The Price of Parental Involvement: Is it affordable and can we afford not to?

By: Trevor Burnett, SAC Member and Ward 3 PIAC Representative

When my son was born four and a half years ago, I made a commitment to him that I would do my best to ensure he had the unconditional love and support that every child deserves from a parent.  A personal pledge, that I would make every effort to be involved in his development.  Over the recent Family Day long weekend, I took a few moments to reflect on that promise.

When my sister and I grew up we were fortunate to have two parents devoted to creating an environment for us in which we could thrive and succeed.  Both immigrants from British Guiana in South America, it is a country somewhat known for the mining of a unique yellow gold as well as the distillation of a rum designated as ‘Demerara’.  These exports are responsible for the region’s claim as the mythical home to the lost city of El Dorado.  However, people are more familiar with it being the site of the infamous Jonestown Massacre nearly forty years ago.  A tragedy that still haunts the country to this day.

Located on the northeast coast, it is considered a ‘developing nation’ due to decades of political missteps, exploitation and corruption.  Great Britain, colonized and drained much of the resources of what was once a tropical paradise.  They imported slaves, indentured labour and marginalized much of its indigenous peoples.  It is the larger tragedy that lead to the current state of affairs most Guyanese would be referring to when they say “tings bad at home”.

Fifty years ago, Guyana was given independence from the ‘mother country’ and it has struggled to find the stability we feel entitled to in Canada, a sad irony given both countries share a history under the rule of the Commonwealth.  To give it measurable context, at this very moment one Canadian dollar is valued at one hundred and sixty Guyanese dollars.  Feel like cooling off with a delicious and refreshing cool glass of milk?  Five hundred local dollars please.  You want fries with that shake?  That’ll be twelve hundred bucks, but no extra charge for the smile, thank you!… by the way, if you were ever considering work in the fast food industry your monthly compensation is approximately three hundred Canadian dollars, max.  Want to be a doctor?  You’ll be lucky to start at two thousand dollars a month (CDN) should you find the money to become properly educated.  Interested in an exciting life in law enforcement in a country where the murder rate is almost four times higher than that of the U.S?  Three hundred and fifty dollars a month (CDN), the same as a teacher at school or a soldier in their military.  To make things worse, foreign investors seeking high profits set up shop in the ‘third world’ mainly for cheap labour not for philanthropic reasons and therefore salaries don’t increase and neither does hope.

My folks came to Canada during the original ‘immigrant friendly Trudeau era’, seeking opportunity and a home where they could lay the groundwork for a young family.  Like many other countries in the tropics, the political unrest and uncertainty of the sixties presented young couples and families with many difficult decisions and in the later part of that decade my mom and dad landed in Montreal in the middle of the winter wondering how they would make ends meet.  It was not easy, and although I never heard them complain, argue, feel sorry for themselves or give up, I knew they sacrificed a lot for us.

In 1981 they purchased a home for sixty thousand dollars (CDN) in Brampton, an outrageous investment given nicer homes in Quebec were selling for a quarter of that price.  The neighbourhood was surrounded by corn and a few factories and they chose it for the relatively short ride to the corporate office in Mississauga where my father had been transferred.  Dad worked full time, while my mom was Director of the Household.  For our family, it was a memorable transition, as I had just begun Kindergarten in the fall and my sister was in the fourth grade.  We never found it traumatic or regarded it as an ‘uprooting’, it was simply a move to another stage in life.

All things considered, they managed to raise two healthy kids, provided us with a solid education and they remained married and very much in love until my father passed away a few years ago due to a five year battle with colon cancer which was further complicated by his twenty year struggle with early onset Parkinson’s disease.  Supporting him as a co-caregiver taught me many things including my realization that ‘life is short, and the time we have with our parents, and as parents, much shorter’.  This mantra has been a constant motivator and reminder to me that time is something I need to measure and apply wisely when it comes to personal and professional priorities.

Our family is no different from others, we have faced many challenges, but we have also been blessed with great promise.  It has prepared me for the ups and downs and uncertainty that comes with my own concerns and worries as a middle aged father recovering from a recent separation, in a world that is constantly changing and challenging my hope of fulfilling my commitment to parenting.

A couple of years into my role as a dad I quickly learned of the opportunities available for parents interested in experiencing and involving themselves in the early stages of their child’s development.  Working from home I had the advantage of being able to attend Parenting and Literacy Centres (also known as ‘drop ins’) in multiple locations in the west end of the city.  These centres are invaluable, they are free, play-based learning programs operating in elementary schools across the city from morning until midday.

Shortly after my son turned three, I enrolled him in a part-time cooperative daycare centre where childcare fees were off set by parental involvement in the form of committee work and classroom duty days.  Cooperative nurseries often require parents to oversee, administer and facilitate the day to day operation of the program with the guidance of the highly skilled and incredibly resourceful ECE professionals.  It is a reasonable option for parents seeking added support and affordability in a city where the term affordable is being used less and less.

In the case of both the drop in and cooperative experience I saw my child establish new relationships and adjust to a routine that familiarized him with a more structured learning environment.  It is where he often flexed his social, emotional and physical muscles as well as developed cognitive and language skills.  An additional bonus was meeting parents, caregivers and childcare professionals with insights that could help me navigate through my own parenting issues and to my surprise I even found myself helping others.

When I was a young boy in Kindergarten we lived across the street from my elementary school.  Mom would volunteer in the library a couple of times a week, I remember it well.  It would brighten my day knowing she was there, gave me added confidence and let me know that school was important to her without having to convince me or nag me on the way out the door each day.  It was something I recently came to fully appreciate when I decided to volunteer at my son’s school.

I can not overstate just how beneficial it has been to sit with my child’s classmates for an hour once or twice a month while they read books to me.  It has opened my eyes in terms of understanding that every child develops at their own pace and that my job as a parent is to guide them and encourage them to delight in the learning process, not force them to meet my expectations of where they should be developmentally or academically.  Another benefit was the renewed hope that I can actually make a small difference in our community at a time when it seems virtually impossible to influence kids when you have to compete with iPads and iPhones, Pokemon, Paw Patrol, and My Little Pony courtesy of Netflix.

Volunteering has certainly reinforced my appreciation for teachers.  Having a glimpse of what they manage on a daily basis reminds me of the hard work we rarely see.  They are the ones who not only inspire and influence our children to be functioning members of society but they also allow us to go out and earn a living so that our kids can have a ‘roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and food on the table.’ They deserve our support, sometimes it’s as little as a quick visit to see if they need anything.

If you haven’t signed up to volunteer before, consider something like the ‘Mystery Readers’ program that our school offers to JK/SK parents.  It is a chance for a family member interested in reading a favourite book to the child’s class.  It takes place shortly after drop off and lasts fifteen minutes, it is a short and thoughtful way to show support for your child and the teachers who work diligently to provide the students with new ways to learn.

Now you might be asking yourself “Is this guy kidding me?  How am I supposed to find time for this?  How can I afford to take the day off work to read to a bunch of kids?”  You might also be thinking of the stressful deadlines you face at work most days, the hour commute that discounts precious moments with your family or maybe you’re wondering how you could possibly spare another second out of the day to be involved in SAC meetings or attend PIAC workshops.

“Sure, forty years ago homes were seventy grand out in corn country and parents could survive on a single income but I am paying a mortgage on a million dollar home in the GTA, my spouse comes home every evening complaining about the stress of possible layoffs and quite frankly, I just want to have a glass of wine or beer and take a nap.”  All of this may be true, but I am only inviting you to consider pushing yourself to be a little more involved if you have not already.  I had to look at my own situation and carefully examine what worked for me.

The question we really need to ask, is can we afford not to be involved in our child’s early years at school, and compared to the rest of the world what opportunities are we taking for granted?

If you are still not convinced, study after study has shown that student achievement improves when parents play an active role in their child’s education and that good schools become even better schools when parents are involved.  It has actually been proven that parent engagement is a key factor in the enhancement of student achievement and well-being.  In families where both mothers and fathers are highly involved with their child’s school, the child is more likely to be motivated to earn better grades while moving onto a higher level of education.  Along the way they will enjoy several developmental advantages related to behaviour and social skills and their enjoyment of that school is actually enhanced.  Parents also benefit from the experience directly, as it improves their own self esteem, confidence as a mother or father and brings about a more empathetic and informed attitude when dealing with school staff.

In terms of affordability my answer is this, do the best that you can with the situation that you have and if you can find a way to become more involved, do it.  Affordability is always going to be relative to each family’s set of circumstances.  This brings about my next thought concerning family and relatives, right now my cousin who is a single mother in Guyana is paying eighty-eight thousand Guyanese dollars for her two boys to go to school.  In addition to that, the Government collects another twelve thousand dollars in what they call a ‘Value Added Tax’.  A value add that she does not see in the form of accessible Parenting and Literacy Centres or affordable daycare programs.  I can only hope that she and her boys will be one day afforded the opportunities that you and I have been presented with and privileged to have in this great city, and that she too will be a volunteer at one of our schools some day.

For more information on volunteering at school, contact your SAC committee team at seventhst.sac@gmail.com or visit www.toronto.piac.com