I?ve been working as a journalist at TVO for seven years now and I remember clearly the first time childcare was brought up at a pitch meeting.  I thought, ?gawd I hope I don?t get assigned to that story.   It seems excruciatingly boring?.  I also remember thinking ?I hope they sort this whole childcare mess out before I have kids?.  Well, one thing has changed.  I now have two daughters. 

I still find the topic a little bit dull, but mostly because the way it?s usually covered is as a debate between pro-national childcare people and anti-national childcare people.  So far that debate hasn?t gotten us anywhere. The Agenda program I?m trying to produce will be looking at daycare through the lens of daycare as middle class necessity.  Canada is country made up of mostly middle class citizens and many Canadian women both work and have children. Yet the number of childcare spaces is not keeping pace with the number of parents that want to enroll their kids.  What?s a parent to do? 

This is the story I pitched and I?d like to hear from you.  What arrangements have you made to care for your children while you are at work?  Did you decide to stay at home because the cost of childcare was prohibitive, or you just couldn?t find space?  What lengths did you go to in order to secure a spot for your child?