Caring for Children

"Social inequality. Selective political attention. Insufficient funding and access. Caring for Children provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of the crisis in care for Canadian children and their caregivers. Couched in the language of choice, government policies on the care of Canadian children over the past decade have favoured professional, nuclear families while doing little to assist children with the greatest needs, including those from low-income, immigrant, and Aboriginal families. This feminist collection explores the politics of the care crisis, drawing on historical and contemporary materials to document policy shifts and associated social movement responses, and using comparative examples from across Canada to illustrate how public policies have both caused and emerged from the crisis. Analyzing the connections between services and programs, the contributors reveal how childcare, parental leave, informal care, live-in caregiver programs, and child tax benefits affect the well-being of Canadian children, caregivers, and families. They explain how social movements are fighting to change contemporary approaches to the care of children and affirm the urgent necessity of questioning Canadian political attitudes and arrangements."--