Sask. First Nations mother says long child-care waitlists forced her to go against her cultural beliefs

Jessica Dieter never had to worry about getting her older children into daycare once it was time to head back to work, but her most recent pregnancy was different.

Her friends and coworkers advised her to put her unborn child onto a daycare waitlist to make sure she got a spot, due to very high demand for child-care spaces. But for Deiter, to do so would go against her cultural beliefs.

Dieter lives in Fort Qu'Appelle with her husband Anton and 4 children, she is also an ELA teacher who goes back to work for the school year this week.

Dieter was taught by elders and others in her community of Okanese First Nation that a pregnant mother is a conduit between the spiritual world and the physical world, and an unborn child is a sacred being who is still with the Creator. Expectant mothers in the community are taught by Elders to wait until the child enters the physical world to celebrate the new life.

"That is a huge part of the teaching, is that when a mother is expecting and a mother is pregnant, and she is close to the spirit world and obviously the physical world, that we just don't know which way the baby is gonna go yet," she said.

"That's the reason why we prepare in certain ways and why we wait until the baby has their first breath."

Child care had been the last thing on Dieter's mind. She was just happy to learn she was pregnant with her fourth child. Then she started hearing from other mothers about how long they had to wait for their children to get into child-care spaces, sometimes beyond the end of their maternity leave periods.

Dieter was uncomfortable with it, but made the decision to put her child on a waitlist two weeks before her daughter was born

"In this world, this speedy world that we have to live in if we want to be successful and go to school and get a job and work, we have to follow these rules," Dieter said. "I don't believe that an Indigenous woman should [have to] go against her own cultural beliefs."

Dieter wants a policy under which babies can't be put on a waitlist until the day they are born.

Aside from the cultural beliefs, Dieter said she also thinks of parents who had no choice but to put their unborn baby on a waitlist, only to have that baby not make it to full term.

"You could fill out the paperwork, but their actual date should not be until they're born, because there's so many issues that go along with that, and not just for Indigenous women," she said. "Imagine being a daycare worker put in the position, and the guilt they're going to feel when they call them on finally getting a spot."

She said this would also reduce waitlists.

Dieter said mothers like her who choose to stick with their cultural beliefs will have to wait longer to get access to child care, due to waiting until their baby has entered this world.