Changing Child Care
Looking Back, Moving Forward
Introduction from the anthology "Changing child care: Five decades fo child care advocacy and policy in Canada" by Susan Prentice
A "formidable force," Ottawa Citizen editorialists deem the contemporary Canadian child care lobby. They claim the movement's power and undue political influence rests in the convergence of staff, parents, teachers, researchers and an array of other players. The lobby, warns the newspaper, is a "steamroller" that governments must mightily resist. Other observers might query the purported power of advocates, given Canada's piecemeal and patchwork child care system. In fact, it might more reasonably be concluded that the very existence of a child care movement is a direct result of political neglect-certainly advocates' efforts would be unneeded had governments implemented progressive policy and comprehensive services. Still, the Ottawa Citizen rightly observes that the child care lobby is a player with which politicians must reckon.
There has been a child care movement in Canada for over half a century-yet surprisingly little has been written about how and by whom child care advocacy has been organized, what the movement has done and tried to do, or what effects it has had on social policy or social change. In this book, we set out to begin to remedy some of these gaps. This project is by, for and about the role of advocacy in the making of a place for child care in the Canadian welfare state. Over the last half century, child care policy and services have changed-quite dramatically-and the child care movement has played a role in that complex, interactive process. Individually, these chapters name some of the particulars of this process; in concert, these case studies accomplish something more.
1940's women demonstrate. "Fatter babies not fatter profits".
As a collection, this book makes two significant contributions. First, it explores the history of child care advocacy and policy in Canada from World War II to the present. All too often, these stories have been hidden from history. There are many reasons why child care has been neglected in historical and scholarly studies. One reason is that child care advocacy (in Canada, as elsewhere) has largely been a project of women-and the chapters in this anthology variously propose why this is so. In general, much of women's history has been ignored or has failed to be included in history books. History is usually written from the perspective of the mainstream, and the advocacy groups whose stories are told in this book are still campaigning from the margins to have child care declared an entitlement of the Canadian welfare state. Additionally, this is an anthology about a social movement, and the history of social movements in Canada is still being written. As such, this book directly contributes to the active project of history-making.
The second contribution of this anthology builds directly on the first: the authors work towards developing history as a tool-making the past usable and relevant today. The idea of a "usable past" is sometimes looked down on by those historians who scorn such concerns as "presentist." However, understanding history is essential if the goal is to increase the effectiveness of child care advocates or to specify when and under what conditions advocacy impacts (or fails to impact) on public policy. Exactly how a social movement makes a difference is complicated and contested. Strategies and tactics used by advocates have varied enormously over the past five decades: sometimes activists have worked "with" or even "inside" governments, sometimes they have worked "against" governments. At some points, child care advocates have developed broad alliances and messages; other times they have focused tightly on child care services. Sometimes a feminist concern with women has predominated; at other times, the focus has been elsewhere, such as on poverty or children's needs. All social movements struggle with similar questions. Women's groups, for example, must consider the benefits of "going mainstream" as insiders versus the advantages of being unfettered outsiders, free to criticize without fear of biting the hand that feeds them. Tactics, strategies, positions and alliances are perennial questions for all social change groups-and the child care movement is in good company as it debates these questions, and disagrees on the answers.
When and why do some strategies work? When and why do they fail? Since more often than not, advocates are unable to enact the policy they want, assessments of "failures" are especially common and painful. These are the moments when advocates must consider if they could have done things differently or ponder whether their political activity ever has a chance of prevailing. Contributors to this anthology explicitly take up these questions, attempting to not only describe child care advocacy (a hard enough job in itself) but also to evaluate and assess it. In this way, historical inquiry has value for contemporary political discussion.
There are some clear conclusions that emerge from this collection, despite the many differences between the contributors and the histories they analyze. One overall observation is that advocacy really does matter. It sometimes appears that the small actions of advocates-writing a letter to the editor, planning an educational forum, meeting with politicians, creating an election brochure and so on-make no difference. On the contrary, the long-term view provided by history shows that advocacy does have demonstrable effects. The child care movement, slowly, sometimes almost imperceptibly, helps to shape how parents, politicians, decision makers, bureaucrats, researchers, social justice groups and not least of all, "the public" think about child care. Advocacy contributes to how child care is conceptualized, developed and delivered. However, as these chapters show, the movement does not always make the impact that advocates intend.
In Canada today, there are over five million children aged twelve and under. Close to 95 percent of fathers with children under the age of fifteen are in the labour force, as are more than three-quarters of mothers with children aged six to fourteen and 70 percent of mothers of preschoolers. More than 3,323,000 Canadian children have mothers in the paid labour force. For the country's children, there are 516,734 licensed child care spaces (in group centres and licensed homes). Quality, accessibility and affordability vary wildly within and between provinces and territories. The cost of child care and the scarcity of public fee subsidies put the service out of reach for nearly every low-income and most middle-income families. Although much is known about the positive impacts on child development of high-quality early childhood care and education, few children have access to good care. The vast and growing majority of children in Canada need nonparental care-yet our country fails to meet their needs and the needs of their parents. Canadian early childhood education today is characterized by "inadequacy, fragmentation and incoherence." Child care provision in Canada has actually worsened in recent years. From this broad context, one question emerges: How are we to make sense of this scenario?
Looking backward, moving forward
Introduction from the anthology by Susan Prentice
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