Hard to know if most women in North America have held a full-time or part-time job before they had children....however there's a good chance she has.

Even if married and raising children full-time, still useful to keep your own line of credit, keep it clean/debt-free and an account that is still yours.

The more I keep on hearing about people staying together because of keeping medical insurance coverage, the more I am convinced that I fervently hope that Canada's medicare system which has more socialized medical insurance coverage, does not change drastically/veer over to the U.S. model.

I had an intensive hearing test done by specialist because I had some rare unknown dizzy spells. It took 2 hrs.

I paid no extra fees for this.

My partner's mother, elderly, had several strokes over last few years. There wsere some instances where ambulance came. (She lived alone.) She also had cardiologists and geriatricians examine her.

She paid no extra fees for this high quality health care.

Just to give you an idea, in the province of British Columbia, if you are a single Canadian liviing in our province, you would pay....just over $53.00CAN every 4 months to assure that you could be looked after in any ambulance /emergency medical problems, pregnancies & birth deliveries, (I think fertility drugs are extra.) regular physician checkup, referrals by family doctor to and diagnosis by specialist physicians.

Cosmetic surgery is not covered..but exceptions are made for burn/accident victims, etc.

Oh yea, this is for adults and children.

I have never heard of any (Canadian) friend who wanted to divorce but worried about her health care/insurance coverage. This was the least of their worries.