It appears our Liberal government is moving forward with a $5B initiative to expand government funded daycare services. The inexorable march of greater government intrusion into family life is advanced by such action - to the detriment of society as a whole.
Why does this matter to society? It matters on so many fronts - and for both moral and economic efficiency reasons. Human beings find child rearing equally hard and rewarding. Personal time shrinks to nil when children are young while we focus on the basics of feeding, caring and loving them. This effort is the cost we humans pay to participate in the great cycle of life. This "cost" is beneficial to individuals and society in so many ways. It ensures that people make wise choices about choosing to be parents; it ensures that we remember that our life is more than acquiring things and positions in companies and organizations; it builds a deep and fundamental bond between the individuals involved that last for a lifetime and strengthems the fabric of civil society; it reinforces that bringing life into this world is a great and wonderful thing that costs us dearly, but which is richy rewarding. Otherwise, having a child is in essence a choice to have sexual relations, carry the child to term and pass them off to a group of strangers for most of their time except when it is convenient for us.
And so, my concern with daycare of any kind is that it allows us to outsource the cost of having children to someone else and avoiding the moral universe's natural calculus which says - "If you choose to have children, you choose to raise, love, nurture and care for them". By doing so, I believe we diminish the importance of the job that the universe has assigned us, as well as never being able to look our children in the eye and say, "We chose to love you when it cost us dearly - and so you know that our love is true and unconditional. We were willing to sacrifice for you." The children of the nanny and daycare generation can never really believe their parents when they claim this. On one level these children can wonder if the choice to have children wsa not much different than a choice to buy a second car or a cottage.
Daycare parents will recoil at what I am suggesting. But I they cannot argue that their actions move us along a continuum that makes having a child seem more like a consumer choice, than a costly and rewarding personal committment.
Daycare may be a necessary evil in some cases (not as many cases as we think...), but it should continue to be an exception to the basic rule that tells us that our children are our children and when they are too young to care for themelves - their mom and dad are there for them.
Because if they are not there for them at their most vulnerable and when they are most in need and least able to repay, a fundamental moral law is violated.
