Marley and Me

WOW, i just finished reading the book Marley & Me. I am not one to cry when I read I book, my eyes sometimes get a little watery....but tonight as i read the last couple of chapters I full out cried. The book was so sad, yet so full of life. Only a true pet lover would ever understand the book and the adventures that the Grogan family goes though. The ups and downs of having a dog named Marley. This book truely was written from the heart of a dog lover. I laughed lots at the misfurtuns, adventures and moments of the family and Marley. I truely suggest that if you have ever had a dog, or have a pet dog to read this book.



www.marleyandme.com/index.html

Dear Grammy

Dear Grammy aka Eighteen Thousand and a Half Elephants

I love you very much and I will never stop loving you. Thank you for loving me so much. I will nervier forget you and the memories I have of you and me being together. I remember the rug that use to be in the mud room, it was a spiral rug, I was always so intrigued about how it was rolled and stayed in its shape. I remember you playing Lego with me and Jacks. One of my favorite memories is Smartie lipstick. I remember how you use to hate it when I showed you the worms that I found in your garden, lol, sorry. I remember how I use to sleep over at your house and in the mornings we use to share a apple juice in bed, and lay their and talk. Thank you for sharing your love of music boxes with me, I loved getting a music box from the shelf and bringing it to the table so that I could wind it up and listen to it, my favorites being the Whinnie the pooh one and the Swiss one. Thank you for being such and wonderful grandmother and spending so much time with. I hope that one day I can be as great as a grandmother to my grandchild as you were to me. Thanks for all the hotcakes you made for me, specially the Mickey mouse ones. I still laugh when I see pictues of me in the bath at your house and all my bubble bath hair do's, thanks for taking pictues so I can see the memories everyday. LOL, I remember my 19th birthday and you and I had a shooter together, my friends thought you were the coolest grandmother. Thank you for being their for me in all my life’s milestones. I hope that you will be watching over me at my wedding.

The most important thing is thank again for loving me so much.

I love you and I miss you.

Toty

The end of quality child care in canada

Heres some copyes of email i have recieved, regarding the future of child care funding......and possably what will be be downfall of quality childcare and educated staff.

Standard-Freeholder (Cornwall)
Mon 20 Feb 2006
Page: 4
Section: Canada
Byline: Carly Weeks
Dateline: OTTAWA
Source: CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - Despite recent pressure from provincial premiers and opposition MPs, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty flatly ruled out Sunday the possibility the Conservatives will honour the Liberals' national child-care program for five years.

"We've been clear about that, that we will not be continuing with those agreements beyond the notification date," Flaherty told CTV's Question Period Sunday.

Flaherty said the Tories will be able to move ahead this spring with the party's major priorities, such as a child-care allowance and reducing the GST by one percentage point, while maintaining a balanced budget.

The Tories have promised to provide a child-care allowance of $1,200 a year for every child under age six - but they'll also do away with the former Liberal government's existing $5-billion child-care deal with the provinces as of March 31, 2007.

It's a decision that'll create a myriad of problems for Canadian parents who will suffer due to a lack of child-care spaces, says the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

"Certainly this causes a number of problems," said the association's executive director, Monica Lysack.

"The demand for the service is not going to go away and so by cutting back on the service side of it, people will be standing there with their cheque and nothing to buy with it."

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Quebec Premier Jean Charest have been vocal about the fact they want the Tories to honour the agreement until the end.

Under their agreements with the Liberal government, Ontario stood to get $1.9 billion over five years, and Quebec $1.1 billion.

Charest met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper late last week and said he was optimistic some kind of resolution would be reached. However, he didn't reveal details about what negotiations may have taken place.

No matter what, Lysack said, the Tories will do serious damage to federal-provincial relations if they push forward with plans to cancel the five-year child-care agreement



What Canadians Need to Know About Good Quality Child Care

Submission to the Op-Ed Page of the Globe and Mail

Hillel Goelman, Clyde Hertzman, and Paul Kershaw

February 2006

One of the major public policy questions facing the incoming government is whether it will honour the child care agreements that the previous Government of Canada signed with the provinces. This agreement committed over $5.5 billion over five years to help build a system that is of high quality, that is universally affordable and accessible to Canadians and that has a strong child development focus. It is clear from the public discourse and political rhetoric that there are intense feelings and differing perspectives in Canada regarding child care policy generally and the impact of child care on children. For this reason we feel strongly that the public discourse must be informed by the most credible research.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail (February 2, 2006) summarized a research report that claims that Quebec’s universal child care system leads to more aggressive behaviour in children and more depression in mothers. The research upon which the article is based, "Universal Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply and Family Well-Being", was first published in the U.S.-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has been given quite a bit of visibility by the C.D. Howe Institute in Canada. In our view, the article is seriously flawed, the conclusions misleading and does a disservice to the national discussion on child care and family support programs. We have read the research paper carefully and can report that, in reality, there is really no information in it that is directly relevant to the Quebec child care program.

Quebec’s child care system was first implemented in the late 1990s. It increased the number of spaces in regulated child care programs and made the cost of care affordable for large numbers of families in Quebec. The Quebec system, while unique in North America is actually (according to the Organization for Economic cooperation and Development) the norm in most of the developed countries in the world which provide near-universal, high quality, affordable child care. The child development research in those countries consistently demonstrates both the short- and long-term benefits of these child care arrangements. Thus, one major problem with the NBER report is that it contradicts nearly an entire generation of robust and consistent findings that demonstrate the positive effects of quality care on young children. Further, the NBER’s conclusions are also in direct contradiction with those of world-class economists such as the Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, both of whom have spoken out strongly for the economic, labor and family benefits of child care programs.

Another major problem with the study is that it doesn’t actually study children who are enrolled in child care programs. A careful reading of the report reveals that they examined the possible effects of child care on children who were "eligible" for Quebec’s child care program but who were not necessarily enrolled in any child care programs at all. In fact, the "findings" of increased aggression in children could just as easily be attributed to the children who were NOT enrolled in a child care program.

A third problem is the study’s misuse of the data provided by the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) which reports parental assessments of their children’s social, emotional, motor and cognitive development. The NBER examined the average Quebec NLSCY scores on a series of five different groups of children sampled before or after the implementation of the child care plan in Quebec. They did not follow individual children over time, examining their development before, during, and after they were enrolled in child care. In other words, they have no direct way of knowing what influence child care had on any given child. Previous NLSCY analyses which have been conducted appropriately have clearly demonstrated the positive impacts of quality child care programs on children’s levels of school readiness.

Perhaps the most consistent finding in the child care literature is that it is the quality of the child care arrangement that is the most powerful predictor of child development. Yet the NBER report does not include any data on the quality of the child care environments in which the children participate. In short, then, this report does not study children in child care, nor does it consider any data at all about the quality of child care. These two factors alone mean that this research cannot be taken seriously in the continuing discussion on child care in Canada.

This research also sets back the whole field of child care research in another very ominous way: it perpetuates the myth that non-parental child care in some way conflicts with or negates the effects of parents and families. The report states that families who choose to put their children into child care centres "are substituting the care of others for their own care." This simplistic statement ignores the fact that quality child care is, in fact, a family support program. Current models put child care at the centre of ‘community hubs’ that provide parents with valuable information on health and nutrition, school readiness and social-emotional development; serve as a contact point for hearing, dental and vision screening, as well as for family support and literacy programs; and provide opportunities for parents to interact with their children in group contexts. Again, the research on the outcomes of quality child care, much of it conducted in our own research institute, has demonstrated that the combination of high quality child care environments with caring home environments provide children with a solid foundation for school readiness at age five.

Finally, we note that the NBER report highlights what it claims to be the universal negative effects of women’s participation in the paid labour force and completely ignores the large body of research that has demonstrated the many positive benefits for mothers who choose to participate in the paid labour force. Despite advances in gender equity it still largely falls to mothers to shoulder a disproportionate share of the child care responsibilities in families in particular and in society in general. The provision of quality child care gives many more women more choice in their personal, family and work lives that most Canadian fathers currently enjoy. The provision of quality child care provides women with safe, secure and stimulating child care environments for their children as well as with the economic security and levels of personal fulfillment that are much more readily available to men in our society than they are to women.

When we focus on the large body of accumulated research over the past 30 years we see very strong support for the positive effects of quality child care on children and their families. The NBER research, however, contributes much confusion and mischief at a time when our country is in desperate need for clarity and substance to guide our discussions on child and family policy.

The authors are faculty members at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hertzman is Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) an interdisciplinary early child development research institute based at UBC. Dr. Goelman is Associate Director of HELP and Dr. Kershaw is in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at UBC and is a faculty research affiliate in HELP.

University of British Columbia

the possably end of quality child care in Canada

Heres some copyes of email i have recieved, regarding the future of child care funding......and possably what will be be downfall of quality childcare and educated staff.

Standard-Freeholder (Cornwall)
Mon 20 Feb 2006
Page: 4
Section: Canada
Byline: Carly Weeks
Dateline: OTTAWA
Source: CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - Despite recent pressure from provincial premiers and opposition MPs, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty flatly ruled out Sunday the possibility the Conservatives will honour the Liberals' national child-care program for five years.

"We've been clear about that, that we will not be continuing with those agreements beyond the notification date," Flaherty told CTV's Question Period Sunday.

Flaherty said the Tories will be able to move ahead this spring with the party's major priorities, such as a child-care allowance and reducing the GST by one percentage point, while maintaining a balanced budget.

The Tories have promised to provide a child-care allowance of $1,200 a year for every child under age six - but they'll also do away with the former Liberal government's existing $5-billion child-care deal with the provinces as of March 31, 2007.

It's a decision that'll create a myriad of problems for Canadian parents who will suffer due to a lack of child-care spaces, says the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

"Certainly this causes a number of problems," said the association's executive director, Monica Lysack.

"The demand for the service is not going to go away and so by cutting back on the service side of it, people will be standing there with their cheque and nothing to buy with it."

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Quebec Premier Jean Charest have been vocal about the fact they want the Tories to honour the agreement until the end.

Under their agreements with the Liberal government, Ontario stood to get $1.9 billion over five years, and Quebec $1.1 billion.

Charest met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper late last week and said he was optimistic some kind of resolution would be reached. However, he didn't reveal details about what negotiations may have taken place.

No matter what, Lysack said, the Tories will do serious damage to federal-provincial relations if they push forward with plans to cancel the five-year child-care agreement



What Canadians Need to Know About Good Quality Child Care

Submission to the Op-Ed Page of the Globe and Mail

Hillel Goelman, Clyde Hertzman, and Paul Kershaw

February 2006

One of the major public policy questions facing the incoming government is whether it will honour the child care agreements that the previous Government of Canada signed with the provinces. This agreement committed over $5.5 billion over five years to help build a system that is of high quality, that is universally affordable and accessible to Canadians and that has a strong child development focus. It is clear from the public discourse and political rhetoric that there are intense feelings and differing perspectives in Canada regarding child care policy generally and the impact of child care on children. For this reason we feel strongly that the public discourse must be informed by the most credible research.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail (February 2, 2006) summarized a research report that claims that Quebec’s universal child care system leads to more aggressive behaviour in children and more depression in mothers. The research upon which the article is based, "Universal Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply and Family Well-Being", was first published in the U.S.-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has been given quite a bit of visibility by the C.D. Howe Institute in Canada. In our view, the article is seriously flawed, the conclusions misleading and does a disservice to the national discussion on child care and family support programs. We have read the research paper carefully and can report that, in reality, there is really no information in it that is directly relevant to the Quebec child care program.

Quebec’s child care system was first implemented in the late 1990s. It increased the number of spaces in regulated child care programs and made the cost of care affordable for large numbers of families in Quebec. The Quebec system, while unique in North America is actually (according to the Organization for Economic cooperation and Development) the norm in most of the developed countries in the world which provide near-universal, high quality, affordable child care. The child development research in those countries consistently demonstrates both the short- and long-term benefits of these child care arrangements. Thus, one major problem with the NBER report is that it contradicts nearly an entire generation of robust and consistent findings that demonstrate the positive effects of quality care on young children. Further, the NBER’s conclusions are also in direct contradiction with those of world-class economists such as the Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, both of whom have spoken out strongly for the economic, labor and family benefits of child care programs.

Another major problem with the study is that it doesn’t actually study children who are enrolled in child care programs. A careful reading of the report reveals that they examined the possible effects of child care on children who were "eligible" for Quebec’s child care program but who were not necessarily enrolled in any child care programs at all. In fact, the "findings" of increased aggression in children could just as easily be attributed to the children who were NOT enrolled in a child care program.

A third problem is the study’s misuse of the data provided by the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) which reports parental assessments of their children’s social, emotional, motor and cognitive development. The NBER examined the average Quebec NLSCY scores on a series of five different groups of children sampled before or after the implementation of the child care plan in Quebec. They did not follow individual children over time, examining their development before, during, and after they were enrolled in child care. In other words, they have no direct way of knowing what influence child care had on any given child. Previous NLSCY analyses which have been conducted appropriately have clearly demonstrated the positive impacts of quality child care programs on children’s levels of school readiness.

Perhaps the most consistent finding in the child care literature is that it is the quality of the child care arrangement that is the most powerful predictor of child development. Yet the NBER report does not include any data on the quality of the child care environments in which the children participate. In short, then, this report does not study children in child care, nor does it consider any data at all about the quality of child care. These two factors alone mean that this research cannot be taken seriously in the continuing discussion on child care in Canada.

This research also sets back the whole field of child care research in another very ominous way: it perpetuates the myth that non-parental child care in some way conflicts with or negates the effects of parents and families. The report states that families who choose to put their children into child care centres "are substituting the care of others for their own care." This simplistic statement ignores the fact that quality child care is, in fact, a family support program. Current models put child care at the centre of ‘community hubs’ that provide parents with valuable information on health and nutrition, school readiness and social-emotional development; serve as a contact point for hearing, dental and vision screening, as well as for family support and literacy programs; and provide opportunities for parents to interact with their children in group contexts. Again, the research on the outcomes of quality child care, much of it conducted in our own research institute, has demonstrated that the combination of high quality child care environments with caring home environments provide children with a solid foundation for school readiness at age five.

Finally, we note that the NBER report highlights what it claims to be the universal negative effects of women’s participation in the paid labour force and completely ignores the large body of research that has demonstrated the many positive benefits for mothers who choose to participate in the paid labour force. Despite advances in gender equity it still largely falls to mothers to shoulder a disproportionate share of the child care responsibilities in families in particular and in society in general. The provision of quality child care gives many more women more choice in their personal, family and work lives that most Canadian fathers currently enjoy. The provision of quality child care provides women with safe, secure and stimulating child care environments for their children as well as with the economic security and levels of personal fulfillment that are much more readily available to men in our society than they are to women.

When we focus on the large body of accumulated research over the past 30 years we see very strong support for the positive effects of quality child care on children and their families. The NBER research, however, contributes much confusion and mischief at a time when our country is in desperate need for clarity and substance to guide our discussions on child and family policy.

The authors are faculty members at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hertzman is Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) an interdisciplinary early child development research institute based at UBC. Dr. Goelman is Associate Director of HELP and Dr. Kershaw is in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at UBC and is a faculty research affiliate in HELP.

University of British Columbia