Child’s play, but system remains broken

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/06/2024 (491 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The recent thoroughly provocative investigative series in the Free Press about child care has brought back a lot of memories about the experiences my wife and I had when our children were younger.

Many of them bad.

To be honest, back in the day we did not have trouble finding space in a daycare. The problem was finding a space in a facility that synced up with our working schedules.

Some of the facilities did not do any kind of early morning drop off. Others had a hard and fast 5 p.m. deadline for pickup that came with a warning that three instances of showing up late would result in a call to Child and Family Services.

It was a like a game of child care whack-a-mole: there was a space here, but no early morning drop off; another facility did early mornings but had a very early pickup time.

My son attended a well-regarded, half-day nursery school program at Glenlawn Collegiate on Fermor Avenue. It seemed to be perfect for us because, as fate would have it, the child care centre at the neighbouring Winnipeg YMCA-YWCA had a space available. There was just one problem: despite being separated by no more than 100 metres, nobody from the Y or Glenlawn would walk my son from the school to the child care centre after nursery school was done.

We made it work with help from friends who also had a son in the nursery school program. Friends we have probably never properly thanked for helping us out.

The Free Press series has uncovered many of the pressing issues facing the child care system today, problems that existed when our kids needed child care: a lack of oversight; understaffing; a shortage of spaces; little or no coordination between schools and child care. After reading all of the articles published to date, I was possessed by a single overarching question:

How could things still be this bad?

Over the years, I have listened to federal and provincial governments promise to fix the system.

I’ve heard political leaders talk about how child care is not a social service, it’s really an economic program that allows more women to re-enter the workforce after having children. I’ve heard those leaders talk about how child care is a human right and a key to addressing gender equity.

The talk was good, but the execution has been utterly woeful. What has prevented us from solving these chronic problems?

There is no single answer, of course. Governments often promise big ideas and deliver much smaller ones. Governments also underestimate the complexity of things like child care. And there is little doubt the pandemic and the work-at-home mandates completely upended the child care equation.

Parents, mostly mothers, were forced to work from home while also providing child care and overseeing remote education. At the same time, government did not do enough to remunerate staff who risked their lives to re-open child care centres.

What if, despite all of the talk to the contrary, we’re just not that devoted to improving child care?

In support of that thesis, I offer a final anecdote about some of the countervailing forces that may slow progress.

For one year, my son attended an excellent child care facility at Lord Roberts Community Centre. However, it was really hard to get him from the centre to school in the morning, and back to the centre in the afternoon.

Winnipeg School Division had a bus program but to qualify, the child care centre had to be at least 1.6 km (one mile) from the school. School division staff examined architectural drawings of the streets and determined our school was 1.58 km away. We were denied bus service.

When I complained to my school trustee, he said that while he found the policy ridiculous, it was robustly supported by the parent council that, at that time, was dominated by stay-at-home parents who were offended at the whole notion of institutional child care.

I really have no idea if he was telling me the truth. Or if he was, whether it remains the predominant attitude. It did show me that people who were in a position to improve child care were afraid to step up.

We eventually did find a space at the Riverview Ashland Child Care Centre, a facility established many years ago by parents in my neighbourhood who were having the same trouble we were in finding child care that made sense.

Among its many great features, Riverview Ashland staff walk children to and from nearby École Riverview School. Its hours were more than flexible, giving parents a chance to drop off and pick up without having to break Highway Traffic Act laws to get to and from work.

My kids are older and no longer require child care but I certainly empathize with any family struggling with the anxiety of finding safe, affordable and practical child care.

Anyone who has the power to improve daycare needs to read the series in the Free Press and do something that previous generations of political leaders have failed to do: fix this system.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.