Government must recognize stay-at-home parents: Bishop Morissette

Ottawa, Canada, Apr 13, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Catholic Organization fro Life and the Family (COLF) is urging the Liberal government to provide financial assistance for families with stay-at-home parents.

COLF chairperson Bishop Pierre Morissette issued a letter to Social Development Minister Ken Dryden last month, urging him to recognize the primordial role of the parent as the best caregiver of a child.

The bishop applauded Dryden for the $5-billion commitment in the federal budget for a national child-care program, but he said it does not go far enough since the money would only go to regulated public and private daycare facilities and not to parents who wish to stay at home to care for their children.

“Parents are the first people responsible for their children’s education and they must be able to count on the state’s support in this endeavor,” the bishop’s letter read.

“For this reason, we would ask the government to put in place a series of fiscal and social measures in order to help those parents who wish to fulfil this mission themselves,” he wrote.

Seven out of 10 mothers in Canada currently work outside the home, but polls indicate that most would choose to stay at home with their children if financial circumstances allowed.

The development of a child is a “primordial parent responsibility on which we do not place enough importance, especially during the first three years of a child’s life, when the parent-child bond is formed,” the bishop stated.

The Catholic Women’s League also passed a resolution last year supporting a plan that would assist stay-at-home parents.