Having a child in high school made my ambition of becoming a teacher seem unreachable. I was going to find myself in the cycle of never-ending shift work and daycare bills—which would still not leave enough for rent, meaning I would end up stuck in a poverty trap.
According to Statistics Canada, single parents are more likely to be poor than unattached individuals or couples with or without children. In Canada in 1996, while only 13 per cent of two-parent families were living in poverty, about 55 per cent of single-parent families were living below the low-income cut-off. When headed by mothers under 25, single-parent families have a shockingly high poverty rate of 91.3 per cent. This is where I would have fit in.
However, I decided this would not be my fate, I would pick myself up and pursue a degree as a young, single parent. I had to return to high school at age 21 to complete my Ontario Academic Credits to be considered for ission by a university, and I did it. The following year, in 2000, I moved to Kingston and began my university career at Queen’s. Unable to live in residence, I had to find more expensive housing off campus. Relying solely on OSAP, food banks and affordable childcare, I scraped by.
Having a timetable that included evening classes was a huge obstacle, not only to physically be there, but financially as well. In order to attend these classes I needed to find evening childcare for my son during the five years it took to get my degrees. The AMS After-Hours Childcare offered low-cost evening babysitting in a safe and fun environment.
Even if it were possible to find someone else to watch my son, the cost would have been too much for two three-hour evening lectures each week.
Anyone I may have met on campus either could not relate to having children or were too busy with their own work to be able to baby-sit for me, so the only option I found available was the AMS After-Hours Childcare service. If it wasn’t for this service, I can honestly say I would not be where I am today: a full-time geography and history teacher at a secondary school in Georgetown, Ont.
Although in debt five times more than the average student, my dream became reality. After-Hours Childcare made it feasible for me to attend those required classes scheduled in the evenings, and it was also possible for me to meet other students for group work and library time outside classes.
I can also thank After-Hours Childcare for keeping me sane. I was able to drop my son off and treat myself to a movie or a Queen’s social evening like the Medical Variety Night, something that would not have been remotely possible if the service wasn’t available.
Now, the AMS After-Hours Childcare—one of the most important AMS-run services—is gone. Rather than doing a service to its by eliminating a program that was losing money, the AMS’s decision to eliminate After-Hours Childcare is a disservice to those students who also happen to be parents.
The majority of Queen’s students will not notice or feel the impact of the closure of this service. However, to the small percentage of students with children, the closure may be a barrier to obtaining a degree and possibly a career.
Low-cost childcare was an essential part of my Queen’s experience, and although many students might not have even acknowledged its presence, it meant the world to those few students like myself who were, and are, trying to better their lives and complete a degree so that one day they can their children without government assistance.
People wonder why the majority of single parents live below the poverty line. The fact of the matter is government services are just not there to them, and unfortunately now the AMS After-Hours Childcare service isn’t either.
Whatever happened to education being accessible to all?
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].