Reading through the paper the other day I stumbled upon a story of a young mother "Fighting for change." This is a compelling story of the challenges of life many young parents face.
After only being out of high school for four years, I am shocked to say I am among the few who have not yet started a family. As of right now the current provincial government is doing more to harm my generation than it is to support us and our hopes at a bright future. Many laws that we abide by are outdated and irrelevant to today’s circumstances as now the mass majority of children being brought into this world are not being born into married families.
A combination of low wages, high rental prices, unreasonable gas prices and poor transit throughout our large city have, to my knowledge, greatly hindered many young mothers of my acquaintance by placing amenities out of their range. How are people meant to support themselves in this system let alone start and sufficiently support a family?
While many will respond back that young adults perhaps shouldn't be having children, well this may be true but then contraceptive devices (birth control pills, condoms, morning after, IUD's) should be made more common place and accessible to young adults. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but there is no need for an epidemic to be taking hold of our province as will happen if this problem goes unchecked.
In order for anything to get better new laws must be instated which provide support to young families instead of needlessly taking children away from their families, not only creating a further burden upon our province but also creating a whole new "residential schools" circumstance which I would have thought already proved how incapable of providing "family support" our government really is.
AMY CONEYBEARE
Kamloops
