Of her eight children and 20 grandchildren, Gertrude Coit, 69, a Du Page County Board member, says none have ever spent time in day-care centers.
”We`re talking about the most precious, most formative years of a child`s life,” Coit said. ”Day care should be left to the loving care provided by church day-care people or by trained professionals.
”I firmly believe government should not poke its nose into the day-care business. Government should do what it was meant to do.”
At a May 9 meeting of the County Board`s Health and Human Services Committee, Coit was reported to have made the statement that ”there`s not a financial need” for most mothers to work and that she refused to advocate any county-sponsored day-care program.
Coit later said she never made any such statements. ”There is no question that some mothers must work. Their children`s food and survival depend on that,” she said. ”There are others who choose for a variety of reasons, other than need, to work. They choose where to live, how to live.”
Though she received letters and phone calls from county employees on both sides of the issue after the committee meeting, Coit said she doesn`t know what the need is among county employees for day care.
”It is good to observe, however, that our median age of Du Page County employees is 34,” she said. ”Most women who are 34 years old do not have babies (aged) birth through kindergarten.”
While she admitted that some 34-year-old women could have young children, Coit said that they seem to be able to meet their day-care needs now without the county`s help. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 79 of each 1,000 women aged 30 to 34 gave birth in 1986, a total of 815,000 women nationwide.
Coit said that though she wants no part of a taxpayer-funded day-care center run by the county, she would be willing to consider a day-care option in a flexible benefits package.
”So long as the package were equitable, how they choose to spend that is up to them,” she said.
Still, Coit said she personally deplores the phenomenon of widespread use of day care.
”The family is the very foundation of government and society and country,” she said. ”One comes to the conclusion that family life as we have known it and family ties as we have known them have fallen apart.”
