Child Care and Poverty

After our class discussion yesterday on child abuse and the Family Child Support Center I was thinking about child abuse and child care. I found this article discussing poverty and child abuse and how they relate to each other. During this semester as I've blogged about child care and maternity leave etc... I have focused quite a bit on the needs of the parents (due probably to becoming a parent myself) however, it was beneficial for me to read this article and then look at it from the childs perspective. If there are not child care options for low income families (or any families) the risk factors for child abuse increase. So although my other post shows that congress has pout monies into child care options for families who qualify for TANF it is not enough. Good options for child care not only assist the parents in their juggling act but also may assist parents in preventing child abuse by offering them the assistance they need to be able to cope with their day to day struggles.
In summary this issue of child care in the US is huge, and in my opinion (which is now an educated opinion) requires more attention at the policy level.

Money for child care

While this report is a little bit old (2003) it is encouraging to me that congress was willing to put monies into assisting at least some of the families in our nation who are in need of assistance. The money discussed in this article is used to target those who are are low income (by definition of qualifying for TANF) Although this is a step in the right direction and low income families definitely need the assistance I still think that there are many families in our nation who would benefit from a ssistance in caring for their children. Whether this assistance is monetary to help with day care or in the form of social policy to encourage employers to offer paid maternity leave ore even offer day care for the children at work. Of one thing I am sure... we are still greatly lacking.

Child care gets funding!

I thought that this article was interesting. Apparently in North Dakota Senate Bill 2225 passed 68-25. This bill has been designed to help those struggling to find and afford day care. It is set up as a matching of private funds with state funds. Because child care and work are so dependent on each other I think that this is a really good idea. I'm excited to see how this works out and see if other states will follow suite. Any thoughts?

Who Should Qualify for Maternity/Paternity Leave?

I read in the news that there is a Gay couple in Israel who was granted the first paternity leave for a homosexual couple. as we are preparing to discuss gay marriage in class I was interested in your thoughts on paternity leave for homosexual couples as well as your thoughts on the rights of homosexuals to choose to parent in general whether it be through surrogacy or invitro?