This is a movement to celebrate all caregiving- the paid version in daycares, by professional homecare providers, at clinics and institutions, but also the unpaid and much more common version, by friends and family members in one's own home.

We site various legal precedents to show that caregiving style should be the choice of the person receiving the care. The BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2004 in the Hutchinson case that a woman with severe disabilities had the right to choose her caregiver, funded by the state, EVEN IF THAT CAREGIVER were her relative.

We simply ask that caregiving itself be valued, regardless of gender of caregiver, or income.  In some nations care is being recognized by birth grants (UK) and child-rearing vouchers (IAustria) that 'flow with' the person needing care.  In some nations there is an allowance for all children, universally and in others there is payment for family members providing home-based care to parallel payment to those who use 3rd party care. (Norway)  Many nations do not penalize the at-home caregiver and allow tax based on household income not just on individual income (US).  Some nations allow those who take time away from salary to provide care of others to still qualify for a pension for those caregiving years (Italy).

Many nations provide maternity benefits and we feel these should be linked to only one criterion -the existence of a new child in the family. Tying the benefit to how much the mother earned the preceding year, and denying maternity benefits to new mothers who were self-employed or already at home providing care to others, simply creates winners and losers, and discriminates between children.

We are not trying to take anything away from the current beneficiaries of the system that favors institutional caregiving or paid care. We do however ask that the unpaid version get the same tax breaks.  This is not an anti-daycare movement for instance, but a movement to value nondaycare and daycare equally and to have the state fund both equally.

We feel that since women are now adopting many types of  earning style, some sequencing earning with caregiving over a lifetime, others doing the earning concurrently with home-based business, self--employment, tag-team parenting, grandma care or dad care, homeschooling or care by a trusted friend - a fair tax system should recognize that institutional daycare is not the only choice parents want, or deserve to have funded.  Fair is fair.