Helen Ward, National President
Kids First Parent Association of Canada
4819 Albert St.
Burnaby, BC
604-291-0088
www.kidsfirstcanada.org
info@kidsfirstcanada.org

Dear Editor:

Martha Friendly, head of the fully SDC-funded Childcare Resource and Research Unit, spins disinformation in her article. She does not mention that the research consistently shows that "low quality" is the norm in daycares in Canada, Quebec, Sweden, Australia and the US. Nor that studies which link "good care" to improved outcomes for children are NOT studies of children in full-time daycare centres from birth.

Of course children need and benefit from "care" and "learning". Studies of Romanian orphans and lab monkeys deprived of maternal care prove it. "Care" does not mean "daycare", which has failed to deliver on promises of improved intelligence or social behaviour.

Dr Friendly suppresses research from the NICHD, Oxford, Stanford, UBC, MIT, etc. that repeatedly demonstrates that daycare produces significantly higher levels of aggression, stress, illness, anti-social behaviour, less sensitive parenting and no long-term cognitive benefits.

She professes concern for the "erosion of social programs," but CRRU researchers like Friendly and Dr Michael Krashinsky helped implement it. Their "research" advocates a "post-familial" policy package of daycare, work-fare, and cuts to welfare and family benefits as part of the globalization agenda to create a cheaper and more "flexible" McJob workforce. They are backed by the pro-daycare, pro-corporate-profit World Bank and the OECD: some of the "men of a certain age" she says "embrace" daycare.

The well-being of children, women, and families is NOT their goal.