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http:// --> Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Obituaries Weather Archive Hot Topics Forum Photo Gallery Past Readers Polls Revels Etcetera Backpage O-Zone Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad Online Games Movie Preview October 16, 2006 Is it easier to parent in Canada? Jennifer Margulis Archives Monday August 28th Monday September 11th Monday September 18th Monday September 25th Monday October 2nd Monday October 9th Monday October 16th By Jennifer Margulis Tidings Correspondent It wasn't until they had their first child that my friend Nathalie and her husband, who live in Boston, began to feel really homesick for their native Montreal. Three months after their daughter was born, Nathalie was back at work full-time and Camille was in daycare almost full-time as well. If they had been in Canada, not only would they have had a family support system, Nathalie would also have had a longer paid maternity leave and access to the universal health insurance that all Canadians enjoy. A working Canadian mother has the right to 15 weeks of subsidized maternity leave and the mother, father, or adoptive parent can have an additional 35 weeks of leave. If there are health complications, the whole leave can be extended to 65 weeks. The pay, provided by the employment insurance system, is 55% of regular earnings up to a maximum of $413 per week but companies can choose to pay employees more. After the year off a company must allow the parent to return to the same job type at the same pay as before the leave. "It's pretty awesome compared to what I understand of the U.S. system," says Jen Lawrence, a popular blogger and a 34-year-old Canadian mother of two little children. "A lot of us just can't imagine a system which requires a mother to go back to work after a couple of months — oh, and still be expected to breastfeed! I find it amazing that people have not simply stopped having children in the U.S. as a form of protest." When I asked her about the differences between parenting in Canada and America, Jen told me that she thinks Canadians are more open-minded than Americans about parenting styles. "Because Canada — and especially Toronto, where we live — is very multicultural and has encouraged people to retain their cultural differences (the mosaic versus the melting pot), I think we tend to see a very wide range of parenting styles and a tolerance for that wide range," Jen explained. "The popular U.S. parenting authors for example seem to be more didactic, like Dr. Sears, whereas someone like the popular Canadian parenting author Ann Douglas has more of a 'here's a survey of the parenting literature, pick what works for you' approach. Here it's not unusual to see northern-clime babies getting an airing in mid-February and southern clime babies totally bundled up in mid-August. And that's all OK." Universal health care in Canada is another bonus to raising kids north of the border. "It's such a huge benefit," Jen told me. "Having a sick child is terrible here, but there's not the same degree of economic hardship involved as in the U.S. Some of the bloggers I read out of the U.S. have the double whammy of dealing with an ill child and having to find a way to foot the bill. It's unthinkable here. Here we find it unacceptable when the drugs aren't paid for." Of course not everything is peachy in the parenting world in Canada. No matter how extensive the health coverage, there are still the long cold winters. Ann Douglas, who I interviewed for this column, told me that Canadians suffer from hospital envy (ours are snazzier), mortgage envy (ours are deductible), and shopping envy (we have nicer malls and stores). Jen, who used to head up the Toronto Children's museum, says another drawback is the lack of private sponsorship of programs for children: "The area which is lacking is in supporting and funding children's programs which are not run directly by the government We have a poor history of philanthropy due in part to our reliance on government programs. We envy your deep culture of philanthropy. It's something that we're working on up here!" Nathalie just wrote to say she's pregnant with her second child and that she and her husband are trying to go back to Canada. The winters can be weathered, she said when I called to congratulate her, but her baby's infancy will only come once. Ashland resident Jennifer Margulis is the author of "Toddler: Real-Life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love," which won the Independent Publishers Book Association Award. Current Comments: May I make a suggestion? What if readers submitted questions to be answered in future columns? My family is in the process of moving to Oregon and I'd really like to know about after school activities -- are Ashland families getting away from over-scheduling children or do most kids participate in some kind of activity? Are there programs or resources that aren't so well known that shouldn't be overlooked? Thank you. Karen - Ashland (soon) - October 19th, 5:08 PM Leave a Comment: Advertisement: Advertisement: Paid Advertising Inkjet Printers Student Loans Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Advertisement: Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.