For Most, Ideal Child Care Solution Is Not An Option Letter Of The Week From Jan. 24, 1997

Raising a child is a profound opportunity and responsibility. In my ideal world, children would have two parents each with opportunities to raise their child. They would attend a weekly child care cooperative, learning with other parents while their kids learned together. A local grandparent would give them breaks.

We don’t have that world. Child raising work is demanded from moms and denied dads. Moms - especially single parents - have few support systems. Two-parent families would make the choice to have only one parent working, if they could afford it. Unfortunately, only when the breadwinner has a relatively high income do families have that option.

Someday, we might cut taxes, provide government services people want, leaving families enough income so that only one parent has to work outside the household. But not today.

Something must be done now to support families raising children.

Your Jan. 16 editorial demeans those who do so. You quote one expert and ignore many others who speak forcefully of the needs and benefits of child care.

Most on your editorial board are men who are, I suspect, reasonably well paid. I can’t help but wonder if people closer to child care problems, say a group of lower-paid folks or a group of women, might not have very different - and more informed - opinions.

Calling President Clinton’s proposal a “fuzzy blanket of family values (that is) socially and economically bankrupt” is hyperbolic rhetoric which adds nothing to the discussion. Robert L. Stilger, executive director Northwest Regional Facilitators, Spokane

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