Reading — Test 18

Reading passage

DAYCARE WAITLISTS: READERS SOUND OFF Our paper's piece last week on families waiting up to three years for a licensed daycare spot in the Fraser Valley drew a flood of responses. We print a selection below. I read that article with a knot in my stomach. My daughter was born in April, and I put her name down for daycare in May — before I'd even figured out how breastfeeding worked. Eleven months later, we're still fourth on the list at every centre within a 20-minute drive. My husband and I both work full-time, and my mother-in-law has been driving in from Abbotsford three days a week to watch the baby. She's 68 and shouldn't have to do this. I don't understand why municipalities keep approving new condo towers without requiring a single new daycare space to go with them. — Priya N., Surrey People love blaming the government, but nobody mentions the actual bottleneck: there aren't enough early childhood educators. You can build all the centres you want; if wages stay near minimum wage, staff will keep leaving for retail jobs with the same pay and less stress. I trained as an ECE, worked in the field for two years, and left for a corporate reception job that pays four dollars more an hour with no toddlers biting me. Fix the wages first. — Devon K., Chilliwack I'll offer an unpopular take: waitlists exist because demand is genuinely high, and that's actually good news. It means more parents, especially mothers, are staying in the workforce instead of dropping out. The answer isn't to shrink demand but to expand supply through public investment, the way we did with schools a century ago. Nobody expects a family to build its own elementary school. Daycare should be treated the same way. — Marcus T., Langley

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