Dear Editor:

Re: “$10 a day childcare recommended” in the July 13th Invermere Valley Echo.

My immediate response to this was: “Why should I pay to raise somebody else’s children?”

Then I thought it is easy for many of us to have children without having our financial situation totally organized.

Circumstance can put one temporarily in need of public assistance without laziness or lack of motivation to contribute to society and our own and family support.

The sadness is that, all too often, social assistance can become a multi-generational habit. People fall into the path because there is not a family setting, example or history of working.

One cannot realistically expect a person to work for $1,200 to $1,500 per month if childcare is going to cost $800 to $1,000 per month. Learn a skill, get a job and build a career — that is the route out of government dependency.

Thus, public-supported $10 daycare may have economic — in addition to social — merit.

Hey, getting philosophical, maybe they are all our children anyhow.

Walter Benstead

Panorama