‘Barely’ surviving: A stay-at-home dad and his family’s financial struggles in Ontario
While Jason Ladouceur family’s needs have not gone up, he says the cost of living basics have doubled or sometimes tripled.
Ladouceur, 41, is a stay-at-home dad, taking care of two children aged nine and 10 with intellectual disabilities and a wife with a respiratory illness.
The family has just $3,000 a month to survive.
“We’re lucky if that comes close to paying our bills. Usually, every month, we’re picking and choosing which bills get paid and get paid on time. We’re just able to manage to where they’re not getting cut off or being threatened to cut off,” he says. “Somehow, we do survive, but barely.”
The couple also has four other children from previous relationships, three of whom are now adults.
Ladouceur, who used to run his own renovations company, became a stay-at-home dad to take care of his 10-year-old daughter, who has severe autism requiring 24-hour care.
“She requires everything from potty training still, diaper changes, and a lot of things. She’s ten years old, and a lot of stuff my wife can’t do with her. She can’t physically pick her up anymore or move around if need be,” he says.
“It’s made it hard to keep full-time employment or even to seek full-time employment or any employment with her needs. We’re never too sure what her day will look like, let alone her week or month.”
While Ladouceur says their rent has stayed at a manageable level, the increase in other basics his family relies on is starting to hurt.
“The prices of everything else going up, especially the little things like even diapers, cost us almost triple what they did two years ago at this time. It’s not so much that my daughter’s needs that went up, it’s just the prices from the manufacturer to the grocery store and then back to us, the
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