Kudos

Kudos to the US, British and Canadian troops that freed the hostages.

[stands and claps in admiration and respect]

Save us - from interfering celebrities!

Briditte Bardot is all over the news (though hardly front page) because of her visit to Canada and her stance against the seal hunt. You have to admit, she is persistant. After 30 years of failure, you'd think she'd figure it out by now. Why a 71 yr old former actress in France thinks she should have anything to say about how Canada - or any other country - runs is beyond me. Then there's this little tidbit I found in the Edmonton Journal.

Many of her lifelong fans in France turned away from her in 2003 with the publication of her book Un Cri dans Le Silence. It attacked Islam, homosexuals, the unemplyed and illegal immigrants, and called for a return of the guillotine. She ended up in court and was fined $7000 for inciting racial hatred.

Yeah, we'll just change our policies on how we run our country based on the ideals of someone like this. We'll get right on that.

Oh, and for anyone who wants to know what's really going on with the seal hunt in Canada, as upposed to the myths and lies perpetuated by the likes of Ms. Bardot and the b.s. put out by groups like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, you might want to check out this link. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/myth_e.htm

And if you've got images of cute cuddly baby harp seals stuck in your mind, check out this one
http://www.katu.com/stories/76832.html It may help remind people that seals are very big, very dangerous, very successful predators. Of course if you Google the words "seal hunt," these aren't the sites you're likely to find.

Of course, Ms. Bardot is hardly the only celebrity that tries to impose their own pet projects onto countries, seemingly expecting that their very celebrity is enough to cause national leaders to cow-tow to them (and seemingly just as surprised when they don't). With our last PM hamming it up for the cameras with U2's Bono not to long ago, we've found ourselves the brunt of his lectures on his pet projects, too. A message to Bono. Former PM Martin was most likely using you to boost his own career. That, and we don't need you to tell our government what it should do with *our* tax dollars. Our former gov. has wasted quite enough of it already. Give our new gov. a chance to clean and repair out own backyard. Then maybe we can start looking at helping other countries.

It's never difficult to find stories about celebrities who try to use their fame to influence others. Of course, like any other voting citizen, celebrities have every right to do what they can for what they believe in. Examples of celebrities that walked the talk include the late Ronald Reagan and governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. Love them or hate them, these are celebrities who used their fame to make a difference. Considerably different from the puffed up egos that don't even bother to take the time to learn all the facts, mug for the cameras while spouting platitudes, then seem to be offended because us ordinary folks don't drop down, fawning all over them, and doing what they tell us just because they're famous.

Being a celebrity, in and of itself, isn't enough. Give us some meat on those bones, and maybe we'll find you worth listening to.

the child care issue

For anyone who reads my blog or knows me personally, they know my stand on child care and parenting. I've certainly had my share of flack from those who don't agree with the choices I've made. Whether it's predictions that "I'll never get them out" of my bed because we had a family bed when they were babies (they are quite happy to have their own room now), or that they'd be stunted emotionally or intellectually because I chose to stay at home with them rather than putting them in day care or pre-school, or that I'm ruining their chances of future success because we chose to home school, I'm used to making choices that other people don't agree with. I've learned long ago that the only experts that are qualified to make decisions for my children are me and their father. We will listen to the advice and opinions of others, whether they be "experts," or friends and family, or strangers on the street who start lecturing me because *gasp* we do things differently from them. Then, after hearing them out, we make our own decisions based on what we believe to be the best thing for our children and our family.

While I believe that the decisions we made for our family are the right ones, even when doubts creep in (and they always will), and believe that there are others who would be much happier if they made decisions similar to ours, we also recognise that for some families, the choices we've made would be totally wrong for them.

Which is why the child care issue is so important to me. My children are well beyond the age of daycare, and the Conservative plan of $1200 a year per child means nothing for us. We are, however, part of a community, and that community includes families off all types and children of all ages. Some of these families have made choices very much like our own, choosing partenting practises similar to ours, choosing to have a parent at home, choosing to home school. Others parent differently, live differently, and choose daycare and public school for their children. I respect those decisions, and would hope that they respect mine.

Right now, we've got the Liberals and NDP threatening to do everything possible to force the Conservatives to break their promise of $1200 per year per pre-school aged child, and to instead keep the Liberal promise of a "national" daycare system. Aside from the hypocrisy of trying to make the current government keep the promises of the previous one (and they managed to avoid keeping this promise for over a decade), there are many problems with this stance.

First, there is the myth of a "national" daycare system. Daycare is a provincial responsibility, and the most the federal government can do it throw money at it.

Next, there's the fact that government regulated daycare doesn't meet the needs of the majority of parents. From the numbers I've seen, only a quarter of the parents who have children qualify for these spaces.

What galls me the most, however, is the day care advocates insistance that only *their* vision is the "right" way to go. The very fact that they claim to be the only "child care" sources - that parents do not child care their own children - shows a remarkable lack of respect for parents in general, and mothers specifically. The level of contempt shown towards parents is staggering.

Government run daycare is but one choice of many, and it's not the best choice for all parents. If the daycare advocates truly had the best interests of children at heart, they would recognise this. But it's not about what's best for the children, is it? It's about their own jobs. It's about pushing their own agenda and ideology. The children are little more than pawns in their game, shuffled across the board, used to bring about emotional responses, like when they are used to hold signs at demonstrations.

What we need is a system that recognises that, while someone might become an "expert" on children in general, it is the parents that are the experts of their own individual children, and that they are the ones who need our support. We need a system that doesn't penalize parents for choosing to live on a single income so that one of them can stay at home with their children. We need a system that recognises that there are many different ways to child care, and that if there is to be any funding for childcare, fairness demands that all these choices be recognised, and that funding the child rather than a system is the fairest way to accomplish this.

Sara at Choice for Childcare has asked bloggers to "strike for childcare" today, and I am proud to take part in this. Visit her site to see a list of many other bloggers who are also participating.

There are many other sites that also support true choice for childcare and funding the child.
Fund the Child: Kids First Canada has a list of links to sites and articles about funding the child, as well as research on different types of child care and other links of interest.

Hopefully, our current government will not allow themselves to be bullying by the opposition and the powerful day care lobby, and instead be given the chance to make a decision based on what parents actually want and need.


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an example of standarized daycare

Wasn't it just a short time ago that a baby was left asleep in a stoller outside a daycare in the cold because no one wanted to wake it up?

I realize this sort of thing is relatively rare, but day care advocates would rather have us believe that all is sunshine and butterflies in our day cares, and that they are far superior to alteranate forms of child care. Things like this, and far worse, do happen.



March 17, 2006

Toddler forgotten at daycare

LAVAL, Que. (CP) -- Two day-care workers in Laval, north of Montreal, were fired after they forgot a sleeping toddler inside their day-care and went home for the night.

The mother of the 21-month-old baby arrived around 6 p.m. Tuesday night to find the day care's doors locked and the lights off.

She called 911 and firefighters smashed a window to get her child.

The daycare's executive director, Myriam Taillefer, says the two workers failed to follow proper procedures when closing up for the day.

The day-care centre's board of directors decided to fire them and parents seem to be satisfied with the decision.

Choice for Childcare

No time to do a full post right now, but I wanted to pass on a link to the Choice for Childcare blog. Definately worth reading!

http://choiceforchildcare.blogspot.com/

You don't speak for me!

I just love it when some women's group rep. claims to speak for all women. In this morning's news, I caught the headline, Women's Groups Lobby Harper. Yet another group that's trying to get our new PM to change his stance on the child care issue - an issue that probably played a huge part in getting him elected in the first place, I might add. Well, none of these so-called women's groups speak for me. They speak only for themselves, and not the many women who choose a different path.

They marked International Women's Day on Wednesday with meetings, demonstrations and news conferences urging the federal government to retain the child-care agreements signed with the provinces by the last Liberal government.

The Liberal governemnt had decades to implement their child care promises. They didn't actually do anything until an election came up. Then they started signing everything and promising billions of dollars in an all out shopping spree, trying to bribe us withour own tax dollars. And these people think our new goverment, one that seeks to repair the fiscal damage of our previous one, should keep those promises? Did they really think the Liberals would have kept them in the first place?

They say Harper's pledge to replace those agreements with direct payments to families of $1,200 a year for every child under 6 doesn't cut it.

"While families welcome financial support, it is not child care," said Monica Lysack of the Canadian Child Care Advocacy Association.

Ah, of course. The Day Care advocate's ultimate weapon. If it isn't in a daycare centre, duly licensed and regulated by the government, it's not child care. Therefore, anything that actually helps parents directly is a bad thing. Parents, you see, don't child care their own children. Only day care works do child care.

Harper's plan is a *child care* plan, not a day care plan, and by giving parents money directly, *all* parents are helped, not just the minority that can use government sactioned day care. No, $100 a month isn't enough to pay for a day care space. IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO. It might, however, just be enough to allow a parent to stay home full time (because having a job costs money, which people conveniently forget). It might also be enough to pay for the occaisional child care needed by someone who works part time, or who does shift work, or *gasp* whatever the parents decide is the best way to use that money. If these people really believed in child care choice, they would be supporting parents in making the choices the work best for them, not just the ones they approve of.

"Child care is the ramp to equality and a right that women have been fighting for for decades," said Nancy Peckford of the Feminist Alliance for International Action.

"For working women, child care is all about equality," said Barbara Byers, executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

Ah, equality is it? How 'bout this for equality. How about treating stay at home moms as equals for a change, rather than as objects of contempt? How about changing the tax system so that a single income family isn't penalized for choosing to have a parent at home? Two income families pay far less in taxes per year than the same size family with the same income coming from only one source - for a family that makes about $50K a year, I'm told it works out to a difference of about $7000 a year.

Oh and of course, the only "working women" are ones who work outside the home. Us stay at homers, we don't count. In the eyes of the so-called feminists, we're throwbacks to a patrairchical society, and most definately not equals. Only those who have "real" jobs count.

She said Harper's promised child-care money falls far short of what is needed: "Help with diapers maybe, but not child care."

Duh... helloooooo!!!!! Getting diapers is *part* of caring for your child, so yes, it counts, too! and for some families, having enough money to pay for those diapers and other such necessities is enough to keep one parent home with their kids. Does the money fall short? Well, yes, I suppose it does, but I'd rather see that made up in areas such as ending the tax penalties paid by single income families, which would allow us to keep more of our money in the first place. As a stay at home mother, I don't see what's equal about having my tax dollars subsidize a two income family's day care expenses, only to get penalized for choosing to stay at home.

Byers said women will fight for their right to accessible and affordable care.

"This government has its focus on the family all wrong," said Byers.

Personally, I think it's Byers who's got the focus on the family all wrong. Her focus seems to be targeted only at those women who work 9-5 jobs outside the home - the only ones that would be able to make use of the Liberal vision of child care. In fact, I don't see their focus as being on the family at all. Their focus seems to be entirely on jobs and careers, which are often at odds with a healthy family.

The Conservative plan for child care isn't perfect, but it's a far cry closer to treating all families equally than the day care advocates are. So to the so-called women't groups that claim they speak for all women, I say you can shut up, 'cause you don't speak for me. And while you're at it, keep your hands off other people's money. My family doesn't qualify for this $1200 a year, so it's of no benefit for us at all. It will, however, be a huge benefit for many families. They are the ones who need and deserve that money. Not the day care centres that will never serve their needs anyways.

Kirpan Kerfuffle

It's been all over the news for the last while. The Supreme Court has determined that a boy can wear his kirpan - a ceremonial dagger - to school, in the interests of religious freedom.

There are a lot of debates on both sides of the issue. The kirpan, while a religious symbol, is also a weapon. Like all weapons, despite religious restrictions, it has the potential to be used as such.

I admit to being bothered by the ruling, but not for the reasons some have put forward. It's not the fact that he's allowed to wear it in school that bothers me. I really don't care that much. What bothers me is that he's allowed to wear it at a time when little boys are being expelled for pointing chicken nuggets at another child and saying "bang bang." It bothers me that he's allowed to wear it when another child was suspended for bringing a weapon to school when his mother packed a butter knife for him to use on his lunch (one editorialist even wrote that the kirpan is as dangerous as a butter knife, yet in our 0 tolerance world, a butter knife is indeed considered dangerous. Just try and bring one onto an airplane the next time you fly). I'm bothered by it because he's allowed to carry it while other children are told not to pray over their lunches. I'm bothered by it because other children are not allowed to carry bibles or wear crosses around their necks because they might "offend" others.

No, what bothers me isn't that this child is allowed to carry a knife to school, ceremonial or otherwise. What bothers me is that he's allowed to do so in the name of religious freedom, when such freedoms are denied to others, and our era of 0 tolerance is so ludicrously applied. Until then, it makes me very uncomfortable.