they have difficulty finding such arrangements, what chance do parents with limited means have?

You also suggest that, "the solution you find may not be perfect, but that's the nature of the world. If you are a typical parent, concerned with the best interests of your child first and foremost, your solution will be superior to any government program."

I would counter that, if you are among the working poor, no matter how concerned you are with the best interests of your child, your solution will, by practical constraints, not be superior to most government programs. I think that's demonstrable by most objective standards.

While my comments are not restricted to single parents, I would point out that, according to Canadian statistics, if you are a single mother, you are more likely than not to be poor (as defined by StatsCan).

"Government is not your friend, it's not a mentor, and it's not a benign caregiver."

Speak for yourself about the role of government in one's life. For me, it has been a pretty good friend for most of my six plus decades. It provided me with a professionally-assisted birth in a sanitary setting, an excellent education, a relatively safe community, passable roads and other infrastructure, and a rewarding career in public service and in education (in which I hope I've paid it forward to fellow citizens)…among many other advantages and amenities.

And then, it did most of those things all over again for my kids.

There's little point in debating the logistics of early education delivery with one who seems philosophically or politically opposed to the concept. I would argue that, contrary to your unsupported opinion that my position is "quite objectively" wrong, there is a wealth of research data supporting the conclusion that properly-delivered, government-subsidized early childhood education, in addition to providing a secure physical environment, stimulates a measurable head-start in many kids, particularly those from disadvantaged families.

So, while government in its abstraction is obviously not a "benign caregiver", I assert that it facilitates the circumstances in which, for many kids, benign caregiving is most likely to occur. For a few kids, unfortunately, it facilitates the ONLY circumstances for such experience.

Nanny state? To steal Sarah Palin's over-used expression…you betcha!

I don't believe I made any reference at all to the size of government. And my point about the role of government was exactly the opposite of your construction.

I think I just argued that governments should target the needs of single mothers and the working poor. We're essentially discussing the priorities of government, not its size and, if I had my druthers, my taxes would be giving disadvantaged kids a lift up, rather than buying F35s of questionable strategic value.

As for your inference that I was one of the entitled few ("already advantaged") I won't bore you with my life story but, because it's germane to this exchange, I'll disclose that I was a working class brat whose family (I later learned) nearly defaulted in its mortgage at one point and who was the first of my entire extended kin to attend post-secondary school, only because of the advent of student loans.

Thanks to the government.

"It ain't all about you, brooster2. :-) "

Then why am I wasting all my valuable time responding to the the riffraff on these boards :-)

Governments, in fact, have not "[kept] expanding into new areas". In my lifetime, governments have "privatized" railroads (how shortsighted was that?), airlines, airports, some highways, a few prisons, driver licensing (in my province), liquor distribution, rehabilitation services…how many more do I need to enumerate to make my point.

I contend that governments need to step into the breech in those areas where private enterprise has no self-interest (like childcare…the profits ain't there, and shouldn't be) among a whole host of other activities of benefit to the collective, like you and me.

Thanks for the exchange!

Thanx…fun, eh?

I am sorry to disagree about the profits in childcare. I know someone who owns many daycares and has made a tidy sum from them.

I became a single mother back in the day. My childcare solution was, literally, the only one I could find, although I tried the entire time to find something better. It wasn't even a question of money (although it presumably would have become one if I'd found an expensive option). It was unsafe, it was educational in all the ways you don't want your children to be educated, etc. Basically, my choice was keep a roof over their head by working, or not work and go on welfare, and again educate them in the ways I didn't want them to learn as well as move them to an even more unsafe neighbourhood than the one we were in. I was most definitely the working poor–at my Monday to Friday office job.

ECE workers need to go to college for two years. Then they get out and get what is now minimum wage–my stepdaughter was one for two years, and got a raise the first day she became a bank teller. Which is exactly why there aren't enough ECE workers to make up a daycare centre.

Well, I worked my entire high school life to get the skills and the training to do my job. But you're right, if I had it to do all over again I'd have gone for the law clerk thing I was thinking about. Of course, the Law Society has recently decreed that only under the supervision of a lawyer can a law clerk type up corporate minutes and stuff, so I'd still be in the underpaid clerical worker doing all the work field. Not that I am now (finally!) underpaid or doing all the work.

My niece is in her first year of nursing, and I'm so very proud of her for it–and as my nephew says, for all of them having the sense not to have had children yet!

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of parents are untrained and uneducated too. Somehow we muddle through..

brooster 2 – I hate to break it to you – but do you know who part of that working poor are? Those ECE diploma graduates you are talking about and other daycare workers are among the poorest paid individuals in the Canadian workforce. They make pittance for hourly wages and unlike a nanny or dayhome owner, they cannot take their child to work for free. Daycare owners on the other hand – especially those who own a string of daycares – tend to be pretty plump in the pocket. I think the govt. has the right idea – giving the cash to parents, maybe it needs to be a little more if you are poor.

Society! Do you mean parents who don't want to pay people a decent wage to look after their most valued commodity. Not everyone who takes their children to daycare is poor. Far from it. Rich people do not pay big wages either. People don't think having children should involve any sacrifice. My parents sat on lawn chairs when we they had young children. They had two kids and lived in a garage.

Self righteous – no, I don't mean to sound self-righteous. I just want to remind you that society and government are made up of the citizens….of us…of the parents. Ultimately, the choices to have children and the responsibilities to care for children, including ensuring they receive a good upbringing, rest in those people's hands. Maybe that is why I have a 22 year old daughter who is buying her first house and has lived on her own since she was 18. Learning to accept responsibility is an important thing in this life.

I'm sure that the difficulties of child rearing as a single mother is just one of the many reasons prostitution is the world's oldest profession.

That reminds me of a newly immigrated family of 8 in a town down the road from here. House caught fire one night, most of the family got out, dad had to go back in to save the youngest. Dad didn't make it, and the kid is absolutely horribly horribly burned to the point of requiring special care for many years to come. Dad had no life insurance or anything and this family was truly and utterly FUBAR. But! It took this community of about 15,000 people less than a WEEK to raise $100,000 for the family. No tax deductions, no political sway, just pure heartfelt generosity, and the money continues to flow in almost a year later.

My point being, in very remarkable situations, a community can be remarkably helpful.

Is there anything that you think individuals should be responsible for? Or is every life-problem a government program waiting to happen? I find it funny that people like you have such little faith in humanity that you think only the government can solve problems.

But go back to Happy Hour. Have a scotch for me.

Don't Jen….there is NO reason you need to justify or explain to ANYONE HERE why or how you became a single parent…..my sister was a single parent and I can relate to a great deal that you are talking about here….

If the working mother is subsidized, so should the at home mother.

I want to support stay at home moms too, but something still seems wrong about that. Surely, somehow, a daycare subsidy should be tied to whether or not you pay for daycare, shouldn't it? Isn't the whole point of this exercise to help people who need to pay for daycare pay for daycare?

I don't really believe this, but there is a part of my brain that thinks that if a mom who doesn't need daycare gets a daycare subsidy anyway, why shouldn't non-parents get a daycare subsidy too? If the daycare subsidy doesn't need to be tied to whether or not you pay for daycare, why should it be tied to whether or not you have kids?

Or, what about this analogy. I use public transit, and therefore have subsidized transportation. Should the government start sending cheques around to all of the people who don't use public transit to make up for the fact that they're missing out on the public transit subsidy by not using public transit?

To my mind, the point of subsidizing daycare is to subsidize daycare, not to subsidize child-rearing. Other child-rearing subsidies should, of course, go to all parents, but I feel like it's not crazy or insensitive to suggest that the daycare subsidy should go to people who have to pay for daycare.

sigh. The point is that there aren't enough daycares for those who would wish to use it. And the reason for that is because daycare centres are staffed by ECE workers. ECE workers need to go to college for two years to become ECE workers. So, they rightly expect to be recompensed for their investment in education. And they're not. So, they quickly decide not to be ECE workers anymore. Which means that there aren't enough of them in the field to open a daycare centre. It isn't subsidizing the parents, its subsidizing the ECE workers.

But in my scenario you're not subsidizing childcare. You're subsidizing childcare workers, which does not mean you are paying the entire wage to the ECE worker so I don't know what you're talking about, to allow for more of them. Mom and Dad still pay the same price they'd pay for the low quality babysitting they can find now (or at least that's what I was left with) but have the option of choosing safe, stimulating day care centres instead of private houses where the person puts your kids in front of the TV all day and feeds them the processed/high sodium/high fat food because its the cheap stuff. Or they could choose a private home where the person is really great–if they can find such a gem which I couldn't after the first one I found had a nervous breakdown and suddenly quit. Or they could stay at home and look after their children themselves. The only one this hurts as far as child-rearing goes is the woman who stayed at home with her children, and took in other kids while she was at it to become a low quality babysitting service, putting all the kids in front of the TV for the day and feeding them the cheap stuff. I'm not going to feel bad for her.

Why no, I'm writing it all by myself.

If you send your child to a daycare centre now, nothing will change for you. If you are on the waiting list for a daycare space, hurray, a space has opened up. You will then spend the same as you would have if a space had opened up in an existing daycare centre. Now, over time, I expect the increased competition will allow for slight variances to the prices–the ones in popular areas will be the same price they are now, the less popular ones will be a little less expensive and the ones in less ideal locations and less ideal buildings will be a little less expensive than that and so on. But all will be safe and stimulating environments for children. We taxpayers won't be hit at all since the money is coming from the $100 to every parent thing, and over the table employment will increase as the under-the-table, unsafe babysitting service will become a thing of the past. This is a great win-win-win plan. Help me sell it.

MYL, do you even have children? Have you ever looked for a proper child care provider? Do you have the slightest idea of what's happening out there?

Suspend elementary economics? No wonder you like the tooth-fairy. My son is 26 years old, and I couldn't find a daycare spot for him as a pre-schooler. How long does this market economy of yours take to work?

As I have already stated somewhere on this thread, your correction #1 is wrong. At least, I never got that far since I couldn't find a daycare centre spot at any price. The phenomenon is not unique to me, or a blip for that few years. Daycare centres have waiting lists a mile long. Its great fun explaining over and over the same points to someone who has never been there and refuses to accept the words of those who have.

You're talking about childcare as though it's a commodity when you should consider it as an infrastructure. Equilibrium…. pshhh.

Prices for commodities change with supply and demand and that is fine, because the inputs and the outputs are adjustable and the market can adjust to the change.

Supply and demand for infrastructure does not change so easily, and the market does not react according to those changes. We can't let the markets decide when or where babies should be born and price of daycare is not the top qualifier when parents attempt to conceive.

So, the same way roads opens the economy, healthcare improves productivity (theoretically), and defense improves security, daycare saves money. Not everyone needs these infrastructure components, but not having them would cost you and the economy more than simply paying them through government taxes.

Since free daycare gets some lower class people off welfare, prevents fiscal delinquency in middle class families, allows highly productive families to keep working, improves some child's social skills, prepares kid's for school and makes them more effective learners, the argument that daycare is some kind evil black hole of money sucking non-sense just doesn't hold water.

Now, if you don't want a federal bureaucrat decide how your child is taken care of, and this is where I'm leaning, then I guess what you need is the feds to cough up 5 or some billion dollars to the provinces, they decide how to split it up between the districts, then they set their daycare management plan… wait that's what Martin wanted to do…no wonder you can't stomach the idea.

We can't let the markets decide when or where babies should be born and price of daycare is not the top qualifier when parents attempt to conceive.

I never said the market has any say in when to attempt to conceive. But the market definitely should have a say in helping parents figure out how best to care for them. They can do it themselves, or they can contract out their parental duty. Why we are so thrilled that the state should try to monopolize that sucontractor duty just blows my mind.

Where the market ends up having a say in when parents should conceive is if they intend to use daycare and it is government-run, underpriced (to the purchaser parents), overpriced (to the conscripted taxpayer) and undersupplied. Rationing and waiting lists are pretty much guaranteed in this ridiculous scenario.

They call it the tragedy of the commons. Have we all forgotten our introductory high school economics course?

The more it's used the better off we are.

And now we have a seconder to the motion that deems parents as the least acceptable source of early childhood education, health and safety. That is still an abhorrent attitude.

Point 2 contradicts point 1.

You're suggesting you can't spend lots of time with their parents and have ECE? They're not mutually exclusive.

In fact they are. Time spent in an institutional setting is, by definition, time lost for parent/child bonding and nurturing. Of course, there is a balance to be found between the two. I think the ideal is pretty much what we've got now. Children being primarly in the care of their parents up to the age of about 48 months when they gradually are integrated into the education system through kindergarten.

I don't see the need to institutionalize children earlier than that, but of course all families must find their own balance.

If market forces were providing the option of adequate day care we wouldn't need this debate. It's a pity but it seems this is one of the areas where market intervention is acceptable.

As for one-size-fits all, it's unfortunate that some would be left out, but it would still be the single biggest, most effective plan that could be implemented for child care. It's still a far better use of funds than giving an additional $100 per child.

The funding power is universal. Arguments about federal/provincial jurisdiction are not relevant and therefore not a counterargument.

Since Federal and provincial governments will work together on matters like education and health care far into the future, discussions about specific issues aren't served by answering with flights of fancy. You may as well say "we must not adopt any program with the letter R in the title!!!"

Not to mention families on Welfare. Part of that money is supposed to be used to care for the child. Will they not allow Welfare recipients to use the subsidized spaces? Or will they decrease Welfare benefits accordingly? Ya, we all know the answer to that one.

Out subsidising.

it's not a fact. it depends on the parents.
extreme example: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2011/02/05…

i'm not sure how helping working parents harms a stay at home parent.

You reiterate the statement, but not the argument.

The stay at home parent doesn't pay taxes, how exactly are they paying?
It harms them because they receive social pressure? please explain.

So you've never seen any sarcastic retorts about Cons "keeping em barefoot and pregnant"?

Odd, I see them everywhere. Scott Reid's infamous sneer about "Beer and Popcorn" said it all when it comes to the real impetous behind this national daycare scheme. It's not about saving the poor single mothers from their plight, it's about contempt for the intelligence and the ability of the great unwashed, the breeding stock.

Did what?

It's not enough to just pick a response out of a hat, you have to address the point that's been made. In this case, you were objecting to my comment and looking for some basis for it. I replied with my basis for the comment and you replied with a complete non-sequitor.

Not only did I not say "they did it first." I didn't imply anything of the kind.

You're either getting confused yourself, or merely trying to confuse the issue.

If I were inclined, I could trade sob stories with you André, but what's the point of that?

If it's beneath your dignity to raise your own child then… well, I can't relate to that. I stayed home to raise my own children as well, and I found it very rewarding. My wife is a nurse, I am self-employed and was always able to arrange my work around her shifts. So all my children, I'm happy to say, were raised primarily by their mother and myself. And yes, we were "working poor" by the accepted definition of the phrase although I rejected the label then, and still do today.

I'm sorry that your situation is difficult at the moment. But I don't think the solution lies in another government program that can't possibly deliver on it's promise.

Save your stupid schoolmarm scolding and take the trouble to read and think about what you've read. I specifically said that I would NOT trade sob stories even though I could. You get it? Idiot.

I am quite specifically focusing on the positives of our situation rather than dwell on the real sacrifices & the real worries that we faced when our children were young. Having children is hard work and involves hard choices, as I've said all along.

Why are the ignorant always the most self-righteous?

It would be a sob story if I didn't have such a great 6 month's vacation off your hard earned tax dollars.

We suffered by way that the natural outcome was affected, and it only took 6 months. I can't imagine how much damage 4 years could do. Glad it worked out for you.

You seem to think that I resent your use of EI. I don't.

I would, specifically because it is cheaper to subsidize daycare than to subsidize my salary.

The rest of your post is just a lot resentment based non-sense. When you get daycare for free you don't expect a higher education, and if you do then there's no reason why a private daycare with added benefits and fees couldn't coexist along side public daycares the same way public schools coexist along side public schools.

You're criticising a system that doesn't exist yet. I think you've built yourself a mean looking strawman to defend your case. The worst public daycare scenario.

… because it is cheaper to subsidize daycare than to subsidize my salary.

Wow! You must make one hell of a wage. Congratulations.

Geez, that's an unprovoked, belated, and nasty comment which doesn't do much to further the debate. I'll keep it in mind…thanks for coming.

Feel better?

I think you're right…and the main symptom is my continuing to respond to your idiocy. Won't happen again.

There…I'm cured.

The only problem I have with your story is your conclusion. Because some non-working mothers abused the system, you'd rather pay all non-working parents, and do basically nothing for the ones who need the childcare help?

Thanks, Leo. We survived, although my son barely speaks to me and I carry a great deal of guilt on being such a horrible mother. I didn't mean abusing the system as in cheating. Mind you, if you could do it on an occasional basis, it would be a godsend for personal doctor's appointments and such for a stay at home parent.

You don't have to be poor – it's for everybody.

Mouse over the bar at the bottom of the page (Example for a couple with a 3 year old child) and a detailed account pops up. It will not let me cut and paste. The couple they are using for the example make $100,000 a year. Last time I checked that was not poor!!!
http://www.budget.finances.gouv.qc.ca/budget/2009…

Kinda boggles the mind a bit, doesn't it?

Actually, I had a friend who received her two year ECS diploma from Red Deer College in Alberta. The problem is the job pays minimum wage. She was one of the working poor. Luckily she married an engineer who works in oil and gas. She could never have afforded to work and have children. Is that a kicker! Now, if she would have had higher high school marks she could have become a school teacher and actually made a respectable wage. These people blogging on this site – I wonder if many of them have any idea how little these people – the vast majority of them being women get paid. It is well and good not to expect parents to pay anything for childcare but is it okay for childcare workers to make almost nothing?

I am saying that it is an ugly scene, a young mother reduced to beggardom by the roadside, infant in arm, pleading with passersby for a morsel of yesterday's banquet or a few crumbs from a fresh dollar.

I am not being facetious.

Externalities?

From a practical perspective, how would you "make this happen"? Do you really want that young mother to stand by the roadside, infant in arm? If not that, is there an agency where you would recommend the mother to plead her case? And then that agency would advertise or telephone solicit or other?

Not saying any of those methods wouldn't work, just wondering about the nuts and bolts of your charity solution.