There Has Never Been a Better Time to Try

Even before the pandemic, child care in the US was an "industry" already in the midst of a slow motion crisis. Care takers and teachers were already leaving the low paying, low prestige profession. Child care centers and preschools where already being shuttered, unable to make ends meet. Tuition costs were already as high or higher than many middle class families could afford. Two thirds of the nation's children already lived in "child care deserts," regions that simply didn't have enough spots to meet demand. Between 2005 and 2017 the number of licensed, home-based child care businesses dropped 44 percent. All of this has been happening over the course of decades. 

The advent of Covid on our shores simply accelerated everything. Costs of running centers during the pandemic have jumped an average of 47 percent, while enrollment has plummeted, making it impossible to make ends meet. Estimates are that one in three child care centers have closed since March of this year with most of them unlikely to re-open given that they were already teetering. Many of those teachers and care takers who were laid off are never coming back because they've found jobs that pay more than the $24,000 annual poverty wages the average child care worker earns, and most of those jobs came without paid time off or health care.

Covid has not decimated the sector, it has just added grease to the already slippery slope down which the whole thing was already sliding. And, of course, it has forced our policymakers to finally, finally notice that without child care, the entire economy is in jeopardy. It has revealed the extent to which our entire robber baron economy exploits low income women, and women of color in particular, who make up a sizable segment of our profession. It has revealed the gut-wrenching decisions that families, and mothers in particular, have to make between their careers and their children. It has revealed how little we value children who are clearly just in the way of a buzz saw economy.

Not long ago, I was speaking with the CEO of a midsized Seattle-area company, a man who is now wealthy by most standards, but who, in the tradition of entrepreneurship grew his business from nothing. He objected to my portrayal of the situation, insisting that he had managed it just fine with his three kids. "My wife," he said, "never complained about it." Do I need to mention that he is a white man? If I didn't know it before, reading Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste, makes it clear that we are not confronting a crisis made by Covid, but rather by our caste system that places white men and their concerns at the top, with children and women, and especially women of color, at the bottom. The crisis in childcare simply hasn't been seen as a problem because it has rarely directly impacted white men. And even now, the only reason they're paying attention to it is because they need to "get the economy reopened." They're now throwing a little temporary money at it, a bridge over the deepest part of the mud puddle, but you know, it's still a mud puddle. By their grossly inadequate actions, it's clear that the caste of white men who runs things isn't even close to grasping the depths of the growing abyss before us. But I expect it won't be long before even their wives won't be able to protect them from seeing the truth.

The care and raising of children has always been the central project of every civilization that has ever existed, yet we have, in our national disfunction, relegated it to a low-paying, low-prestige pink-color ghetto. This has been true for decades. The only difference now is that powerful white men are noticing it.

I want to "re-open" as much as the next person, but there is likewise a piece of me that is happy for this disruption. Remote learning doesn't solve anything because child care can't be done remotely. Smaller classes in larger spaces can't be sustained when the centers and schools are closing and educators are leaving the profession in droves. Homeschooling children, let alone merely caring for them, is beyond the capacity for far too many families who were stretched thin as it was. We are going to have to completely restructure how we manage this central project of caring for the children. And it's a conversation that we can't afford to leave to powerful white men.

I know it's going to take money and lots of it. I also know that our wealthiest citizens are wealthier than they have ever been before in history. That wealth was built at the expense of our children and the women who care for them. You doubt that? Just look what's happening to the economy without them. And it's going to get worse the longer we don't act. I have no problem insisting that these titans of industry pay for it. If they were decent humans (which is often in doubt), they would be lining up to pay their taxes for this. I know it's going to take a concerted effort to raise both the pay and prestige of our profession, something that more money will certainly help, but I also suspect that ongoing education and training, as well as such necessities as paid time off, health care, and other benefits will be necessary to attract and retain the best and the brightest. And, of course, there is the whole issue of systemic racism and sexism and childism that looms over it all. 

Parents and educators are natural allies, brought together around our commitment to children. If you doubt our power, please note that we have unintentionally brought the economy to a grinding halt and it's going no where until we figure this out. Even if Covid went away this morning, we wouldn't be able to go back to the old normal even if we wanted to. A new better normal is the only way to rebuild. And we can't leave it up the powerful white men because they will likely just turn it all over to other powerful white men who are motivated by profit over caring for children. It's on us. I don't know if we can make the powerful white men do what's right, but there has never been a better time to try.

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Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in Australia and New Zealand as well as the US, Canada, the UK, Iceland, and Europe. And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well. 

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