Progressive Wednesday

Universal Child Care – Making Life a Little Easier

After reading the Monday Morning Mother column by Melissa Brannen, “ Not quite Wonder Woman, but close,– I was moved to write something, being a stay-at-home father, about parenting. I love it. It is truly the most rewarding thing I do. And thanks to my hardworking and underappreciated wife, I haven't had to get a regular paying job. I don't envy the role of single parents trying to juggle the importance their job with that of raising their child. In order for a single parent to afford daycare, they would have to make and extra $4,000 to $14,000 a year for an infant, and $3,900 to $10,200 for a toddler.

But not in Quebec. Canada's largest province has had a state-funded childcare system since 1997. So how much does it cost per day for our friends to the north to send their children to daycare?

The initial cost to parents was $5 a day. This increased this year to $7 a day. On average, monthly child care costs for parents in Quebec would amount to $140 a month, or $1,620 a year. In the rest of the country, parents foot a bill for regulated child care ranging between $3,300 and $10,000 a year.

Of course the system isn't perfect (show us one that is), but it would make it a little bit easier for single parents and lower income families to achieve their financial goals while providing good care for their children. It will still be hard, but that's good. I like that it's hard. It should be. That's part of what makes it so rewarding. But knowing that regardless of how things go at work your children will have the proper care is a peace of mind that all parents should know.

Livin’ in Sin

Well, it turns out that several states have one of the most backwards laws on their books: a ban on opposite-sex cohabitation. Since we try to steer clear of sarcasm, you can trust us that this ain’t our kind of humor, because, well, because it’s really not all that funny. Even if you’re not a fan of this kind of living, it’s hard to believe most folks out there would think that it’s the government’s decision.

The states needing to meet the modern age? Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and everybody’s favorite Dakota, the northern one:

In North Dakota, a man and woman who live together without being married are committing a sex crime. It’s right there in the law, a state senator said, alongside the prohibitions against adultery, incest and indecent exposure.

As you might suspect, these inane laws are rarely enforced, but, of course, that doesn’t mean folks never try to stop guys and gals from shacking up together in the Mountain State:

In West Virginia, a former prison inmate is challenging the state’s anti-cohabitation law because it delayed his parole from prison on forgery convictions. Officials rejected William Stanley’s plan to move in with his fiancee after his release.

Or in the Old Dominion State:

In one case, a Norfolk, Va., day care operator faced losing her license because she was living with her boyfriend.

And in ND there are, of course, folks who think they know what’s best for you and me: “Tom Freier, a spokesman for the North Dakota Family Alliance, said repealing North Dakota’s anti-cohabitation law would signal that the state doesn’t value marriage and the societal benefits it brings.”

I guess we just value freedom over marriage. (Please note: at Progressive Wednesday, we’re pro-marriage for folks who want it, but it’s hard to completely argue for the societal benefits of marriage when every year approximately 2 million people are married and 1 million people get divorced.)

Thankfully, the ACLU exists. According to the article, the threat of facing an ACLU legal team all but forced the Virginia Department of Social Services to renew the day care operator’s license. The good news is that 43 states believe in freedom.

If you live in one of the seven aforementioned states, you might want to ink a letter to the editor or state reps blasting these backwards laws. When the populace learns about it, given the large number of folks living together, hopefully they’ll force the legisture’s hands. Why might this work? Well, because nearly 10 million individuals live together, according to the Census Bureau. To put that in perpective, that’s more than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Maine COMBINED!

Or, if writing isn’t your speed today, maybe just give the repressive folks at the North Dakota Family Alliance a jingle at 701-237-4218. (I guess we’ve got a little of the Devil in us.)

All this, to us, is proof positive that our country still has room to improve, or, to quote Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: “There’s a whole lot of walking to do.”

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