Kidcast – Children & Travel

Alright – so try this one to amuse your children while traveling this holiday season!

Ingredients:
Take your video iPod.
Get this great product called a ‘Tadpole“.
Add on some great videos and let your child amuse themselves!

Portable, rechargeable and easy to x-change the videos on — have some fun with it!

I made two “Kidcast’s” and posted them to YouTube. One is me reading a book. The other is a “visual” of music.

BOOK:
‘Baby Ant has Stinky Pants’
by Sigmund Brouwer, Created by Don Sullivan, Illustrated by Sharon Dahl

VISUAL MUSIC:
‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’
by Gayla Peevey

So – whatcha think?

The Latte Theory

I was listening to a news report on the radio the other day… got me to wondering…

The report questioned why child care is such a challenge. There is money to be made in it – so why isn’t there enough of it? Why aren’t entrepreneurs and big business in the business of child care? One person they interviewed suggested that government interference contributed to the crisis by inserting too much “red tape” in the child care business. The counter-argument was that the government should be responsible but “tries to do it on the cheap” and doesn’t invest enough resources in child care.

You decide:

Here in the mighty Oh Canada we, apparently, have a “dismal” child care strategy. Out of 14 countries ranked by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) we are last.

“Canada spends 0.25 per cent of its gross domestic product on early education child care, which means for children under age 6. Denmark tops the list, spending two per cent of its GDP on early education child care.”

In Quebec – child care is guaranteed and costs $7 a day (note: it is so used there is now loooong wait lists for the service) … Even if you have to pay for all thirty days of the month (which you don’t) it would cost you $210/month. In west coast terms – $7 is about two tall lattes a day…

So (I can hear you wondering – honest I can!) – how much does child care cost in British Columbia?
On average – birth to 3 years of age – $1,000/month
On average – 3 to 5 years of age – $675/month (although this can remain at $1,000/month depending on where your child is). MATH TIME: That means that, if you are paying for 30 days a month at $1,000 – your child care costs you $33.33 a day… In Quebec terms – in 6.3 days you have paid what they pay a month…

– See CBC for the full report.

I have reviewed a great deal of the discussions (including the figures) and come to this conclusion:

Child care is something you merely survive. It has been crappy for a very long time. You are stuck in the “child care survival strategy” mode for about 9 to 10 years. As it is so consuming, you start experience battle-fatigue and wander away to survive the best you can. When you finally break free – you never want to look at it again — so you don’t continue the fight for the next generation.

This will not change until “both parents work so they need child care” families form a significant part of the PTB system and can – and will – do something.

Content with my content

So – here’s the dilemma.

I am writing the blog in the context of childcare resources in Vancouver. So what do you do when your start point content changes?

The website that I started with kinda ended… Now, I’m no Woodward or Bernstein, but the has “shank-the-public” written all over it…
Come for a journey on this particular yellow brick road!

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
Oct 22, 2007 – 24 Hrs (Commuter magazine)

“Big-box child care for B.C.?”
“Controversial big-box child-care could be a reality in B.C. if an Australian company has its way.”

Child-care advocates are sounding the alarm since learning an investment firm called Adroit Investments LLC has contacted local child-care operators in a bid to buy them out.
The coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. traced the company back to 123-Global and A.B.C. Learning Centres, a private Australian child-care corporation that’s gotten flak in several countries for monopolizing child-care and providing minimal services to cut costs. … (Rita) Chudnovsky says child-care operators began receiving takeover bids in mid-September, just before the provincial government announced it would begin to subsidize private child-care providers. ‘We have trouble believing this is a coincidence,” she said (Chudnovsky). (Rita Chudnovsky is the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. spokesperson).”

According to the website I was working on (Westcoast Childcare Resource Centre)

“On March 16, 2007, Westcoast received notice that Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) was canceling our long-standing contract for provincial early childhood and child care support services.

The contract officially ended April 30, 2007. The end of this contract represented an $800,000 cut in funding. At the same time, the Westcoast contract for the Vancouver Child Care Resource and Referral program was also reduced by $450,000. This resulted in a total reduction of $1.35 million dollars. Obviously this significant funding loss has had a severe impact on services.”

… and this leaves my content where? In the realm of the fictional I do believe… Ah – but think of the creative potential when the laws of internet physics no longer apply!